Love the way you walk

If listening to the footsteps in your home, you are likely to figure out who is walking around. The features which are most commonly used to identify people are faces, voices and fingerprints. But the way they walk is also a giveaway (使真相泄露的事物).

Researchers have used video cameras and computers to analyze people’s gaits (步态), and are now quite good at it. But translating such knowledge into a practical identification system can be tricky. Cameras are often visible, are difficult to set up, require good lighting and may have their view blocked (选档) by other people. A team led by Dr. Ozanyan and Dr. Scully have been looking for a better way to recognize gaits. Their answer: pressure-sensitive mats (垫子).

Such mats are nothing new. They have been part of security systems. But Ozanyan and Scully use a complex version of mats that can record the amount of pressure applied in different places as someone walks across it. These measurements form a pattern unique to the walker. The researchers turned to an artificial-intelligence system to recognize such patterns, and it seemed to work. One application of the mat-based gait-recognition system might be in health care, particularly for the elderly. A mat placed in a nursing home or an old person’s own residence could monitor changes in an individual’s gait that indicates certain illnesses. That would provide early waring of someone being at greater risk of falling over.

Perhaps the most interesting use of the mats, though, would be in public places, such as airports. For that to work, the footsteps of those to be recognized would need to have been stored in a database, which would be harder to arrange than the collection of photographs and fingerprints that existing airport security systems rely on. Many aircrew or preregistered frequent flyers would welcome anything that speeded up one of the most tiresome parts of modern travel.

Quantum computing, once a mere theoretical concept, has moved from the realm of science fiction into the real world. The potential of quantum computing is staggering, with the ability to solve complex problems that current computing technology cannot. But what exactly is quantum computing, and how does it differ from the classical computing that we are used to?

In classical computing, bits are used to represent information, with each bit being either a 1 or a 0. Quantum computing uses quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist in multiple states simultaneously. This property allows quantum computers to perform operations on a vast number of inputs simultaneously, reducing the time needed to perform certain tasks from years to seconds.

One of the most promising applications of quantum computing is in cryptography, where it has the potential to break current encryption methods and create new ones that are impossible to break. Additionally, quantum computing could revolutionize fields such as drug discovery and artificial intelligence, allowing for the development of new drugs and more advanced algorithms.

In spite of the vast potential of quantum computing, there are several challenges that need to be addressed before it can become a widespread technology. These challenges include the need for a new approach to hardware design and the development of new software that can take advantage of the unique capabilities of quantum computers.

Despite these challenges, the future looks bright for quantum computing. With continued research and development, quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize technology as we know it.

Cloning: Where Is It Leading Us?

When it was announced in 2018 that the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai had created the world’s first cloned monkeys, Zhongzhong and Huahua, heated discussions followed online. In fact, cloning has always been with us. It is a way of making an exact copy of another animal or plant. It happens in plants when gardeners take cutting from growing plants to make new ones. It also happens in animals when identical twins are produced from the same egg. These are both examples of natural clones.

Cloning has two major uses. First, gardeners use it to produce large quantities of plants for sale. Second, it is valuable for research on the new plant species and for medical research on animals. Cloning plants is fairly straightforward, while cloning animals is much more complicated and difficult. Over the years, many scientists failed in their attempts to clone animals, but their determination and patience paid off in 1996 with a breakthrough - the cloning of a Dolly the sheep.

With the advances of scientific research, cloning will have several major uses in the future. For one thing, it could be used to breed animal species which are endangered, or even bring back species which are now extinct. For another, it could be used to grow human organs or tissue in animals, which could be used for human organ transplants or medical treatments. Finally, cloning could be used to breed animals that will provide us with higher quality meat, milk, or eggs.

While there are technical issues that need to be worked through to make widespread cloning possible, the biggest issue concerns our moral. For example, if scientists brought an extinct animal back into existence, it would be probably end up living in a zoo. That is not very good for the animal. Even worse for the animal is using it as a source of organ transplants - because it will be injured or even die. In addition, many people worry that eating animal products that result from cloning might be harmful to our health over time. The possibility of using cloning to produce human beings is an even bigger concern. What would happen if such knowledge ended up in the wrong hands?

When it comes to cloning, we wonder, ultimately, whether cloning will help or harm the world. No doubt, we will be talking about this question for a long time to come.