3D Schröder Staircase Wins 2020 Illusion of the Year Contest

The 16th annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest, hosted by the Neural Correlate Society, crowned a 2020 first prize winner this week. Japanese mathematician Kokichi Sugihara’s 3D Schröder Staircase wowed judges with its ingenuity. The Schröder Staircase (aka Schröder’s Stairs) is typically done in 2D on paper with ink or pencil, but Sugihara deciphered a way to render the illusion in real life and …

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Achieves First Long-Distance Quantum Teleportation

Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory—and partners at Fermilab, AT&T, Caltech, Harvard University and the University of Calgary—have achieved sustained, high-fidelity, long-distance “quantum teleportation,” which is defined as the “disembodied” instant transfer of “qubits” (the basic unit of quantum information). Qubits of photons were teleported 27 miles through a fiber-optic network—using off-the-shelf equipment. Such a technological advancement could pave the way for quantum internet service …

Compose Your Own “Blob Opera” with Google Arts + Culture

The latest interactive offering from Google Arts & Culture, this time in conjunction with artist David Li, Blob Opera allows users—with the help of machine learning—to string together a song from a quartet of operatic colorful blobs. No musical training is necessary to bring the bass, mezzo-soprano, soprano and tenor blobs together—users simply select one (and access its corresponding vocal range) and pull forward and backward or up …