Appan Innovation Center

साउथ कोरियामा आत्महत्यासँग सम्बन्धित एक अनौंठो घटना सार्वजनिक भएको छ। नगरपालिकाका लागि काम गर्दै आएको एउटा रोबोटले आत्महत्या गरेको छ।
डेली मेलका अनुसार साउथ कोरियाको गुमी सिटी नगरपालिकामा काम गर्दै आएको उक्त रोबोटले आफूलाई भर्याङ्गबाट तल खसालेको हो। भर्याङ्गटबा तल खसेको रोबोट निष्क्रिय अवस्थामा फेला परेको प्रहरीले जनाएको छ। घटना पछि प्रहरीले यसबारे जाँच सुरु गर्ने बताएको छ।उक्त रोबोटले गुमी सहरका नागरिकहरूलाई पछिल्लो १ वर्षदेखि प्रशासनिक काममा बिहान ९ बजेदेखि साँझ ६ बजेसम्म सहयोग गर्दै आएको थियो। उक्त रोबोटसँग सरकारी परिचयपत्र पनि थियो।
रोबोट केही समयदेखि कामका कारण तनावमा भएकाले आत्महत्या गरेको हुन सक्ने अनुमान गरिएको छ।
साउथ कोरियामा सरकारी कार्यालयहरूका प्रत्येक १० कर्मचारीमध्ये एकजना रोबोटले सेवा दिँदै आएका छन्।

In 1850, a farmer discovered a hidden village that was later found to be older than the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Archaeologists estimated that approximately 100 people once lived in this village, named Skara Brae, also known as the "Scottish Pompeii." The houses were interconnected by tunnels, and each dwelling could be sealed with a stone door.

This year’s Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry Louis Brus showed that the strange properties of tiny particles are quantum effects.

Louis Brus was working at Bell Laboratories in the US, with the long-term aim of making chemical reactions happen using solar energy. To achieve this, he was using particles of cadmium sulphide, which can capture light and then utilise its energy to drive reactions. The particles were in a solution and Brus made them very small, because this gave him a larger area on which the chemical reactions could take place; the more a material is chopped up, the greater the surface area it will expose to its surroundings.

During his work with these tiny particles, Brus noticed something strange – their optical properties changed after he had left them on the lab bench for a while. He guessed that this could be because the particles had grown, so to confirm his suspicions he produced cadmium sulphide particles that were just about 4.5 nanometres in diameter. Brus then compared the optical properties of these newly made particles with those of the larger particles, which had a diameter of about 12.5 nano- metres. The larger particles absorbed light at the same wavelengths as cadmium sulphide generally does, but the smaller particles had an absorption that shifted towards blue.

Just like his 2023 co-laureate Alexei Ekimov, Brus understood that he had observed a size-dependent quantum effect. He published his discovery in 1983 and then started investigating particles made from a range of other substances. The pattern was the same – the smaller the particles, the bluer the light they absorbed.

The optical changes revealed that the substance’s characteristics had completely changed. A substance’s optical properties are governed by its electrons. The same electrons also govern the substance’s other properties, such as its ability to catalyse chemical reactions or conduct electricity. So when researchers detected the changed absorption they understood that, in principle, they were looking at an entirely new material.

There was just one problem. The methods Brus had used to fabricate nonparticles generally resulted in unpredictable quality. Quantum dots are tiny crystals (see illustration) and the ones that could be produced at that time often contained defects. They were also of varying sizes. It was possible to control how the crystals were formed so the particles had a given average size, but if researchers wanted all the particles in a solution to be about the same size they had to sort them after they were made. This was a difficult process that hindered development. This was a problem that Moungi Bawendi – also awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry – decided to solve.

Read the story of this year’s chemistry prize in full: https://bit.ly/3rpwdre

Magnificent View of the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter!

Image credit: Rami Ammoun.