DAOs biweekly vol.37

8th December — 23rd December

MakerDAO forms strategic alliance with GnosisDAO, Uniswap proposes changes to its governance process, Optimism votes on key changes for its upcoming season, ENS votes on stewards for 3 working groups, StarkNet’s Governance 1st phase launches, Lido introduces ‘VaNOM’, Aave’s Receipt of Gauntlet Insolvency Fund proposal approved, and more!

TL;DR
— Uniswap Foundation proposes changes to crypto DEX’s governance, voting processes: The proposal aims to reduce friction in governance by reframing the steps that bring proposals to votes
— MakerDAO passed a proposal to form a strategic alliance with GnosisDAO. MakerDAO’s Gasless Poll Voting introduced
— GnosisDAO’s GIP 74: Allow sGNO holders to vote and be included in the upcoming airdrops is live. The zodiac governor mod introduced
— Gitcoin announced the results of its first-ever quadratically elected DAO Stewards Council. The newly elected council will serve until June 2023
— Aave’s [ARFC] Receipt of Gauntlet Insolvency Fund proposal looks to confirm the transfer of Gauntlet’s Insolvency Fund over to the Aave Ecosystem Reserve. Proposal to launch Aave v3 on Celo is under discussion
— IdleDAO announces the adoption of the new ERC-4626 standard, expanding composability on Ethereum
— Compound’s proposals 138–140 passed. Compound Extensions are now live
— Lido introduces ‘VaNOM’ — Validator & Node Operator metrics for Lido on Ethereum. Lido observing cross-chain incentives
— Synthetix SCCP-265: Update ETH Wrapper Parameters is active. V2 Staking App is live
— PoolTogether’s Protocol Constitution proposal is live
— CFTC again labeled Ether as a commodity. While the SEC chairman, Gary Gensler, previously suggested Ether was a security after its ICO
— Optimism begins voting on key changes for its upcoming season: The proposal outlines the creation of a delegation program within Optimism’s Token House. Optimism awards badges to ten delegates
— StarkNet announces the initial phase of its governance process
— NounsDAO votes to continue funding Prop House
— ENS kicks off Stewards Elections: The stewards will be responsible for the Meta-Governance, ENS ecosystem, and the Public Goods working groups for 2023
— dYdX’s Operations subDAO proposal aims to launch the Operations Trust
— Paladin DAO’sTreasury Management #2 proposal looks to transfer a select number of assets from the DAO treasury over to a separate community multisig
— Hop DAO discusses the future of the Bridge Protocol
— Element DAO publishes a draft of its governance process
— SafeDAO’s EIP 35 aims to claim SAFE tokens from the recent SafeDAO airdrop
— BanklessDAO explores implementing shielded voting. Delegate DAO SAFE tokens to DAOstewards.eth proposal
— SushiSwap: Sushi Vesting Merkle Tree Clawback proposal
— 1inch Staking Pods proposal is live
— Inspired by ConstitutionDAO’s attempt last year, the unaffiliated ConstitutionDAO2 received $34,000 in public contributions on its first day
— Active proposals: Aave, GnosisDAO, LidoDAO, PoolTogether, Synthetix
— New & ongoing discussions: Compound, GitcoinDAO, Uniswap, MakerDAO, Curve, Idle, GitcoinDAO, Uniswap
— Podcasts on DAOs
— And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.

#DAO https://medium.com/paradigm-research/daos-makerdao-forms-strategic-alliance-with-gnosisdao-uniswap-proposes-changes-to-its-governance-65f005b3961c

L2 report vol. 12📚

A biweekly update on Layer 2 protocols, 12th December — 26th December

TL;DR
—The sum of all funds locked on Ethereum converted to USD is $4.22 B at the time of writing.
—Arbitrum: Solutions to delay attacks on rollups.
—The Graph — Arbitrum billing goes live.
—The Optimism Bedrock upgrade is coming in the first quarter of 2023. OP Labs announced the migration of the Optimism Goerli testnet to Bedrock on January 12th.
—MetaMask announced in-wallet swaps are now available for users on Optimism.
—Synthetix Perps v2 live on Optimism.
—Metis Community Highlights of 2022 are out. Aave v3 on Metis “Temp Check” vote has passed. Chainlink price feeds are now live on Metis.
—Boba Network now being available on a non-custodial cryptocurrency swap platform ChangeNOW & NOWTracker. Boba Voyage is here.
—Aztec raises $100 million to build encrypted Ethereum.
—Loopring introduced a new Contribute + Earn program into the Loopring L2 ecosystem.
—PolygonZK launches final testnet. Upgrades include 4 min proof-generation & EIP-155 support.
—Scroll: bottlenecks in proof generation with options to accelerate.
—Visa is proposing an automatic payments system on Ethereum using StarkNet. StarkWare and Outlier Ventures collaborate to launch Base Camp program for STARK-based validity proof builders. The second batch of tickets for StarkWare Sessions 23 is now open.
—zkSync v2 alpha delayed until Q2 2023. The team created an LLVM-based set of compilers for Solidity and Vyper that pass the L1 conformance tests.
—Curve Finance to deploy on zkSync’s mainnet next year.
—ZKSpace Recap of 2022 will happen on December 29th.
—Immutable partnered with Gauntlet to improve efficient token spend, onboard mainstream users, and maximize trading volume. IMX rewards introduces new and improved Trading Rewards design.
—Rhino. fi just hit $1M in TVL within the Yearn finance USDT yVault strategy.
—Get ready for the new year with dYdX’s official merchandise store. Launching January 3rd, 2023, featuring exclusive products for Hedgies NFT holders.
—MoonPay and OpenSea partner to enable the direct buying of NFTs on Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche and BNB Chain via credit card.
—Intmax (zk-rollup) testnet, command line only.
—Batch posting strategy on mainnet by Akaki Mamageishvili, Edward W. Felten.
—Justin Drake: SGX as pragmatic hedge against zk-rollup SNARK vulnerabilities.
—Taiko: rollup decentralization, definitions & high-level ideas.
—Consensys Vortex zk prover: 30 million gas block in 5 minutes on AWS hpc6a.48xlarge.
—L2 stats. Check out how much it costs to use Layer 2.
—And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.


#Layer2 #L2 https://medium.com/paradigm-research/l2-report-vol-12-e473d863b98f

𝐐𝐓/ Particles of light may create fluid flow, data-theory comparison suggests

Quantum news biweekly vol.42, 13th December — 27th December

TL;DR
— A new computational analysis supports the idea that photons (a.k.a. particles of light) colliding with heavy ions can create a fluid of ‘strongly interacting’ particles. In a new paper, researchers show that calculations describing such a system match up with data collected by the ATLAS detector at Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

— Researchers have pioneered a new imaging method that allows the capture of the light-induced phase transition in vanadium oxide (VO2) with high spatial and temporal resolution.

— A new study exploring the connection between the quantum and classical worlds, have discovered a new and much more effective way to carry out interaction-free experiments. The team used transmon devices — superconducting circuits that are relatively large but still show quantum behavior — to detect the presence of microwave pulses generated by classical instruments.

— Researchers developed a new graphene-based nanoelectronics platform compatible with conventional microelectronics manufacturing, paving the way for a successor to silicon.

— Quantum dots are normally made in industrial settings with high temperatures and toxic, expensive solvents — a process that is neither economical nor environmentally friendly. But researchers have now pulled off the process at the bench using water as a solvent, making a stable end-product at room temperature. Their work opens the door to making nanomaterials in a more sustainable way by demonstrating that protein sequences not derived from nature can be used to synthesize functional materials.

— A single particle has no temperature. It has a certain energy or a certain speed — but it is not possible to translate that into a temperature. Only when dealing with random velocity distributions of many particles, a well-defined temperature emerges.

— The two research teams discovered that the likelihood that an electron will undergo tunneling, the phase at which the electron tunnels out and the timing of the tunneling event depend on the chirality of the molecule.

— A recent study has confirmed that the light scalar mesons contain a significant four-quark component, a feature that puts scalar mesons in the challenging category of exotic hadron spectroscopy.

— A new technique reveals changing shapes of magnetic noise in space and time.

— The mathematical analysis identifies a vortex structure that is impervious to decay.

— And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.

#QT #Quantum https://medium.com/paradigm-research/qt-particles-of-light-may-create-fluid-flow-data-theory-comparison-suggests-e6f8cbed03af

Biweekly update on @Humanode vol.39

14th December — 29th December

Mainnet hit 350+ validators, The third wave of mainnet rewards has been distributed, Discord initial implementation finalized, The Humanode poetry contest winners announced, and more!

TL;DR
Dear community, welcome to the last 2022 edition of Humanode biweekly! A lot has happened since the last report, spend a few moments with us for our quick recap.
The Humanode mainnet is up and running. It’s been a month since the team launched the crypto-biometric blockchain network where one human = one node = one vote that brings Sybil resistance and innovative governance models to the crypto industry using biometric technology. These weeks, the mainnet has hit more than 350 validators (358 at the time of writing) and the numbers keep increasing. It is always a pleasure to see the network grows!
The good news is, the third wave of mainnet rewards has been distributed. Check your balances!
The current Humanode’s development progress was minutely shared in the regular update. As for the network development, the team changed the default period for era at create_transaction at runtime, and added Alice bootnode to patch forked spec. Also, they implemented an initial HTTP server and manual validator compensation.
Moreover, The Humanode team has been working on integrations with Discord. During these weeks, they finalized the initial implementation, added Redis session store, docker support, protobuf structure, and allowed server listen address customization.
And last but not least, the Humanode Poetry Contest under the theme: “Biometric Evolution” has ended. Thanks to everyone who participated. Winners have been announced! Check the list in this report below.
Here are all the major updates. Merry Christmas and happy holidays! See you in 2023!🎅🎄

Read the full report on our blog, on the Paradigm Platform.

#Humanode https://medium.com/paradigm-research/humanode-mainnet-hit-350-validators-the-third-wave-of-mainnet-rewards-have-been-distributed-979f1ac68fb0

𝐑𝐓/ The physical intelligence of ant and robot collectives

Robotics biweekly vol.65,  15th December — 30th December

TL;DR
— Researchers took inspiration from ants to design a team of relatively simple robots that can work collectively to perform complex tasks using only a few basic parameters.

— Artificial intelligence and robot-assisted labs could help speed the search for better battery materials. Scientists give the lay of the land in the quest for electrolytes that could enable revolutionary battery chemistries.

— A small tax on robots, as well as on trade generally, will help reduce income inequality in the U.S., according to economists.

— Researchers have developed a method that allows a flapping-wing robot to land autonomously on a horizontal perch using a claw-like mechanism. The innovation could significantly expand the scope of robot-assisted tasks.

— Researchers have now developed an advanced wireless haptic interface system, called WeTac, worn on the hand, which has soft, ultrathin soft features, and collects personalized tactile sensation data to provide a vivid touch experience in the metaverse.

— A new gelatinous robot that crawls, powered by nothing more than temperature change and clever design, brings ‘a kind of intelligence’ to the field of soft robotics.

— A new model describes how biological or technical systems form complex structures equipped with signal-processing capabilities that allow the systems to respond to stimulus and perform functional tasks without external guidance.

— Self-driving cars need to implement efficient, effective, and accurate detection systems to provide a safe and reliable experience to its users. To this end, an international research team has now developed an end-to-end neural network that, in conjunction with the Internet-of-Things technology, detects object with high accuracy (> 96%) in both 2D and 3D. The new method outperforms the current state-of-the-art methods and the way to new 2D and 3D detection systems for autonomous vehicles.

— Experimental data is often not only highly dimensional, but also noisy and full of artefacts. This makes it difficult to interpret the data. Now a team has designed software that uses self-learning neural networks to compress the data in a smart way and reconstruct a low-noise version in the next step. This enables it to recognize correlations that would otherwise not be discernible. The software has now been successfully used in photon diagnostics at the FLASH free electron laser at DESY. But it is suitable for very different applications in science.

— Researchers recently created AstroSLAM, a SLAM-based algorithm that could allow spacecraft to navigate more autonomously. The new solution, could be particularly useful in instances where space systems are navigating around a small celestial body, such as an asteroid.

— Robotics upcoming events. And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.

#Robotics #RT https://medium.com/paradigm-research/rt-the-physical-intelligence-of-ant-and-robot-collectives-694a2fc91b44

🎙 METACAST: Top Crypto Podcasts of December 2022

Happy holidays, everyone!

Check a quick overview of what we’ve been listening to last month!

—Ethereum in 2023 with Vitalik Buterin.
—The bull case for Ethereum IV with Justin Drake, DCinvestor, & Anthony Sassano.
—Anna of Zero Knowledge explores the topic of Ultrasound Money with Justin Drake from the Ethereum Foundation.
—Martin Shkreli, entrepreneur and investor, talks about what Sam Bankman-Fried’s potential life in prison could look like.
—Ari Redbord, head of legal and government affairs at TRM Labs, discusses all the charges that Sam Bankman-Fried is facing and their potential outcomes.
—How will the FTX collapse affect Silvergate? A bear and a bull debate.
—Coinbase’s VP of Business Development for Ecosystem and Listings, Dan Kim, leads a discussion on whether or not the United States is losing the battle to be the best place for crypto projects to list their tokens on exchanges like Coinbase.
—The bull case for modular blockchains with the co-founder of Fuel Labs and Celestia, John Adler.
—The future of decentralized social media with Stani Kulechov of Lens Protocol.
—Decentralized music platforms with Roneil Rumberg of Audius.
—Making ReFi real with Jahed Momand.
—Decentralized identity with Gregory Rocco of Spruce.
—Idena Network with its founder Andrew.
—Dune Analytics — the open data platform with Fredrik Haga.
—Quadratic Voting with Tim Daubenschütz.
—BitGo’s Mike Belshe on what’s next for WBTC & crypto custodians.
—Sam Williams, the co-founder and CEO of Arweave, on storing files on-chain for eternity.
—Juan Benet, the founder of Protocol Labs and the inventor of the InterPlanetary File System, was featured on the Defiant podcast.
—Cobie, crypto investor and host of UpOnly, and Chris Burniske, partner at Placeholder Ventures, sift through 2022’s rubble for clues as to what lies ahead in 2023.
—Epicenter hosts — The bear is back: Recollections from 2022.
—A special Bankless episode — the biggest moments in 2022 for crypto.
—And much more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.

#METACAST https://medium.com/paradigm-research/%EF%B8%8F-metacast-top-crypto-podcasts-of-december-2022-a1d0069d7ed4

NS/ Researchers crack mystery underpinning brain cancer vulnerability

Neuroscience biweekly vol. 75, 21st December — 4th January

TL;DR
—Researchers have identified a vulnerability in glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, which could lead to new treatment options. The CSHL team recently solved a decades-old mystery surrounding glioblastoma’s aggressiveness by linking the BRD8 protein to another protein, named P53. A staple in the body’s natural cancer defenses, P53 prevents cells from overgrowing and turning into tumors. Almost all cancers depend on P53 becoming mutated and thus disabled. But weirdly, in the majority of glioblastoma cases, P53 is unscathed. “So why does this cancer act like P53 is broken?” asked CSHL postdoctoral fellow Xueqin Sun. This critical question led Mills’ team to discover that BRD8 had gone rogue in glioblastoma, crippling P53 in a completely new way.

—Kickstarting the brain’s natural ability to adjust to new circumstances, or neuroplasticity, improves how effectively a cochlear implant can restore hearing loss, a new study in deaf rats shows. The investigation, researchers say, may help explain the extreme variation in hearing improvements experienced by implant recipients.

—The reason some people fail to recover their sense of smell after COVID-19 is linked to an ongoing immune assault on olfactory nerve cells and an associated decline in the number of those cells, scientists report.

—When the Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry makes a free throw, his brain draws on motor memory. Now researchers have shown how this type of memory is consolidated during sleep when the brain processes the day’s learning to make the physical act of doing something subconsciously.

—Middle-aged smokers are far more likely to report having memory loss and confusion than nonsmokers, and the likelihood of cognitive decline is lower for those who have quit, even recently, a new study has found.

—Scientists have labored for decades to understand how brain structure and functional connectivity drive intelligence. A new analysis offers the clearest picture yet of how various brain regions and neural networks contribute to a person’s problem-solving ability in a variety of contexts, a trait known as general intelligence, researchers report.

—Craving is known to be a key factor in substance use disorders and can increase the likelihood of future drug use or relapse. Yet its neural basis — or, how the brain gives rise to craving — is not well understood. In a new study, researchers have identified a stable brain pattern, or neuromarker, for drug and food craving.

—People with chronic epilepsy often experience impaired memory. Researchers have now found a mechanism in mice that could explain these deficits.

—Psychologists had people learn words from two phonetically similar languages in virtual reality environments. Those who learned each language in its own unique context mixed up fewer words and were able to recall 92% of the words they had learned. In contrast, participants who had learned both sets of words in the same VR context were more likely to confuse terms between the two languages and retained only 76% of the words. Regardless of group, those participants who felt immersed in the VR world remembered more than those who did not feel immersed.

—After an intrepid, decade-long search, scientists say they have found a new role for a pair of enzymes that regulate genome function and, when missing or mutated, are linked to diseases such as brain tumors, blood cancers and Kleefstra syndrome — a rare genetic, neurocognitive disorder.

—And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.


#NS #Neuroscience https://medium.com/paradigm-research/ns-researchers-crack-mystery-underpinning-brain-cancer-vulnerability-b5b1a3255e06

𝗚𝗧/ Scientists enhance recyclability of post-consumer plastic

Energy & Green technology biweekly vol.40, 16th December — 3rd January

TL;DR
— Scientists have developed a new method for recycling high-density polyethylene (HDPE).

— Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are a promising, economical, next-generation solar cell technology for scalable clean energy and wearable electronics. But the energy conversion loss due to the recombination of photogenerated charge carriers in OPVs has hindered further enhancement of their power conversion efficiency (PCE). Recently, researchers overcame this obstacle by inventing a novel device-engineering strategy to successfully suppress energy conversion loss, resulting in record-breaking efficiency.

— A new pathway to creating durable, efficient perovskite photovoltaics at industrial scale has been demonstrated through the first effective use of lead acetate as a precursor in making formamidinium-caesium perovskite solar cells.

— Researchers have shown how nitrogen fertilizer could be produced more sustainably. This is necessary not only to protect the climate, but also to reduce dependence on imported natural gas and to increase food security.

— Though plants can serve as a source of food, oxygen and décor, they're not often considered to be a good source of electricity. But by collecting electrons naturally transported within plant cells, scientists can generate electricity as part of a 'green,' biological solar cell. Now, researchers have used a succulent plant to create a living 'bio-solar cell' that runs on photosynthesis.

— Consumers told that not recycling their batteries 'risked polluting the equivalent of 140 Olympic swimming pools every year' were more likely to participate in an electronic waste recycling scheme, a new study has found.

— Biodegradable medical gowns, designed to be greener than conventional counterparts, actually produce harmful greenhouse gases, according to new research.

— Engineers compare wastewater 'snapshots' to daylong composite samples and find snapshots lead to bias in testing for the presence of antibiotic-resistant genes.

— An international team of scientists has studied the propagation of electromagnetic waves in near-Earth space for three years. The team has studied the waves in the area where the solar wind collides with Earth's magnetic field called foreshock region, and how the waves are transmitted to the other side of the shock.

— Researchers have developed accurate nation-wide mapping of the carbon content of trees based on aerial images.

— And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.

#GT #Greentech https://medium.com/paradigm-research/gt-scientists-enhance-recyclability-of-post-consumer-plastic-d54c0f61f86c

L2 report vol. 13📚

A biweekly update on Layer 2 protocols, 26th December — 9th January

TL;DR
—The sum of all funds locked on Ethereum converted to USD is $4.28 B at the time of writing.
—A recap of some of the biggest happenings within the Arbitrum ecosystem and community is out. 'Open Source Ethereum Infrastructure: A Beginner’s Guide to Essential Resources': This article in the Arbitrum blog covers essential resources for understanding the open-source software that runs the Ethereum network.
—OpenSea now supports Arbitrum Nova and joins Data Availability Committee.
—'Optimism 2022: Year in Review' is out. Optimism’s third round of Governance Fund Grants launches on January 26th, 2023. Clique announced its partnership with Optimism.
—'Metis: A Year in Retrospect, Moving Forward' has been published. Metis community highlights of 2022. Stargate is coming to Metis Andromeda.
—In late December, Boba Voyage was launched on Galxe to deliver an experience across multiple Layer-1 blockchains and their Boba Layer-2 instances.
—ChainSafe POC to bring privacy to ENS domains domain names via Aztec. A few Aztec Connect use-cases Aztec Grants is funding this year.
—Mastercard taps Polygon for Web3 Musical Artist Accelerator Program. Polygon is enhancing the staking tool for validators by providing a new framework to improve network decentralization & integrity.
—Scroll Pre-Alpha reset is scheduled for January 9th, 2023.
—StarkWare’s Cairo 1.0 is here: A Rust-inspired language that introduces Sierra (Safe Intermediate Representation). The StarkWare Sessions 2023 soon. India’s biggest STARK-bootcamp started on January 7th, StarkCon. Some of the best StarkNet-related Twitter Spaces/Podcasts of the week. Over 3200 ETH have been bridged to StarkNet so far.
—zkSync v2 alpha delayed until Q2 2023. zkSync Hardhat plugin for smart contract verification released. Nansen released their latest report on zkSync.
—ZKSpace: 2022 year in review & 2023 outlook. ZKSpace Monthly Dev & Operation Report for December 2022.
—dYdX NPM Package Post Mortem. Get ready for the new year with dYdX’s official merchandise store. Launched on January 3rd, 2023, featuring exclusive products for Hedgies NFT holders.
—Rhinofi recap of 2022. What’s next? New wallet integrations, more L2 chains, support for non-EVM chains, more yield opportunities. Rhino. fi hosted a special end-of-year Twitter space with Yearn finance.
—Taiko launches ambassador program.
—Options for zkEVMs to price gas.
—L2beat: LayerZero bridge security is fundamentally a trusted model.
—A brief primer on Ethereum’s scaling solutions.
—L2 stats. Check out how much it costs to use Layer 2.
—And more!

#L2 #Layer2 https://medium.com/paradigm-research/l2-report-vol-13-1d91bb382acb

𝐒𝐓/ Alien planet found spiraling to its doom around an aging star

Space biweekly vol.68, 22nd December - 10th January

TL;DR
— For the first time, astronomers have spotted an exoplanet whose orbit is decaying around an evolved, or older, host star. The stricken world appears destined to spiral closer and closer to its maturing star until collision and ultimate obliteration.

— Researchers uncover the long-hidden process that helps explain why the Sun's corona can be vastly hotter than the solar surface that emits it.

— When NASA's Mars rovers found manganese oxides in rocks in the Gale and Endeavor craters on Mars in 2014, the discovery sparked some scientists to suggest that the red planet might have once had more oxygen in its atmosphere billions of years ago. But a new experimental study upends this view. Scientists discovered that under Mars-like conditions, manganese oxides can be readily formed without atmospheric oxygen.

— The UK's national synchrotron facility, Diamond Light Source, was used by a large, international collaboration to study grains collected from a near-Earth asteroid to further our understanding of the evolution of our solar system. Researchers brought a fragment of the Ryugu asteroid to Diamond's Nanoprobe beamline I14 where a special technique called X-ray Absorption Near Edge Spectroscopy (XANES) was used to map out the chemical states of the elements within the asteroid material, to examine its composition in fine detail.

— Astronomers took a 'deep dive' into one of the first images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and were rewarded with a surprising discovery: telltale signs of two dozen previously unseen young stars about 7,500 light years from Earth.

— Researchers have discovered the presence of two planets with Earth-like masses in orbit around the star GJ 1002, a red dwarf not far from our solar system. Both planets are in the habitability zone of the star.

— ESA's novel Aeolus satellite reliably measures wind speed also in higher air layers and thus in a region of the atmosphere where other direct global wind measurements are relatively sparse. This is the result of a study for which data from the satellite were compared with wind observations from stratospheric balloons. Stratospheric balloons would provide highly accurate data on the horizontal wind speed and are therefore also suitable for the validation of future satellite missions.

— When stars die out, they emit gamma-ray bursts. Although scientist can calculate the explosion energy from dying stars, it is difficult to do when the conversion efficiency is low or unknown. Using light polarization, a research group has found a workaround for this, enabling astronomers to calculate the hidden energy of gamma-ray bursts.

— VLA teams up with Juno spacecraft to study Jupiter's atmosphere, and ALMA reveals new details about Io's volcanoes.

— The largest earthquake ever detected on Mars has revealed layers in its crust that could indicate past collision with a massive object, such as a meteoroid. Previous data has suggested the past occurrence of a large impact, and the findings offer evidence that might support this hypothesis.

— Upcoming industry events. And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.

#ST #Space https://medium.com/paradigm-research/st-alien-planet-found-spiraling-to-its-doom-around-an-aging-star-af146be5d48e

Biweekly update on @Humanode vol.40

29th December — 11th January

The number of mainnet validators hit 360, Discord initial implementation, Everything you wanted to know about the Humanode Fee Distribution mechanism, Humanode Hangout is back, and more!

TL;DR
2023, here we go! Crypto fans and tech enthusiasts, welcome to the first Humanode biweekly recap for the year! The last two weeks were full of hard work — so let’s point out some key updates.
The Humanode mainnet is up and running. With it, Humanode became the first crypto-biometric blockchain network where one human = one node = one vote that brings Sybil resistance and innovative governance models to the crypto industry using biometric technology. These weeks, the mainnet has hit more than 360 validators (359 at the time of writing) and the numbers keep increasing. It is always a pleasure to see the network grows!
The current Humanode’s development progress was minutely shared in the Huamnode regular update. As for the network development, they implemented more precise key type requirements at bioauth-keys and proper is_authority field at Eth rpc, as well as removed unused code related to frontier-api and primitives-frontier. Also, the team implemented smart contract interactions with eth contract.
Moreover, the Humanode team has been working on integration with Discord. During these weeks, they refactored and made logic corrections, added an extension creation clause to database-migrator and libpq to the database-migrator docker image, and switched to processing JWT via JWKS for Humanode.
In the freshly-published blog post, the Humanode team discusses the fee distribution and bootstrapping fund and their approach to handling them. A must-read!
That’s all for today. Join the team this week on the first of 2023 Humanode Hangout in Discord! And may this year bring you new happiness, new achievements, and a lot of new inspiration!

Read the full report on our blog, on the Paradigm Platform.

#Humanode https://medium.com/paradigm-research/humanode-the-number-of-mainnet-validators-hit-360-discord-initial-implementation-everything-you-ba5903aa089a

𝐐𝐓/ New type of entanglement lets scientists ‘see’ inside nuclei

Quantum news biweekly vol.43, 27th December — 12ve January

TL;DR
— Nuclear physicists have found a new way to use the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to see the shape and details inside atomic nuclei. The method relies on particles of light that surround gold ions as they speed around the collider and a new type of quantum entanglement that’s never been seen before.

— Researchers have demonstrated an architecture that can enable high fidelity and scalable communication between superconducting quantum processors. Their technique can generate and route photons, which carry quantum information, in a user-specified direction. This method could be used to develop a large-scale network of quantum processors that could efficiently communicate with one another.

— Researchers have created visible lasers of very pure colors from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared that fit on a fingertip. The colors of the lasers can be precisely tuned and extremely fast — up to 267 petahertz per second, which is critical for applications such as quantum optics. The team is the first to demonstrate chip-scale narrow-linewidth and tunable lasers for colors of light below red — green, cyan, blue, and violet.

— Researchers have found a way to create much stronger interactions between photons and electrons, in the process producing a hundredfold increase in the emission of light from a phenomenon called Smith-Purcell radiation. The finding has potential implications for both commercial applications and fundamental scientific research.

— Much of modern electronic and computing technology is based on one idea: add chemical impurities, or defects, to semiconductors to change their ability to conduct electricity. These altered materials are then combined in different ways to produce the devices that form the basis for digital computing, transistors, and diodes. Indeed, some quantum information technologies are based on a similar principle: adding defects and specific atoms within materials can produce qubits, the fundamental information storage units of quantum computing.

— Researchers developed a new graphene-based nanoelectronics platform compatible with conventional microelectronics manufacturing, paving the way for a successor to silicon.

— In a recent experimental breakthrough researchers demonstrated the ability to control the quantum states of individual molecules with an electrically controllable substrate. Their experiment showed how a specific two-dimensional material, known as SnTe, provides the instrumental strategy needed to control molecular states.

— A team of scientists has reviewed the basic concepts and optical responses of Weyl semimetals.

— A research team experimentally observed the phase transitions between triply degenerate points (TDPs) with different topological charges through highly controllable quantum simulations.

— Researchers have connected, on a single microchip, quantum dots — artificial atoms that generate individual photons rapidly and on-demand when illuminated by a laser — with miniature circuits that can guide the light without significant loss of intensity.

— And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.

#QT #Quantum https://medium.com/paradigm-research/qt-new-type-of-entanglement-lets-scientists-see-inside-nuclei-96891f8bf853

2022: 𝐴 𝑌𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤

Check out our yearly newsletter from Paradigm's Lead Researcher @sshshln.

https://medium.com/paradigm-research/paradigm-2022-a-year-in-review-a64b0b74e2bf

BT/ Apple’s Face ID biometrics to go under display for iPhone 16

Biometrics biweekly vol. 55, 2nd January — 16th January

TL;DR
—Apple’s Face ID biometrics to go under display after iPhone 15
—Vall-e has chopped its learning time to 3 seconds, and Microsoft might be near the big stake in Open AI
—Selfie biometrics deployed for KYC, hotel check-ins and Microsoft Teams
—SecureAuth unveils 7 patents for behavioral biometrics, ID proofing
—BioID Technologies palm biometrics scanner certified to FBI specification
—Isorg receives FBI certification for FAP30 OPD biometric sensor
—Airside’s mobile ID solution gets Kantara certification for advanced data protection
—Fujitsu biometric self enrolment kiosks piloted for presentation attack detection
—VerifyMe picks up ISO certification to build confidence in the security of digital ID data
—Anonybit adds decentralized biometric authentication to Ping Identity partner program
—USAF considers adding face biometrics to plate reading at the base
—IDPro adds new members, expands certification for digital ID ecosystem
—Targus docking station with Synaptics biometrics reaches the retail launch
—Tax service firm contracts authID’s Verified authentication platform
—Jumio provides selfie biometrics to top Singapore car-sharing service
—HooYu aligns the brand with Mitek, signs up selfie biometrics partner
—FaceTec pulled into BIPA case; Yoti pushes for a federal judge
—Mississippi mDLs from Idemia I&S go live with full legal status
—Intellicheck expands multimillion-dollar digital ID contract with a financial customer
—HooYu aligns the brand with Mitek, signs up selfie biometrics partner
—PayEye dual biometrics win FIDO certification with zero PAD errors
—UK unveils departmental data sharing consultation for One Login digital ID
—Singapore debuts ethics test for AI
—Ghana police get over 100 biometric devices for field checks against the national database
—Thailand set to begin issuing digital IDs via mobile app
—Pakistan biometric beneficiary program issuing $240M in the first installment
—Idex strikes second bank deal to launch biometric payment cards in Turkey this year
—Moscow Metro to expand Face Pay biometric service as the customer base grows
—Pushback against SIM registration in the Philippines as India adds facial recognition checks
—Nigeria commits to issuing passports within 6 weeks of biometrics capture, clearing backlog
—Romanian leaders pay for new electronic IDs due in August
—Idemia part of Potential Consortium awarded large-scale pilots for EU Digital Identity Wallet
—NADRA rolls outpatient ID verification for transparency in organ transplants
—California proposed budget sustains digital ID project funding
—Sierra Leone signs up for national digital ID pilot built with MOSIP
—New South African smart card driver’s license to meet ISO 18013 standard
—MOSIP registrations pass 76M, Burkina Faso partners for the pilot with more in the pipeline
—Nevada introduces digital ID scanning for tobacco purchases
—Congo to hire consultants for legal frameworks of digitized identity, civil register
—Malta deep-sixes safe city facial recognition project after Huawei contract expires
—Confirming the identity of newborns in healthcare settings with biometrics may be within reach with current technology, according to a new academic research paper published by the U.S National Library of Medicine
—Researchers say they have developed a way to create data “pipelines” to supply training models with high-quality software-fabricated faces. Their results, however, show that, at least in this case, artificial intelligence does not perform better in training AI than debiasing models
—Biometric industry events. And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on the Paradigm Platform.

#BT #Biometrics https://medium.com/paradigm-research/bt-apples-face-id-biometrics-to-go-under-display-for-iphone-16-309f62cf932b

DeFi in Ether vol.66

Biweekly update on the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem, 3rd January — 17th January

$45B in DeFi, The Nexus Mutual V2 release in February, Yearn will let anyone create Curve reward farms, KNC staking and KyberDAO voting now live on KyberSwap, 0x Year in Review, 1inch at the WEF Annual Meeting, Loopring quarterly update, Synthetix quarterly report , and much more!

TL;DR
—$45B in DeFi this week with Lido dominance 17.11%.
—Latest Aave News: Initial Ethereum V3 assets, AGD renewal, Chaos covering V2, new Stani pods & more.
—A special edition of the 0x Ecosystem Update, with highlights, integrations, network insights, and news from the past year.
—Yearn Finance is planning to let anyone create Curve reward farms. Yearn Strategies Case Study: Lido Staked ETH.
—1inch at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. 1inch partners with Beefy.
—The latest Balancer Report is here. The State of Balancer report by Messari.
—The recent Bancor’s Twitter Spaces The Profitability of AMM LPs is now up on YouTube.
—Compound Proposals 141 ‘Risk Parameter Updates for 5 Collateral Assets’ and 143 ‘Compound UAV v3 Upgrade’ have passed successfully. Proposal 142 ‘Risk Parameter Updates for 2 Assets on USDC Comet Market’ failed.
—Enzyme: On-chain Asset Management: A new report from Messari.
—The Gnosis Chain core dev team is working on improving documentation and creating official protocol specs. Gnosis organization development plan for Q1 2023 includes building momentum with a clear vision and roadmap, building basic team practices, and knowledge management with Notion as a team wiki with a public-by-default approach.
—The fourth and final edition of the 2022 Loopring Quarterly Updates. To celebrate the new year, the team is offering qualified Loopers the chance to activate their Loopring Wallet Ethereum L1 accounts for free.
—KyberSwap December Product Update is out. KNC staking and KyberDAO voting are now live on KyberSwap.
—Coinbase cb.id ENS names: claimable via their mobile wallet or extension.
—Lens Protocol is implementing a feature where content creators can gate content based on token holdings.
—mStable has open-sourced its frontend repository.
— Nexus Mutual V2 is just around the corner. The upgraded version of the protocol brings improvements to the cover, staking, and claims experience. The Nexus Mutual V2 rollout will begin in the first week of February. FTX claims: verifying loss amounts ahead of claims filing on 6 February.
—Synthetix Quarterly Report — Q4 2022 has been published.
—Arrakis — Trustless Market-Making Strategies on Uniswap v3: Arrakis Finance makes it easy for anyone to engage in automated market-making strategies that have historically been reserved for more sophisticated market participants. Learn how Arrakis uses Uniswap v3 to make AMM strategies more accessible.
—Chai.money back online to accrue the DSR on your Dai (currently 1%).
—Ondo to tokenize 3 different ETFs of US treasuries/bonds and will fork Compound for its security tokens.
—Revamped Gitcoin Grants alpha round launches next week with open source, Eth infra and climate solutions matching pools.
—Exactly Protocol has raised $2M in funding and launched on the Ethereum mainnet.
—The CFTC charged the Mango Markets hacker with fraud.
—The SEC has charged Gemini and Genisis for unregistered securities offerings.
—The US Department of Justice is probing Saber Labs Founders over Solana-based projects.
—ConsenSys is to lay off upwards of 100 staff.
—And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on the Paradigm Platform.

#Defi_in_Ether #DeFi https://medium.com/paradigm-research/defi-in-ether-40b-in-defi-the-nexus-mutual-v2-release-in-february-yearn-will-let-anyone-create-f9978defc1f9

NS/ Progress in decoding genetics of insomnia

Neuroscience biweekly vol. 76, 4th January — 18th January

TL;DR
—A National Institutes of Health-funded effort involving researchers from Texas A&M University, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has used human genomics to identify a new genetic pathway involved in regulating sleep from fruit flies to humans — a novel insight that could pave the way for new treatments for insomnia and other sleep-related disorders.

—The neocortex is the largest and most complex part of the brain and has long been considered the ultimate storage site for long-term memories. But how are traces of past events and experiences laid down there? Researchers have discovered that a little-studied area of the brain, the “zone of uncertainty” or “zona incerta,” communicates with the neocortex in unconventional ways to rapidly control memory formation. Their work provides the first functional analysis of how long-range inhibition shapes information processing in the neocortex. The signals identified in this study are likely critical not only for memory but also for a number of additional brain functions, such as attention. The results have just been published in the journal Neuron.

—Negative emotions, anxiety, and depression are thought to promote the onset of neurodegenerative diseases and dementia. But what is their impact on the brain and can their deleterious effects be limited? Neuroscientists have observed the activation of the brains of young and older adults when confronted with the psychological suffering of others. The neuronal connections of older adults show significant emotional inertia: negative emotions modify them excessively and over a long period of time, particularly in the posterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala, two brain regions strongly involved in the management of emotions and autobiographical memory. These results indicate that better management of these emotions — through meditation for example — could help limit neurodegeneration.

—Researchers have created an artificial organic neuron that closely mimics the characteristics of biological nerve cells. This artificial neuron can stimulate natural nerves, making it a promising technology for various medical treatments in the future.

—A team that has used two-photon imaging technology to show the creation and elimination of synapses between neurons in the brains of live mice.

—The brain performs various cognitive and behavioral functions in everyday life, flexibly transitioning to various states to carry out these functions. Scientists view the brain as a system that performs these numerous functions by controlling its states. To better understand the properties of this control in the brain, scientists look for ways to estimate the difficulty of control, or control cost, when the brain transitions from one state to another. So a team of researchers undertook a study to quantify such control costs in the brain and was successful in building a framework that evaluates these costs.

—Researchers have created the first highly mature neurons from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a feat that opens new opportunities for medical research and potential transplantation therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and traumatic injuries.
New research has found a better education has a strong genetic correlation and a protective causal association with several gut disorders.

—Cats always land on their feet, but what makes them so agile? Their unique sense of balance has more in common with humans than it may appear. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are studying cat locomotion to better understand how the spinal cord works to help humans with partial spinal cord damage walk and maintain balance.

—And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on the Paradigm Platform.

#NS #Neuroscience https://medium.com/paradigm-research/ns-progress-in-decoding-genetics-of-insomnia-987b5a3ef110

𝐑𝐓/ A precision arm for miniature robots

Robotics biweekly vol.66, 30th December - 19th January

TL;DR
— Until now, microscopic robotic systems have had to make do without arms. Now researchers have developed an ultrasonically actuated glass needle that can be attached to a robotic arm. This lets them pump and mix minuscule amounts of liquid and trap particles.

— Birds fly more efficiently by folding their wings during the upstroke, according to a recent study. The results could mean that wing-folding is the next step in increasing the propulsive and aerodynamic efficiency of flapping drones.

— Using artificial intelligence, engineers have simplified and reinforced models that accurately calculate the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) - the soot, dust and exhaust emitted by trucks and cars that get into human lungs - contained in urban air pollution.

— The research team integrated deep-learning techniques with the use of drones to automatically detect defects on the reflector surface. Specifically, they began by manually controlling a drone equipped with a high-resolution RGB camera to fly over the surface along a predetermined route.

— Researchers have developed a new reconfigurable workspace soft (RWS) robotic gripper that can scoop, pick and grasp a wide range of consumer items. The RWS gripper's comprehensive and adaptive capabilities make it particularly useful in logistics and food industries where they depend on robotic automation to meet increasing demands in efficiently picking and packing items.

— An unmanned semi-submersible vehicle recently developed by researchers may prove that the best way to travel in water undetected and efficiently is not on top, or below, but in-between.

— The research team established a multi-domain framework for switched electromechanical dynamics. Until now, researchers seeking to predict the energy usage of robotic systems were forced to rely on a piecemeal method providing only rough approximations under limited conditions.

— Could the new chatbot ChatGPT convincingly produce fake abstracts that fool scientists into thinking those studies are the real thing? Yes, scientists can be fooled, the new study reports. Blinded human reviewers - when given a mix real and falsely generated abstracts - could only spot ChatGPT generated abstracts 68% of the time.

— Researchers have recently created a new neuromorphic computing system supporting deep belief neural networks (DBNs), a generative and graphical class of deep learning models. This system is based on silicon-based memristors, energy-efficient devices that can both store and process information.

— A team of researchers at Microsoft has demonstrated a new AI system that is capable of mimicking a person's voice after training with a recording just three seconds long.

— Robotics upcoming events. And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.

#Robotics #RT https://medium.com/paradigm-research/rt-a-precision-arm-for-miniature-robots-c7d95e7b3a93

𝗚𝗧/ A step towards solar fuels out of thin air

Energy & Green technology biweekly vol.41, 3rd January - 20th January

TL;DR
— Chemical engineers have invented a solar-powered artificial leaf, built on a novel electrode which is transparent and porous, capable of harvesting water from the air for conversion into hydrogen fuel. The semiconductor-based technology is scalable and easy to prepare.

— A new kind of solar panel has achieved 9% efficiency in converting water into hydrogen and oxygen - mimicking a crucial step in natural photosynthesis. Outdoors, it represents a major leap in the technology, nearly 10 times more efficient than solar water-splitting experiments of its kind.

— Researchers have developed a system that can transform plastic waste and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels and other valuable products - using just the energy from the Sun.

— A new model quantifies emissions that will be generated by computers on fully autonomous vehicles. If self-driving cars are widely adopted, their emissions will rival those generated by all the data centers in the world today. Keeping emissions at or below those levels would require hardware efficiency to improve more rapidly than its current pace.

— A research team recently developed a lead-free perovskite photocatalyst that delivers highly efficient solar energy-to-hydrogen conversion.

— Synthesizing ammonia, the key ingredient in fertilizer, is energy intensive and a significant contributor to greenhouse gas warming of the planet. Chemists designed and synthesized porous materials - metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs - that bind and release ammonia at more moderate pressures and temperatures than the standard Haber-Bosch process for making ammonia. The MOF doesn't bind to any of the reactants, making capture and release of ammonia less energy intensive and greener.

— A novel technique called Underground Gravity Energy Storage turns decommissioned mines into long-term energy storage solutions, thereby supporting the sustainable energy transition.

— The existing flow battery technologies cost more than $200/kilowatt hour and are too expensive for practical application, but engineers have now developed a more compact flow battery cell configuration that reduces the size of the cell by 75%, and correspondingly reduces the size and cost of the entire flow battery. The work could revolutionize how everything from major commercial buildings to residential homes are powered.

— Environmental scientists calculate that about two percent of visibly floating plastic may disappears from the ocean surface by UV light from the sun each year.

— Chemical and environmental engineers detailed a method to convert plastic waste into a highly porous form of charcoal that has a whopping surface area of about 400 square meters per gram of mass. It could potentially be added to soil to improve water retention and aeration of farmlands.

— And more!

Read the full report on our blog, on Paradigm Platform.

#GT #Greentech https://medium.com/paradigm-research/gt-a-step-towards-solar-fuels-out-of-thin-air-472b9934e5d6

𝐷𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 (𝐷𝑒𝑆𝑐𝑖): 𝑊𝑒𝑏3-𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒

Our new research is an attempt to conceptualize the features of science in the context of digital transformation mediated by distributed ledger technologies, and blockchain. The focus is on an open alternative to the current academic system – decentralized science or #DeSci, a new movement of scientists and enthusiasts, that stands for transparency, open-access scientific research, and crowd-sourced peer-review funded by the public and with crypto, that aims to increase social engagement, and collaboration across the field.

In this paper, @sshshln distinguishes and analyzes the main issues in the modern science system, and provides an overview of opportunities of DeSci for improving the space. Then, she sketches a DeSci ecosystem landscape, listing state-of-the-art DeSci initiatives, and discusses the main challenges of DeSci.

https://medium.com/paradigm-research/decentralized-science-desci-web3-mediated-future-of-science-2547f9a88c40