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Monthly Archives: September 2021
Quantum crystal could reveal the identity of dark matter – Space.com
Posted: September 1, 2021 at 12:36 am
Using a quirk of quantum mechanics, researchers have created a beryllium crystal capable of detecting incredibly weak electromagnetic fields. The work could one day be used to detect hypothetical dark matter particles called axions.
The researchers created their quantum crystal by trapping 150 charged beryllium particles or ions using a system of electrodes and magnetic fields that helped overcome their natural repulsion for each other, Ana Maria Rey, an atomic physicist at JILA, a joint institute between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder, told Live Science.
Related: The 18 biggest unsolved mysteries in physics
When Rey and her colleagues trapped the ions with their system of fields and electrodes, the atoms self-assembled into a flat sheet twice as thick as a human hair. This organized collective resembled a crystal that would vibrate when disturbed by some outside force.
"When you excite the atoms, they don't move individually," Rey said. "They move as a whole."
When that beryllium "crystal" encountered an electromagnetic field, it moved in response, and that movement could be translated into a measurement of the field strength.
But measurements of any quantum mechanical system are subject to limits set by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that certain properties of a particle, such as its position and momentum, can't simultaneously be known with high precision.
The team figured out a way to get around this limit with entanglement, where quantum particles' attributes are inherently linked together.
"By using entanglement, we can sense things that aren't possible otherwise," Rey said.
In this case, she and her colleagues entangled the motions of the beryllium ions with their spins. Quantum systems resemble tiny tops and spin describes the direction, say up or down, that those tops are pointing.
When the crystal vibrated, it would move a certain amount. But because of the uncertainty principle, any measurement of that displacement, or the amount the ions moved, would be subject to precision limits and contain a lot of what's known as quantum noise, Rey said.
To measure the displacement, "we need a displacement larger than the quantum noise," she said.
Entanglement between the ions' motions and their spins spreads this noise out, reducing it and allowing the researchers to measure ultra-tiny fluctuations in the crystal. They tested the system by sending a weak electromagnetic wave through it and seeing it vibrate. The work is described Aug. 6 in the journal Science.
The crystal is already 10 times more sensitive at detecting teensy electromagnetic signals than previous quantum sensors. But the team thinks that with more beryllium ions, they could create an even more sensitive detector capable of searching for axions.
Axions are a proposed ultralight dark matter particle with a millionth or a billionth the mass of an electron. Some models of the axion suggest that it may be able to sometimes convert into a photon, in which case it would no longer be dark and would produce a weak electromagnetic field. Were any axions to fly through a lab containing this beryllium crystal, the crystal might pick up their presence.
"I think it's a beautiful result and an impressive experiment," Daniel Carney, a theoretical physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, who was not involved in the research, told Live Science.
Along with helping in the hunt for dark matter, Carney believes the work could find many applications, such as looking for stray electromagnetic fields from wires in a lab or searching for defects in a material.
Originally published on Live Science.
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Can quantum effects in the brain explain consciousness? – New Scientist
Posted: at 12:36 am
New research reveals hints of quantum states in tiny proteins called microtubules inside brain cells. If the results stand up, the idea that consciousness is quantum might come in from the cold
By Thomas Lewton
Skizzomat
IF IT is a controversial idea that warm, wet life might exploit quantum magic, thats nothing compared with certain researchers convictions that quantum phenomena might help explain human consciousness.
Orchestrated objective reduction theory (Orch OR), originally proposed by physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff in the 1990s, seeks to bridge the gulf between physical matter and felt experience. The idea is that consciousness arises when gravitational instabilities in the fundamental structure of space-time collapse quantum wave functions in tiny proteins called microtubules, which are found inside neurons.
It is heady stuff, but if pulling together quantum mechanics, gravity and consciousness in one fell swoop sounds too good to be true, it might be. Orch ORs critics argue that any quantum coherence inside microtubules would fall apart in the warm and noisy environs of grey matter long before it could have any effect on the workings of neurons.
Yet in one tantalising experiment last year, as-yet unpublished, Jack Tuszynski at the University of Alberta in Canada and Aristide Dogariu at the University of Central Florida found that light shone on microtubules was very slowly re-emitted over several minutes a hallmark of quantum goings-on. This is crazy, says Tuszynski, who set about building a theoretical microtubule model to describe what he was seeing.
Gregory Scholes, a biochemist at Princeton University, is studying microtubules for signs of similar quantum effects. Initial experiments point to long-lived, long-range collective behaviour among molecules in the structures. Both groups plan to test whether anaesthetics, which switch consciousness on and off, have any impact on microtubules. There is amazing structure and synchrony in biological systems, says
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Experimental Confirmation of the Fundamental Principle of Wave-Particle Duality – SciTechDaily
Posted: at 12:36 am
Complementarity relation of wave-particle duality is analyzed quantitatively with entangled photons as path detectors.
The twenty-first century has undoubtedly been the era of quantum science. Quantum mechanics was born in the early twentieth century and has been used to develop unprecedented technologies which include quantum information, quantum communication, quantum metrology, quantum imaging, and quantum sensing. However, in quantum science, there are still unresolved and even inapprehensible issues like wave-particle duality and complementarity, superposition of wave functions, wave function collapse after quantum measurement, wave function entanglement of the composite wave function, etc.
To test the fundamental principle of wave-particle duality and complementarity quantitatively, a quantum composite system that can be controlled by experimental parameters is needed. So far, there have been several theoretical proposals after Neils Bohr introduced the concept of complementarity in 1928, but only a few ideas have been tested experimentally, with them detecting interference patterns with low visibility. Thus, the concept of complementarity and wave-particle duality still remains elusive and has not been fully confirmed experimentally yet.
Figure 1. Double-path single-photon interferometer with controllable source purity used in our ENBS model. Two SPDC crystals, PPLN1 and PPLN2, are pumped and seeded simultaneously by the same pump and seed coherent lasers, respectively, resulting in the emission of two signal photons s1 or s2 for quantum interference detection at PD. Then, conjugate idler photons i1 and i2 provide the which-path (or which-source) information, where the controllable source purity is determined by the overlap between the SPACS of one of the idler modes and the unchanged coherent state of another idler mode. Two idler fields can be detected independently by detectors DA and DB. Credit: Institute for Basic Science
To address this issue, a research team from the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea) constructed a double-path interferometer consisting of two parametric downconversion crystals seeded by coherent idler fields, which is shown in Figure1. The device generates coherent signal photons (quantons) that are used for quantum interference measurement. The quantons then travel down two separate paths before reaching the detector. The conjugate idler fields are used for extracting path information with controllable fidelity, which is useful for quantitatively elucidating the complementarity.
In a real experiment, the source of quantons is not pure due to its entanglement with the remaining degrees of freedom. However, the quanton source purity is tightly bounded by the entanglement between the generated quantons and all the other remaining degrees of freedom by the relation s = (1 E2), which the researchers confirmed experimentally.
Figure 2. Quantitative complementarity relation of wave-particle duality. (A) Quantitative complementarity relation P2 + V2 = s2 with respect with respect to = 2 / 1 and = 2. Here, path predictability P represents particle-like behavior, while fringe visibility V represents wave-like behavior of the quanton in the double-path interferometer. The totality of complementarity is bounded by the source purity. (B) Source purity s of the quanton (signal photon) and entanglement E between the quanton and which-path (which-source) detector form another complementarity relation s2 + E2 = 1. These two measures are plotted with respect to = 2 / 1 and = 2.Credit: Institute for Basic Science
The wave-particle duality and the quantitative complementarity P2 + V2 = s2 (P, a priori predictability; V, visibility) were analyzed and tested using this entangled nonlinear bi-photon source (ENBS) system, where the superposition states of the quantons are quantum mechanically entangled with conjugate idler states in a controllable manner. It was shown that a priori predictability, visibility, entanglement (thus, source purity, and fidelity in our ENBS model) strictly depend on the seed beam photon numbers. This points to the potential application of this approach for the preparation of distant entangled photon states.
Figure 3. Fringe visibility V and a priori visibility V0 as functions of = 2 / 1 and = 2. Blue points are experimental data taken from the teams recent paper. Experimental data coincide with the visibility V, not a priori visibility V0 across the whole ranges of and ||. This plot validates the teams analysis of the ENBS experimental results in terms of the wave-particle duality and quantitative complementarity relations. Credit: Institute for Basic Science
Richard Feynman once stated that solving the puzzle of quantum mechanics lies in the understanding of the double-slit experiment. It is anticipated that the interpretation based on the double-path interferometry experiments with ENBS will have fundamental implications for better understanding the principle of complementarity and the wave-particle duality relation quantitatively.
Reference: Quantitative complementarity of wave-particle duality by Tai Hyun Yoon and Minhaeng Cho, 18 August 2021, Science Advances.DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abi9268
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4 Stocks to Benefit From the Potential of Quantum Computing – Yahoo Finance
Posted: at 12:36 am
Quantum computing is emerging as the next big thing in the world of technology owing to the advantages it offers over traditional computers, especially when it comes to rapid processing of complex calculations. Quantum computers are opening up new areas of research and are predicting outcomes at a faster pace than traditional computers. This is because unlike traditional computing, where basic information is stored in binaries, that is, in ones or zeros, quantum computing holds data in the form of quantum bits or qubits, that is, in combinations of all possible states, which are also referred to as superposition.
Quantum computing can be leveraged in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, allowing for increased efficiency and better outcomes. Owing to the ability to generate optimized results, quantum computing is being used across various sectors. NASA is utilizing quantum computing to find safer ways of space travel, controlling air traffic, and so on, as mentioned in a GigaOm article. In 2019, automotive manufacturer Volkswagen used quantum computers to optimize traffic flow in Lisbon, as mentioned in a press release by the company.
Since quantum computing utilizes quantum physics, that is, studying particles at the subatomic level, drug research and discovery can take a leap forward as researchers can study the properties of molecules in detail. Apart from that, the financial sector stands to benefit from quantum computing. Per a report by the IBM Institute for Business Value, quantum computing can be utilized in areas such as risk profiling, predicting and targeting as well as optimization of trading.
Reflective of the positives that quantum computing stands to offer to myriad industries, the quantum computing market is expected to continue to grow. Gartner stated that by 2025, about 40% of large companies are set to undertake initiatives related to quantum computing, as mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article. In fact, per a report by Markets and Markets, the quantum computing market is estimated to witness a CAGR of 30.2% from 2021 to 2026.
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Since quantum computing hardware is expensive and hard to maintain, firms are expected to use the technology via cloud platforms. In 2019, a report by Gartner had stated that by 2023, 95% of organizations will use Quantum Computing as a Service for conducting research on quantum computing strategies.
Quantum computing is emerging as the next step of technological advancement and is set to witness growth going forward. This seems like a prudent time to keep a close watch on companies that can utilize the potential of quantum computing in the coming days. We have selected four such stocks that carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Microsoft Corporation MSFT takes a comprehensive approach to delivering quantum and the approach innovates in parallel at all layers of the computing stack, including controls, software and development tools and services. The company also offers Azure Quantum, which assembles and curates several quantum resources for developers and customers across all industries.
Shares of Microsoft have risen 34.8% year to date and it currently has a Zacks Rank #2. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has moved up 3.6% over the past 60 days. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 8%.
NVIDIA Corporation NVDA offers cuQuantum, which is a software development kit of optimized libraries and tools for accelerating quantum computing workflows.
Shares of this Zacks Rank #2 company have gained 73.4% year to date. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has risen 6.1% over the past 60 days. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 68%.
Alphabet Inc.s GOOGL Google offers Quantum AI, which is advancing the state-of-the-art quantum computing and developing tools for researchers for operating beyond classical capabilities. On May 18, Google unveiled its new Quantum AI campus in Santa Barbara, CA, and the campus includes Googles first quantum data center, quantum hardware research laboratories, and quantum processor chip fabrication facilities.
Shares of Alphabet have risen 64.3% year to date and the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has moved 14.3% north over the past 60 days. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 73.8%.
Intel Corporation INTC designs, manufactures, and sells essential technologies for the cloud, smart, and connected devices. Intel has been collaborating with QuTech and providing engineering resources for accelerating developments. On May 12, Intel, in collaboration with QuTech, reported that using its cryogenic controller Horse Ridge, it was able to control qubits even in low, cryogenic temperatures, which can lead to solving the problem of quantum scaling or wiring bottleneck.
Shares of Intel have risen 8.2% year to date. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has risen 3.7% over the past 60 days. This Zacks Rank #3 companys expected earnings growth rate for the next five years is 7.5%.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free reportIntel Corporation (INTC) : Free Stock Analysis ReportMicrosoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportNVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAlphabet Inc. (GOOGL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
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U of T researchers develop new quantum ‘fingerprinting’ protocol to improve information exchange – News@UofT
Posted: at 12:36 am
Suppose you and your cousin are about to inherit some moneyand you each have a version of the will on your computer. What is the least amount of information your computers must share to determine whether the versions are the same?
This hypothetical scenario raises a communication complexity problem. These problems deal with how much information you need to exchange from computer to computer, orfrom network node to node to perform a certain task or function. The less information transmitted to complete the task, the more energy and time saved and the more privacy is preserved.
Li QianandHoi-Kwong Lo, both professors in the University of Toronto's Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineeringin the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering,and Xiaoqing Zhong, a PhD candidate in the department of physics in the Faculty of Arts & Science,have developed an improved quantum fingerprinting (QF) protocol to more efficiently and securely solve these types of problems, which come up in contexts such as computer networking andVery Large Scale Integration (VLSI) chip design, among other situations.
The teams protocol used the many different frequencies of a photons quantum state a novel approach to encode information. Their paper wasrecently published inNature Communications.
Lets say you and your cousin each have a data file of a million bytes a megabyte, Qian says. In classical protocol, the smallest fingerprint required to determine whether the information is the same to a certainty near 100 per centis found by the square root of the total number of bits. So, a one megabyte file would require the transmission of roughly 300 bytes. With quantum fingerprinting, the amount scales logarithmically: a one megabyte file would only require around three bytes.
The advantage becomes even more pronounced as the files get bigger, Qian adds.
As the data string becomes larger and larger, quantum fingerprinting can drastically reduce the amount of information that you need to exchange.
The QF protocol is achieved by exploiting a property called superposition. In classical communication, a photon encodes information as either a one or zero, but in quantum mechanics a photon can exist in many states between this binary. The possible combinations of these intermediate states are what alloweach single photon to carry far more information, reducing the overall number and saving time, energy and bandwidth.
In addition, it greatly diminishes information leaks, Qian says, which lessens privacy and security concerns.
One challenge of implementing the QF is that the detectors used to register the photons are very sensitive and can produce signal noise. Currently, superconducting photon detectors must be housed in cryogenic dewars, which cool down the environment to milli-Kelvin temperatures. Still, random errors creep in.
The teams improved QF protocol used a technique called multiplexingthe simultaneous sending and measuring of many frequencies of photons to speed up communication time and make QF much less susceptible to detector noise. In the lab, they demonstrated this measurement with six frequencies, but in principle it could be thousands, says Qian.
It makes QF a more practical option, she says. We can use off-the-shelf components: run-of-the-mill semiconductor-based single photon detectors, which are orders of magnitude cheaper than superconductor detectors.
Though QF is accessible technology in todays marketplace, quantum communication is hampered by a lack of compatible infrastructure. Quantum signals are fragileand, though they can coexist with the classical signal in our present fibre optic network, they are easily contaminated. Much of the data terminal equipment in the existing network, such as amplifiers, switches and routers, is not suitable for quantum signals.
More research in progress at the joint labs of Qian and Lo needs to be done to bring quantum and classical signals together in the same optical fibre.
Engineering often finds a balance between the practical and the theoretical, says ProfessorDeepa Kundur, chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering.And Professors Qian and Los research is a great example of this. Theyve fine-tuned a cutting-edge protocol with sights firmly set on the future landscape of telecommunications and by doing soare helping to realize it.
When asked what motivated her to work on quantum technologies, Qian points to the uniqueness of quantum properties.
Theyre simply not found anywhere else in nature, she says. Think of how the unique property of laserscoherent light revolutionized optical technologies in a few short decades. I am convinced the quantum properties of photons will do the same.
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Photons Interact with Pairs of Atoms for the First Time Ever | Breakthrough for Quantum Electrodynamics – Tech Times
Posted: at 12:36 am
Urian B., Tech Times 27 August 2021, 03:08 am
(Photo : Image from Commons.Wikipedia.com) Photons Interact with Pairs of Atoms for the First Time Ever | Breakthrough for Quantum Electrodynamics
Physicists coming from EPFL have finally found a way to be able to get photons to interact with pairs of atoms for the very first time. This particular breakthrough is very important for the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics or QED, a new cutting-edge field leading the way towards quantum technologies.
According to Phys.org, there is still no doubt that they are moving steadily toward an era of technologies that is reportedly based on quantum physics. In order to get there, however, there is still the need to master the ability to make light be able to interact with matter or in more technical terms, photons with atoms.
This has already been achieved to a certain degree giving the scientists the cutting-edge field of cavity quantum electrodynamics or QED, which is already used in quantum networks as well as quantum information processing. Nonetheless, there is still quite a long way to go. A 2014 fiber-optic experiment had two photons interact for the very first time ever.
Current light-matter interactions are supposedly limited to individual atoms, which limits the ability to study them in a particular sort of complex system that is involved in quantum-based technologies. A paper published in Nature noted that researchers from the Jean-Philippe Brantut group at the EPFL's School of Basic Sciences have reportedly found a way in order to get photons to be able to mix with pairs of atoms at certain ultra-low temperatures.
Researchers reportedly used what is most widely known as a Fermi gas, a particular state of matter made of atoms that resembles that of materials' electrons. Brantut explains that in the absence of photons, the gas can reportedly be prepared in a state where atoms interact quite strongly with each other. This would form loosely bound pairs.
Read Also:Penn State's Luminescent Sensor Can Now Detect Terbium, a Rare-Earth Element Used in Solid-State Devices
It was noted that as light is sent onto the gas, some of the pairs can reportedly be turned into chemically bound molecules through absorbing with photons. A particular key concept in this new effect is that it actually happens "coherently." This means that photons can be absorbed in order to turn a pair of atoms directly into a molecule, then emitted back, then finally reabsorbed a number of times.
This would imply that the pair-photon system forms a brand new type of "particle" which is technically an excitation and is called "pair-polariton," according to Brantut. It was noted that this is made possible in their system, where photons are confined in a certain "optical cavity" which is a closed box that forces them to interact strongly with atoms. Scientists have been counting how many protons were produced since the Big Bang.
The particular hybrid pair-polaritons take on a number of properties of photons. This means that they can be measured with certain optical methods. They also reportedly take on some of the properties of the Fermi gas, just like the number of atom pairs that it had originally before the additional photons.
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The fascinating brain chemistry behind team collaboration and unbridled creativity – Fast Company
Posted: at 12:36 am
One day, Elsa Einstein, wife of the famous Albert, saw her husband wander over to the piano, jot down some notes, keep playing, then disappear into a room for two weeks. When he emerged, he had a working theory of relativity that would change physics forever.
What Albert Einstein probably experienced when playing his beloved musicwhich fed directly into the beauty of his sciencewas a state of flow that musicians, artists, and anyone really, can reach when their minds are lubricated and ready to unleash unbridled creativity. That creativity can be translated into jazz music, quantum mechanics, and business strategy.
Not to detract from the importance of his physics, but I put it to you that Albert was as much a genius for giving us another equation: Creativity = intelligence having fun. My creative agency has played with that idea in our quest to help organizations achieve progressive thinking and extreme collaboration toward any goal.
Companies will commit to intelligence any day of the week, but in the meantime, the fun often gets lost. But your best ideas dont come to you when youre hunched over a computer. They spring up on you when youre on a run, having a beer with a friend, or chilling in the shower.
To circle back to our science theme: Theres a chemical reason for that. When cortisol, the stress hormone, floods our brains, it makes us close in on ourselves. But when we feed our brain dopamine, endorphins, and a whole lot of other goodies, we are lubing it up to get into that state of flow.
So, we want businesses to start thinking about how to generate a better brain cocktail for their employeesa concept inspired by Jennifer Aaker of Stanford and her book Humor, Seriously. That brain cocktail should disinhibit team members full potential, making them comfortable enough to share those radical ideas your business needs to power forward.
Imagine youre daydreaming in the shower. Youre completely relaxed, and your brain is sinking into deeper levels of thinking. What youre doing there is creating a safe space where you can just be yousing, think, stare . . . . Thats what we refer to as psychological safety. Now, how do we create that in a room full of our peers, or on a Zoom call full of strangers?
The first ingredient of our brain cocktail is the social hormone oxytocin, also known as the trust or cuddle hormone. Oxytocin is the only hormone that needs other people around to be released, and is responsible for that toasty, calm feeling we get when were with people we care about.
So how do we trigger it? Its about making connections through talking, laughing, sharing a moment, or even just eye contact. One way you can do this is taking a joint break during a team meeting, in which everyone turns their cameras on, makes eye contact, and shares a funny or embarrassing story they experienced or heard recently. Sometimes, if a team member seems stuck, it may be a good idea to put them in a space with someone they cherish, like a partner, and tell them to just spend time with them. Theyll come back refreshed and in a better frame of mind.
Oxytocin can also be released in the thrill of making new connections, by simply bringing together team members who wouldnt usually cross paths to brainstorm a business strategy together.
When we get the oxytocin flowing, were generating trust, but also effective collaboration. Not only that, were also allowing our bodies to fight back against cortisol, the hormone connected with stress and fear, allowing for greater optimism and social ease.
You and your friend are riffing off each other after watching the latest Fast and Furious movie. Each of you is coming up with more and more ridiculous one-liners; youre giggling like children, and you feel a warm, contented feeling. And youre at it for a good 10 minutes.
Thats dopamine coursing through your bodythe happy feeling thats so rewarding you keep wanting more, so you stay engaged with whatever it is youre doing. Dopamine can be triggered by something exciting or hilarious, by singing or playing a game. Its what concentrates your thoughts and gets you lost in the moment.
We can release dopamine when working in a team by simply bringing in more fun, whether by transforming a task or by sprinkling some in. For example, you can start a meeting with a funny video, or interrupt with a pop quiz. Or, gamify your meetings agenda so that whenever a team member contributes an idea towards that new marketing strategy, they enter a raffle for a free latte (even though your office already has courtesy coffees). That chemical will generate great ideas, and make people latch onto them so they can continue to grow.
When we think about endorphins we think about sports, running, and exercising. Thats all true, but you can also work them up by standing up instead of sitting. Having sex. Making things with your hands. Dancing. For people with physical disabilities, it can be released through social touch and hugs (which doubles it up with oxytocin). Endorphins generate a euphoric feeling, and that release actually gives people better clarity of thought, and puts them in a relaxed state.
In a workplace, that is a crucial stage in working toward an aha momentthose moments where all the cobwebs are brushed away to reveal a singular, genius idea. Oxytocin prepares you, dopamine gets you focused, and endorphins help you prioritize and crystalize an idea.
A good way of upping endorphin levels during the workday is to encourage people to take a walking meeting, in which they join a Zoom call from their phones while out on a walk. In-office meetings can be paused for a shake it out break; also, you could add a few workout machines to the office and explain to your team how important endorphins are to creative productivity.
We get used to thinking and ideating within the same molds, and sometimes we dont understand how to get unstuck. Our own bodies provide the solution. We have everything we need to unlock the (perhaps rusty) doors to our weird and wonderful imaginationswe just need to be our own bartender in making that cocktail come to life.
Paul Charney is the founder and CEO of Funworks, a creative agency using psychology, neuroscience, and fun to generate extreme collaboration and progressive design thinking.
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After the Match: Emergency Medicine’s Past Plagues Its… : Emergency Medicine News – LWW Journals
Posted: at 12:34 am
EM history, EM jobs, CMGs:
The original cover of the book by James Keaney, MD.
I had drinks with a legend of emergency medicine in Honolulu in 1994. I met him the evening before when he addressed the Hawaii chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Everyone in the room was blown away by his talk, and I was fortunate to be included at a small dinner with him the following evening.
He regaled us with stories about the old days of emergency medicine in his thick Boston accent. I doubt he remembers that evening, but I will never forget it.
Two years earlier, I was a nave second-year resident. I was trying to grasp the nature of how to do my job, and it was difficult for me to consider what was going on in the post-residency world of emergency medicine. Our specialty was still young. The majority of EPs were salty veterans of emergency rooms.
This group included a lot of physicians who had drifted into the specialty for less than glamorous reasons. Some had been kicked out of residency or had too many malpractice claims. Others had substance abuse issues. Many had little to no formal training in emergency medicine, which had only been recognized as a specialty 12 years earlier. Residency-trained, board-certified emergency physicians were in the minority.
There was a lot of buzz around that time about a book that satirized the business practices of emergency medicine. It was so scandalous the author published under an alias: the Phoenix. That book was The Rape of Emergency Medicine, and the author was James Keaney, MD. Despite the politically incorrect title, it remains essential reading for understanding how emergency medicine became the first medical specialty to be commoditized in the 1980s.
I recently reread the book that made Dr. Keaney famous. It is a hilarious story with a cast of fantastic characters, including scrubs, suits, kitchen schedulers, Crips, Bloods, big cats, mosquitoes, pledge drivers, Weasel, Monk, and Cro-Magnon. The text drips with sarcasm and details the evolution of the emergency medicine business model, an endless turf battle to acquire management contracts for hospital emergency departments while filling shifts with any available clinician. All the while, the contract managers (AKA the suits) developed marketing campaigns that emphasized the quality of their services with slick, glossy handouts and receptions for hospital administrators supplying ample amounts of food, beverages, and gifts.
Shortly after the book's publication, Dr. Keaney was featured in Emergency Medicine News and then part of a feature story on 60 Minutes. The legendarily tough Mike Wallace interviewed him in a piece that brought to light the staffing models for emergency departments of that era.
The great irony is that 30 years later emergency physicians face a new challenge influenced in part by corporate medicine. Residency-trained, board-certified emergency physicians in the 1980s and 1990s were in short supply, and every business-savvy person knows that scarcity creates value. Entrepreneurs set up corporations that moved around a collection of physicians with varying levels of competence to staff the nation's emergency departments.
These corporations merged and changed into new companies many times over, but a version of that business model continues to be utilized today at many hospitals. The big difference, of course, is now we have more than enough residency-trained, board-certified emergency physicians. The scarcity that created the market in the first place no longer exists.
With this in mind, how does a company staffing emergency departments continue to prosper when the value of its service goes down? It drops the price to increase sales volume or finds a cheaper way to supply the service. Enter the nonphysician provider.
Of course, the trick now (as it was then) is to convince the consumer (hospital administrators) that your service continues to offer the same (or at least acceptable) level of quality with cheaper labor. You bring in the marketing department to produce more slick advertising that features the quality of your nurse practitioners and physician assistants at a fraction of the cost. (Read The Corporatization of EM Education for an example of this strategy: EMN. 2021;43[7]:1; https://bit.ly/3jzTUae.)
The net result now (as it was then) is the loss of some of our professional independence. Corporations create standardized processes that can improve quality in the emergency department, but these processes need to balance quality of care with fiscal responsibility. This goal can be extremely tough when other physician specialists providing care at a hospital have the negotiating power to dictate the terms of their compensation because of their professional independence. This dilemma can push hospital administrations to look elsewhere for savings, and that search might end up in the emergency department.
After the publication of his book, Dr. Keaney became a founding member and the first president of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. This organization has been at the forefront of calling attention to questionable business practices in emergency medicine for nearly three decades. You can download a free copy of Dr. Keaney's book on the AAEM website: https://bit.ly/2UssEQq.
Reading this book provides residents and attendings alike with an essential historical reference for our specialty. It is a call to action for us to advocate for safe clinical environments and fair business practices. I encourage all residents to read his work and think about its impact on their future careers.
Dr. Cookis the program director of the emergency medicine residency at Prisma Health in Columbia, SC. He is also the founder of 3rd Rock Ultrasound (http://emergencyultrasound.com). Friend him atwww.facebook.com/3rdRockUltrasound, follow him on Twitter@3rdRockUS, and read his past columns athttp://bit.ly/EMN-Match.
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Voice of the People: Vaccines and masks will help end this pandemic – The Ledger
Posted: at 12:34 am
Vaccines and masks will help end this pandemic
Recently I was in a local supermarket and was absolutely appalled at the number of people without masks. On Aug. 17, I was at a different market waiting to get my booster shot and decided to note the number of people I saw without masks. I have estimated the age group best I could but feel I am fairly accurate.
Three young couples with small children. Three obese women over 50 years old. Four women under 30 years. Six women between 40 to 60 years old. Fifteen men between 30 to 50 years old. Four men over age 60 - two of whom had obvious health issues.
Thats 38 people I noted in 30 minutes and only in a small area of the store. I would really like to be politically incorrect when describing these stupid people but this is a family paper. I cannot remember if there was an uproar when I was a child and got all my immunizations and then as a young mother when my children got the polio vaccine, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and the measles-mumps-rubella shots.
Please get the vaccine and wear your masks to help us end this pandemic.
Sandi Simpson, Lakeland
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Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination would likely be unnecessary if mandatory masking were allowed. Stop whining about infringement on personal rights. Do your part to protect yourself, your family and your community.
Stop making unfounded statements questioning COVID-19 vaccine safety. The vaccine was appropriately studied and tested before widespread distribution. It is as safe as any other vaccine. It is certainly safer than the adverse health effects of COVID-19 infection.
A new report indicates that COVID-19 can be eradicated, just like smallpox and polio. The only way to achieve eradication is through public acceptance of infection control measures. That means vaccination and, for now, face mask and social distancing. This is not political; it is public health.
Mavra Kear, Ph.D., APRN, Lakeland
Don't blame President Joe Biden. He is president in name only. He does what they tell him to do, and who they are I dont know for sure. I would guess its the people that would want to bring America to its knees and it looks they might succeed this time.
If only we had any military people that knew what was going on and had the guts to step in and right a wrong and worry what would happen later. But we dont.
I feel like I served for nothing. I also feel like at my age I may never see the country return to normal.
Afghanistan run by Taliban, America run by Democrats - same thing.
Claud Lynn, Lakeland
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Memories from the Archives – August 2000 – The Avondhu Press
Posted: at 12:34 am
Festival season was in full swing in August 2000, with crowds expected in Castletownroche, Ballylanders, Coolagown and Lismore. Castletownroche looked forward to the Welcome Home Weekend, while over in Ballylanders locals were anticipating Pattern Day. In Lismore, eight days of craic was culminating in a family fun day in St Carthages, and Coolagown was celebrating its first ever Old Time Threshing and Vintage Display. Here, attendees were warned about the politically incorrect and incorrigible Bachelors in Trouble opening act.
Fermoy was all set for File Fhearmui 2000, the traditional music festival. The weeks schedule included set dancing cilis, pub trailsand a concert in the park. Contingency plans included the gigs taking place in the Rowing Club, in case of inclement weather.
In Fermoy, the new pay parking was finally in place, with empty parking spaces in the town indicating it was working well or keeping shoppers at bay. Time would tell of the success of the scheme. Also in the town, the IDA announced a plan to build a 1 million business park at the site of the old Army camp.
Mitchelstown, though celebrating the biggest ever music festival, expected losses of 5,000. Overhead costs were increasingand it was now a big-time event with small-time sponsorship. Jack L was touted as the highlight act of the weekend. Meanwhile, in the Castle Gardens in the town, plans were afoot by owner Michael White to construct three self-catering chalets to meet the accommodation needs of tourists to the town.
The village of Araglin was in demand by the County Councils of both South Tipperary and Cork, as Cllr Mattie McGrath called for the Vehicles Office to desist from forcing Araglin residents to register their cars in Cork as Araglin is, of course, in another county altogether. The council had confirmed by letter that Araglin was definitely in Tipperary!
Rumours abounded in Tallow that George Best, legendary footballer, was looking to buy an English-style thatched cottage in the town. However, in Lismore, hopes were dashed when it was revealed that newly weds Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt would not be honeymooning in the castle quarters, contrary to popular rumour.
However, celebrities were to be found closer to home as Ballylanders John Gallahue and Glanworths Darren Dennigan were set to star in an RT documentary, Hearts on their Sleeves. The boys were members of the Irish Skills Team, who had competed in the 35th Skills Olympics.
Elsewhere, at a function in Maryborough House Hotel, Ballyduff man Kevin Condonwas celebratingafter winning the first prize in Joinery in the National Apprentice Competitions 2000.
In Fermoy, chef Denise Dingivan was awarded a bronze medal at the Sodexho Irish Chef of the Year competition, for her Innovative Salad entry.
31 years ago this month in 1990, Lazarus Mick Meaney rose from his coffin, having been buried alive for two hours in Kilworth something recalled in anAugust 1999 edition of The Avondhu.
In other stories of triumphant rising, the Kildorrery Juvenile GAA boys qualified for the North Cork final against Mallow following a replay against Sean Clarachs. They won the match 5-18 to 2-1.
Over in Fermoy GAA, the junior A footballers defeated Rathluirc Rovers after a tough, dour encounter in front of a handful of spectators. However, the article highlighted the achievements of Adrian OFarrell and Brian OCallaghan, playing his first championship game since a serious leg injury three years previous.
Castletownroche recounted a subdued victory over Killavullen for the junior A hurlers. Although the team won the match, and tributes were paid to players including Donal Relihanand Jonathan OConnor, the writer noted that the performances left a lot to be desired, with an unsubtle reminder that training would recommence that Friday!
The Kilworth U14 footballers were crowned North Cork champions in August 2000, beating Clyda Rovers to take the Rev Burns Cup home.
Fanahan McSweeney AC were continuing their unstoppable success, as Karen Considine brought home gold as a member of the Irish team that won in the Celtic Games in Scotland. Meanwhile, for Grange/Fermoy AC, Tullamore was the site of victory as the U10 girls team of Roisin Howard, Kate Sheehan, Tracey Clancy, Aisling Hutchings, and sub Karen Geary, brought home silver.
Fermoy Cycling Club were looking forward to the Crotty Cup races and the Comeragh 100 Cycle Challenge. In the Junior Tour of Ireland, the team would be represented by Frank Doyle for six days of tough racing.
On the water, Fermoy Rowing Club were looking forward to their first At Home regatta since the 1960s.
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