news 2024

The energy network in the Netherlands is overcrowded and the demand for new connections cannot be kept up with. So if there is still space to be found, a network company like Alliander wants to know exactly where and when that space is available. Data scientists from Alliander and Radboud University worked together on a system to better map this out.

An international research team led by QuTech has demonstrated a network connection between quantum processors over metropolitan distances. Their result marks a key advance from early research networks in the lab towards a future quantum internet. The team developed fully independently operating nodes and integrated these with deployed optical internet fibre, enabling a 25 km quantum link.

Sleep researchers Iris Huijben and Bernice Wulterkens developed new ways to measure sleep. Most people sleep between 7 and 8 hours every night. Although we are not aware of it, a lot happens in our bodies while we are lying in bed. But what if sleeping becomes a problem? To gain more insight into the sleep process, TU/e researchers Iris Huijben and Bernice Wulterkens took a closer look at current sleep measurements.

Will AI soon surpass the human brain? If you ask employees at OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other large tech companies, it is inevitable. However, researchers at Radboud University and other institutes show new proof that those claims are overblown and unlikely to ever come to fruition. Their findings are published in Computational Brain & Behavior today.

The Dutch Black Hole Consortium has launched an 8-language version of the BlackHoleFinder app that citizens all'over the world can use to help identify newly formed black holes. Previously, the app was only available in Dutch and English. Now Spanish, German, Chinese, Bengali, Polish, and Italian have been added, greatly increasing the number of people who can access the citizen science app in their native language.

Mental effort is always unpleasant. This is the conclusion of an extensive study by Radboud researchers among participants from different countries and professional groups. Even when people volunteer to do brainwork, they experience the mental burden as unpleasant. "We mainly do Sudoku puzzles because of the reward, not because we really enjoy the mental effort." "We already know that in principle, people do not enjoy physical labour", explains psychologist Erik Bijleveld.

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded fourteen young TU Delft researchers from the Science (ENW) and Applied and Engineering Sciences (TTW) domains, a Veni grant of up to 320,000 euro. This will allow the laureates to further develop their own research ideas over the next three years. A total of 174 Veni grants were awarded.

Led by Yoeri van de Burgt and Marco Fattori, TU/e researchers have solved a major problem related to neuromorphic chips. The new research is published in Science Advances. Large-scale neural network models form the basis of many AI-based technologies such as neuromorphic chips, which are inspired by the human brain.

Researchers at QuTech have found a way to make Majorana particles in a two-dimensional plane. This was achieved by creating devices that exploit the combined material properties of superconductors and semiconductors. The inherent flexibility of this new 2D platform should allow one to perform experiments with Majoranas that were previously inaccessible.

How TU/e researchers push further the performance of computer chips while at the same time making them more efficient. Nowadays, it's hard to envision the world without computers. But the ever better performing chips in smartphones, cars, and almost every modern device are consuming more and more power.

TU/e researcher Imke Krauhausen built new electronic devices based on neuromorphic computing Our brain can process complex information at lightning speed using very little energy. This is why there is rapidly growing interest in the human brain as a model for the development of new computer technology.

Researchers from TU/e and the University of Chicago discovered how to manipulate turbulent flows to create regular patterns like those seen in the tabby coat pattern of a cat. The new research has been published in Nature. Controlling the chaos of a turbulent flow to make regular patterns sounds like a contradiction in every sense of the word.