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Skin-like electronics combined with Artificial Intelligence are being developed by researchers in order to detect potential emergent health concerns. 

The study was published in the journal Matter with the title Intrinsically stretchable neuromorphic devices for on-body processing of health data with artificial intelligence.

Although flexible, wearable electronics are becoming increasingly common, they have yet to realise their full potential. Precision medical sensors that are placed on the skin to do health monitoring and diagnostics could be made possible by this technology in the near future. It’d be like having a cutting-edge medical institution at your disposal at all times.

Such a skin-like device is being developed in a project between the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME). Leading the project is Sihong Wang, assistant professor in UChicago PME with a joint appointment in Argonne’s Nanoscience and Technology division.

Worn routinely, future wearable electronics could potentially detect possible emerging health problems — such as heart disease, cancer or multiple sclerosis — even before obvious symptoms appear. The device could also do a personalized analysis of the tracked health data while minimizing the need for its wireless transmission. “The diagnosis for the same health measurements could differ depending on the person’s age, medical history and other factors,” Wang said. “Such a diagnosis, with health information being continuously gathered over an extended period, is very data intensive.”

Such a device would need to collect and process a vast amount of data, well above what even the best smartwatches can do today. And it would have to do this data crunching with very low power consumption in a very tiny space.

To address that need, the team called upon neuromorphic computing. This AI technology mimics the operation of the brain by training on past data sets and learning from experience. Its advantages include compatibility with stretchable material, lower energy consumption and faster speed than other types of AI.

The other major challenge the team faced was integrating the electronics into a skin-like stretchable material. The key material in any electronic device is a semiconductor. In current rigid electronics used in cell phones and computers, this is normally a solid silicon chip. Stretchable electronics require that the semiconductor be a highly flexible material that is still able to conduct electricity.

The team’s skin-like neuromorphic “chip” consists of a thin film of a plastic semiconductor combined with stretchable gold nanowire electrodes. Even when stretched to twice its normal size, their device functioned as planned without the formation of any cracks.

For one test, the team built an AI device and trained it to distinguish healthy electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from four different signals indicating health problems. After training, the device was more than 95 per cent effective at correctly identifying the ECG signals.

The plastic semiconductor also underwent analysis on beamline 8-ID-E at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne. Exposure to an intense X-ray beam revealed how the molecules that make up the skin-like device material reorganize upon doubling in length. These results provided molecular-level information to better understand the material properties.

“The planned upgrade of the APS will increase the brightness of its X-ray beams by up to 500 times,” said Joe Strzalka, an Argonne physicist. “We look forward to studying the device material under its regular operating conditions, interacting with charged particles and changing electrical potential in its environment. Instead of a snapshot, we’ll have more of a movie of the structural response of the material at the molecular level.” The greater beamline brightness and better detectors will make it possible to measure how soft or hard the material becomes in response to environmental influences.

“While still requiring further development on several fronts, our device could one day be a game changer in which everyone can get their health status in a much more effective and frequent way,” added Wang.


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Gemini North Telescope Spots Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Racing Through Solar System

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Gemini North Telescope Spots Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Racing Through Solar System

A rare interstellar object has been spotted in our solar system, making it the second known object to cross over from outside our cosmic neighbourhood and arrive near our planet. 3I/ATLAS is seen here while about 290 million miles (465 million kilometres) from Earth, when it was journeying inbound on its trip to our vicinity of the solar system. This icy wanderer, first detected by the ATLAS survey on July 1, marks just the third known object from beyond our solar system to be identified, following in the cosmic footsteps of 1I/’Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov.

Massive Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Offers Rare Glimpse Into Alien Planetary System Origins

As per a statement from the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, which oversees the International Gemini Observatory, 3I/ATLAS offers a valuable chance to study the building blocks of alien planetary systems. “The sensitivity and scheduling agility of the International Gemini Observatory has provided critical early characterisation of this interstellar wanderer,” mentioned NSF program director Martin Still. At an estimated 12 miles (20 km) in diameter, 3I/ATLAS is much larger than its predecessors, making it easier to analyse.

Images show the comet with a bright, compact coma — the envelope of dust and gas surrounding its core — and other data suggest it could be older than our own solar system. Believed to have originated from the Milky Way’s outer thick disk, 3I/ATLAS may hold clues to the conditions in far-off star systems that once harboured it. Though the discovery is thrilling to some, the comet poses no threat to the Earth as it makes its fleeting visit.

Comet 3I/ATLAS is expected to make its closest pass by the Sun on Oct. 30, when it will fly 130 million miles inside the orbit of Mars. It comes closest to Earth in December, when it is 170 million miles away. Because of its odd orbit, it’s never coming back.

Astronomers around the world are turning toward a piece of an interstellar comet that broke off using a telescope too distant to study, by necessity, as a rare chance to probe the nature of an object from another star and its solar system of origin.

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NASA Grounds Boeing Starliner Until 2026 After Test Flight Failures

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NASA Grounds Boeing Starliner Until 2026 After Test Flight Failures

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner, a crew capsule for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, has been plagued by persistent problems. Its first crewed test flight in June 2024 was cut short by technical failures, including helium pressurization leaks and multiple thruster malfunctions. NASA ultimately elected to return Starliner to Earth without its crew, keeping the astronauts aboard the station for safety. With those problems unresolved, NASA now says the capsule will remain grounded until around 2026, and its next mission will likely be uncrewed.

Technical Setbacks and Grounding

According to NASA, During its June 2024 Crew Flight Test, Starliner suffered serious propulsion issues. Multiple helium leaks were detected in the service module’s pressurization system, and five of the capsule’s 28 fine-control thrusters failed during approach to the ISS. NASA and Boeing extended the crew’s station stay while engineers traced the problems to thermal and seal failures in the thruster “doghouse” enclosures.

Ultimately NASA decided to bring Starliner back to Earth empty, concluding the test without its astronauts aboard. Boeing and NASA have since conducted extensive ground testing to validate fixes: engineers at NASA’s White Sands facility are firing thrusters in varied sequences to refine thermal models, and Boeing has added new insulation shunts and thermal barriers in the thruster housings to prevent overheating.

Future of the Starliner Program

Boeing’s delays have reshaped NASA’s Commercial Crew plans. NASA officials say Starliner may even fly one more uncrewed test before carrying astronauts. Starliner development is now billions over budget: its original $4.2 billion contract has grown by roughly $2 billion in extra costs. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has flown 11 ISS crew missions and its NASA contract has climbed toward $5 billion amid extra flights added while Starliner lagged. NASA still views Starliner as a critical backup to Dragon and aims to certify it for crew rotations by late 2025 or early 2026.

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Quantum Leap: Scientists Achieve Magic State Distillation on Logical Qubits for the First Time

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Quantum Leap: Scientists Achieve Magic State Distillation on Logical Qubits for the First Time

Scientists have shown the elusive phenomenon of quantum computing that could create the way for fault-tolerant machines, which are much powerful than any of the supercomputers. Magic state distillation is the process which was proposed 20 years ago; however, the use of logical qubits has puzzled scientists since then. It has long been considered crucial for making high-quality resources, called magic states, required to complete the quantum computer’s potential. It has been possible on plains, till now, by which the high-quality magic states are purified so that the complex algorithms can use them. It has not been possible on the logical qubits.

According to Science Daily, the groups of physical qubits sharing the same data are configured for detecting and correcting the errors which frequently disturb the quantum computing operations. However, the scientists with QuEra said that they have demonstrated magic state distillation for the first time on logical qubits. The findings were published on July 14, 2025, in the journal Nature.

Path to Fault-tolerant Quantum Computing

Quantum computers would not be fulfilling their promise without this process. They use qubits as their building blocks and make use of quantum logic, the set of rules and operations that control how quantum information is processed for running the algorithms and processing data. It is challenging to run the complex algorithms together with maintaining amazingly low error rates.

Physical qubits are noisy, which implies that the calculations are often disrupted by factors such as temperature fluctuations and electromagnetic radiation. This is the reason why so much research has taken place on Quantum Error Correction.

With the distillation process, the faithfulness of the magic state increased for any input. This shows that the fault-tolerant magic state distillation has worked in practice. Further, it implies that the quantum computer uses both logical qubits and magic states of higher quality for running non-Clifford gates.

Scientists say that the shift has been observed for a few years. It was challenging to make the quantum computers, with the detection and correction of errors. However, the scientists have successfully done it.

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