"A paper posted online in January takes theoretical computer scientists halfway toward proving one of the biggest conjectures in their field. The new study, when combined with three other recent papers, offers the first tangible progress toward proving the Unique Games Conjecture since it was proposed in 2002 by Subhash Khot, a computer scientist now at New York University. Over the past decade and a half, the conjecture - which asks whether you can efficiently color networks in a certain way - has inspired discoveries in topics as diverse as the geometry of foams and the stability of election systems. And if the conjecture can be proved, its implications will reach far beyond network-coloring: It will establish what is the best algorithm for every problem in which you're trying to satisfy as many as possible of a set of constraints - the rules in a sudoku puzzle, or the seating preferences of a collection of wedding guests, for instance."

"Leading scientists have drawn up plans for a vast multinational European institute devoted to world-class artificial intelligence (AI) research in a desperate bid to nurture and retain top talent in Europe. The new institute would be set up for similar reasons as Cern, the particle physics lab near Geneva, which was created after the second world war to rebuild European physics and reverse the brain drain of the brightest and best scientists to the US."

Blockchains, now with more buzzwords!

Here, we show that quasar microlensing provides a means to probe extragalactic planets in the lens galaxy, by studying the microlensing properties of emission close to the event horizon of the supermassive black hole of the background quasar, using the current generation telescopes

These are lasers whose lasing mode exhibits topologically-protected transport without magnetic fields. The underlying topological properties lead to a highly efficient laser, robust to defects and disorder, with single mode lasing even at very high gain values.

No GUTs, no glory

Some locations on Mars are known to have water ice just below the surface, but how much has remained unclear. Dundas et al. used data from two orbiting spacecraft to examine eight locations where erosion has occurred. This revealed cliffs composed mostly of water ice, which is slowly sublimating as it is exposed to the atmosphere. The ice sheets extend from just below the surface to a depth of 100 meters or more and appear to contain distinct layers, which could preserve a record of Mars' past climate. They might even be a useful source of water for future human exploration of the red planet.

"...the European Commission announced in 2016 that it was investing one billion euros in a research effort known as the Quantum Technology Flagship. The goal for this project is to develop four technologies: quantum communication, quantum simulation, quantum computing, and quantum sensing. After almost two years, how is it going?" arxiv link to the actual report: http://arxiv.org/abs/1712.03773

" The goal of the APT program is to control and direct plant physiology to detect chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear threats, as well as electromagnetic signals. " Now that is an advanced concept...

"Hinton's new approach, known as capsule networks, is a twist on neural networks intended to make machines better able to understand the world through images or video. In one of the papers posted last week, Hinton's capsule networks matched the accuracy of the best previous techniques on a standard test of how well software can learn to recognize handwritten digits." Links to papers: https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09829 https://openreview.net/forum?id=HJWLfGWRb&noteId=HJWLfGWRb

This best-in-class streaming algorithm works by remembering just enough of what it's seen to tell you what it's seen most frequently. It suggests that compromises that seemed intrinsic to the analysis of streaming data are not actually necessary.

At its Ignite conference today, Microsoft announced its moves to embrace the next big thing in computing: quantum computing. Later this year, Microsoft will release a new quantum computing programming language, with full Visual Studio integration, along with a quantum computing simulator. With these, developers will be able to both develop and debug quantum programs implementing quantum algorithms.

With electrical signals, cells can organize themselves into complex societies and negotiate with other colonies.

A new idea called the "information bottleneck" is helping to explain the puzzling success of today's artificial-intelligence algorithms - and might also explain how human brains learn.

A tiny self-organized mesh full of artificial synapses recalls its experiences and can solve simple problems. Its inventors hope it points the way to devices that match the brain's energy-efficient computing prowess.

"...We show that any theory with a classical limit must contain entangled states, thus establishing entanglement as an inevitable feature of any theory superseding classical theory. "

Scientists have created bacteria covered in tiny semiconductors that generate a potential fuel source from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water

A new class of exotic materials could find its way into next-generation technologies that efficiently convert waste heat into electrical current according to new research. Both the exotic materials and the means by which they generate electricity rely on a hybrid of advanced concepts-including string theory combined with black holes combined with cutting-edge condensed matter physics.