Curating the Internet: Science and technology digest for March 4, 2020

remlaps-lite (76)in STEMGeeks • 5 years ago (edited)

Honeywell claims quantum breakthrough that's twice as powerful as IBM and Google offerings; A satirical browser extension responds to the coronavirus by adding medical masks to images that contain faces; British historians find a secret door in Parliament's House of Commons; Twitter gives blue check mark to fake politician invented by high school student; and a Steem essay discusses incision and drainage as a treatment for subcutaneous abscess

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First posted on my Steem blog: SteemIt, SteemPeak^*, StemGeeks.

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Industrial giant Honeywell says it’s built the world’s best quantum computer - Honeywell is not a name that most people associate with computing, but my first professional job included work on a Honeywell DPS 8 mainframe computer, so they do have a history in the field. As I recall, they bought that line of computers from General Electric and eventually spun it off to Honeywell-Bull International and then Groupe Bull in France.

Anyway, back to the present, Honeywell claims that they have developed a more powerful quantum computer than the better-known offerings from Google and IBM. Systems from Google and IBM are built by using super-cooled circuits, whereas Honeywell says that its product is built using ion traps which use magnetic fields to hold ions in place for the device's qubits. The firm claims that ion traps are more stable and hold their values for longer. Current plans are to make the machine available to clients across the Internet in the next three months, and the architecture has been published on arXiv. The firm claims that this architecture is twice as powerful as IBM and Google architectures, and also that they have a sort-of "if statement" within the quantum environment because the device can "hit pause" on a quantum calculation, examine its state, and then proceed down different branches, depending upon what it finds.

A new satirical browser extension automatically adds a face mask to any face it detects on the internet - The browser add-on, was created by web developer, Moritz Klack, searches for pictures of faces on web sites and adds a mask to any that it finds. Klack announced it in a satirical Twitter post, saying that he intends to provide a "safe browsing experience". It can be downloaded here, but the developer warns that its proof-of-concept, really slows down your browser, and also "destroys" some web sites. The article goes on to point out that in real life, masks are not very effective at preventing the spread of the disease, and frequent hand-washing is a much better response.

Secret doorway in Parliament leads to historical treasure trove - Historians who were working on reconstructing the House of Commons, in Britain, found a 360 year old passageway that had been sealed off and forgotten about. The passage was originally built some time around 1660 so that guests could attend a celebratory banquet in Westminster Hall, which is next to the modern-day Commons Chamber. It was used for generations as the main entrance into Westminster, but was eventually sealed off and covered. In 1950, it was rediscovered during repair work on bomb damage, but was subsequently sealed and forgotten again. This time, the passageway was uncovered by Dr. Hallam Smith and her team, who also found graffiti inside the doorway, from 1851, that said, "This room was enclosed by Tom Porter who was very fond of Ould Ale", and also named a number of witnesses to a toast at the time of the sealing. These were: "Richard Condon, James Williams, Henry Terry, Thomas Parker and Peter Dewal". Additional grafiti suggests that the stone masons were members of a subversive and pro-democratic group, known as "Charles Barry's masons". -h/t archaeology.org

A high school student created a fake 2020 candidate. Twitter verified it - A 17 year old from New York invented a fictitious congressional candidate from Rhode Island, named Andrew Waltz. Next, the student established a fake web site, Twitter profile, and entered the candidate into Balletopedia. Then, as part of a push to verify the authenticity of a number of Senate, Congressional, and Gubernatorial candidates, Twitter gave the account its coveted "blue check mark". The account has now been suspended by Twitter for alleged rules violations. When asked to explain why the student invented the candidate, the student said that it was out of boredom and curiosity to see how rigorous the verification checks would be. -h/t Tech News

Steem @anaestrada12: Technique for incision and drainage of subcutaneous abscess - In this post, Dr. Ana Estrada discusses treatment of a subcutaneous abscess by incision and draining. The post begins by describing an abscess as a "painful, fluctuating mass that covers the epidermis and dermis layers of the skin" and suggesting that incision and drainage is a definitive method for treating it. Sections of the article cover the relevant anatomy, pathogenesis, etiology, specific types of abscesses, and the specific scenarios when incision and drainage is recommended or not. After that background, the article continues on to discuss procedures and techniques for performing the procedure. (A 10% beneficiary setting has been applied to this post for @anaestrada12.)

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