# sec: oops! also blockchain system seems to show some security vulnerabilities

<< Smart contracts - stateful executable objects hosted on blockchains like Ethereum - carry billions of dollars worth of coins and cannot be updated once deployed >>

AA << present a new systematic characterization of a class of trace vulnerabilities, which result from analyzing multiple invocations of a contract over its lifetime >>

Ivica Nikolic, Aashish Kolluri, et al. Finding The Greedy, Prodigal, and Suicidal Contracts at Scale. arXiv: 1802.06038 [cs.CR]. Feb 16, 2018.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.06038

Kristin Houser. Uh Oh: Blockchain May Not Be as Secure as We Thought. Mar 2, 2018.

https://futurism.com/blockchain-security-smart-contracts/ 

Mike Orcutt. Ethereum's smart contracts are full of holes. MIT Tech Rev. Mar 1, 2018.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610392/ethereums-smart-contracts-are-full-of-holes/

Also

# e-ai: an intriguing hypothesis: cheating that system will become near impossible. Jun 18, 2017

http://flashontrack.blogspot.it/2017/06/e-ai-intriguing-hypothesis-cheating.html

# gst: random walk to describe a interplay between the inter-chain hopping and the intra-chain hopping in amorphous Polyimide nanofibers

AA << report the observation of a crossover of heat conduction behavior from three dimensions (3D) to quasi-one dimension (1D) in Polyimide(PI) nanofibers at a given temperature. A theoretical model based on the random walk theory has been proposed to quantitatively describe the interplay between the inter-chain hopping and the intra-chain hopping in nanofibers. This model explains well the diameter dependence of thermal conductivity and also speculates the upper limit of thermal conductivity of amorphous polymers in the quasi-1D limit. >>

Lan Dong, Qing Xi, et al. Dimensional crossover of heat conduction in amorphous Polyimide nanofibers. National Science Review. nwy004.  doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwy004. Jan 09,  2018.

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwy004/4794956

<< The intrinsic structure of amorphous polymers is highly disordered with long, entangled molecular chains >>

Science China Press. "Random walk" of heat carriers in amorphous polymers. Mar 01, 2018.

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-03-random-carriers-amorphous-polymers.html

# drugs: they elicit experiences with the highest semantic similarity to those of dreams

AA << investigated the semantic similarity between a large number of subjective reports of psychoactive substances and reports of high/low lucidity dreams, and found that the highest-ranking substance in terms of the similarity to high lucidity dreams was the serotonergic psychedelic lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), whereas the highest-ranking in terms of the similarity to dreams of low lucidity were plants of the Datura genus, rich in deliriant tropane alkaloids. Conversely, sedatives, stimulants, antipsychotics, and antidepressants comprised most of the lowest-ranking substances. >>

AA << confirm the hypothesis that, among all psychoactive substances, hallucinogen drugs elicit experiences with the highest semantic similarity to those of dreams. >>

Camila Sanz, Enzo Tagliazucchi. The Experience Elicited by Hallucinogens Presents the Highest Similarity to Dreaming within a Large Database of Psychoactive Substance Reports.
Front. Neurosci. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00007. Jan 22, 2018.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.00007/full   

Eric W. Dolan. Study reveals the similarity between psychedelic states and dreaming. Feb 16, 2018.

http://www.psypost.org/2018/02/study-reveals-similarity-psychedelic-states-dreaming-50760  

# life: tre cappotti

<< L’ho portato a casa che aveva due mesi. Non sapeva abbaiare. L’ho nutrito, l’ho pulito, l’ho addormentato. L’ho portato in passeggiata, faceva freddo, gli ho comprato i cappottini. L’ho spazzolato, l’ho coccolato, mi sono dovuta sorbire le proteste di Alberto che si sentiva messo da parte. L’ho portato dal veterinario, duecento euro tra: visita, vaccino pentavalente, inoculazione del microchip, iscrizione all’anagrafe canina e, tanto per non sbagliare, puntura anti-filaria (solo quella ventotto euro). L’ho sgridato quando faceva la pipì in casa. Ho smesso di uscire con le amiche perché, i primi tempi, non stava mai fermo per la voglia di giocare e ci aveva reso impossibile andare al ristorante.
Vorrei proprio sapere quali delle suddette attività mi differenzia da una mamma. >>

Erica Tabacco. Tre cappotti per un bassotto. Tragopano Ed. 8 Feb 2018.

http://www.tragopano.it/tre-cappotti-per-un-bassotto-di-erika-tabacco-in-e-book/  

# qubit: three-qubit operation with the Toffoli gate for scalable semiconductor quantum processors

<< The Toffoli gate is a three-qubit operation that changed the state of a target qubit conditioned on the state of two control qubits. It can be used for universal reversible classical computation, (..) >>

<< As a result, a single-step Toffoli gate can reduce the number of quantum operations dramatically, which can break the limit of coherence time and improve the efficiency of quantum computing >>

University of Science and Technology of China. Experimentally demonstrated a Toffoli gate in a semiconductor three-qubit system. March 1, 2018

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-03-experimentally-toffoli-gate-semiconductor-three-qubit.html

Hai-Ou Li, Gang Cao, et al. Controlled Quantum Operations of a Semiconductor Three-Qubit System. Phys. Rev. Applied 2018; 9.024015. doi: 10.1103/ PhysRevApplied.9.024015. Feb 15, 2018.

https://journals.aps.org/prapplied/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.9.024015

# esobio: Aliens & OoL, a review

AA << explores the collaborative nature and interdisciplinarity of the origin(s) of life (OoL) research community. Although OoL research is one of the oldest topics in philosophy, religion, and science; to date there has been no review of the field utilizing bibliometric measures. A dataset of 5647 publications that are tagged as OoL, (..) >>

Arsev Umur Aydinoglu, Zehra Taskın. Origins of Life Research: a Bibliometric Approach. Orig Life Evol Biosph. 2018; 48 (1): 55. doi: 10.1007/s11084-017-9543-4.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11084-017-9543-4

Also

Nick Pope (@nickpopemod)

https://twitter.com/nickpopemod

# gst: the role of turbulence in the formation of self-organizing patterns

<< What part of the 'self' is responsible for the 'organization?' That role is performed by the unstable modes ('control modes') which alter the position and stability of the local equilibria that drive the time-evolution of the system >> Jacob Halatek

<< These turbulences (..) do not result in the complete loss of order (..) precisely the opposite occurs. When we destabilize the system, we observe that turbulence develops relatively rapidly. But upon further perturbation, the system undergoes a transition in which it is far from equilibrium, but nevertheless clearly ordered and non-turbulent >> Erwin Frey

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Pattern formation - the paradoxical role of turbulence.
Feb 19, 2018.

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-02-pattern-formationthe-paradoxical-role-turbulence.html  

Jacob Halatek, Erwin Frey. Rethinking pattern formation in reaction- diffusion systems. Nature Physics. doi: 10.1038/s41567-017-0040-5. Feb 19, 2018.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-017-0040-5