The risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as diabetes, smoking, dyslipidemia, and high blood pressure, have long been recognized. However, a recent development is the acknowledgment of chronic kidney disease as a significant risk factor for cardiovascular issues. This recognition is reflected in the new cardiovascular risk equation from the American Heart Association, which now incorporates kidney function and damage through albuminuria into its components.

In an interview with HCPLive,Michael Shlipak, MD, MPH, associate chief of medicine for research at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, discusses his National Kidney Foundation (NKF) 2024 Spring Clinical Meeting presentation on the updated American Heart Association’s cardiovascular disease risk calculator.

While family history is widely acknowledged as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, modern genetic studies have enabled the development of genetic risk scores. These scores contribute to understanding cardiovascular risk, although they do not account for a significant portion of it. His session highlighted the importance of the new cardiovascular risk equation, particularly in primary care settings, where physicians utilize cardiovascular risk assessment tools to determine appropriate preventive therapies for patients, such as statins or aspirin.

The updated risk equation offers several advantages over its predecessor, including a larger population size and broader diversity in age and ethnicity. Notably, it excludes race and instead utilizes a social deprivation index to capture environmental factors. Additionally, the incorporation of kidney function measures, such as estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and albuminuria, as well as heart failure as an outcome, enhances its predictive accuracy and relevance, especially for individuals with kidney disease.

Shlipak explains although the new risk calculator represents a significant advancement, there are considerations to address, such as individuals with extreme family history of cardiovascular disease and the need for further validation in different geographic settings. Moreover, he emphasizes the importance of routine kidney testing, particularly urine albumin tests, in primary care settings is crucial for early detection and management of kidney disease and for predicting cardiovascular risk accurately.

Disclosures: Shlipak has participated in advisory boards for Beyer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and AstraZeneca. He receives research funding from Beyer.

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review.

This week had two major events from OpenAI and Google. OpenAI’s spring update event saw the reveal of its new model, GPT-4o, which has voice and vision capabilities that can turn ChatGPT into a virtual assistant seemingly aspiring to be “Her.” Hot off OpenAI’s tail, Google’s I/O conference featured a smattering of announcements and integrations for its flagship model, Gemini.

This week also saw some major shake-ups at AWS and OpenAI. AWS CEO Adam Selipsky is stepping down and will be replaced by AWS sales chief Matt Garman. And OpenAI co-founder and longtime chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has departed the company along with Jan Leike. Sutskever will be replaced by Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s director of research.

There was also a significant shift at Meta. TechCrunch exclusively reported that the company is shutting down its enterprise communications business, Workplace. It makes us wonder if Meta was ever really serious about its enterprise ambitions.

News

120+ AI mentions: How much AI is too much AI? For Google, none. They mentioned it nonstop throughout their I/O keynote, and we have the tapes to prove it. Read More

Talk to me, ChatGPT: OpenAI’s latest “omni” model GPT-4o can talk to you, change its tone to sarcastic, and even do real-time language translation. It also sounds suspiciously like Scarlett Johansson. Read More

Microsoft’s Cobalt 100 chips: TechCrunch has learned that the company will launch its custom Cobalt 100 chips to customers as a public preview at its Build conference next week. And we discovered some other scoops, too 👀 Read More

Sony Music cracks down on AI: Sony Music Group has sent letters to more than 700 tech companies and music streaming services to warn them not to use its music to train AI without permission. Sony Music says it has “reason to believe” those companies “may already have made unauthorized uses” of its content. Read More

SIM swap attacks: Since mid-2023, an interception operation called Estate enabled hundreds of members to carry out thousands of automated phone calls to trick victims into entering one-time passcodes, which gives attackers access to their bank accounts. Read More

Project IDX is now in open beta: Announced at Google I/O, the company’s next-gen, AI-centric browser-based development environment is now in open beta. Google says that more than 100,000 developers already tried the service. Read More

AI to save the birds: Wind is the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S., but wind turbines can wreak havoc on bird populations. Spoor is a startup using AI to help wind farms mitigate that risk. Read More

Apple expands accessibility: Apple is bringing new accessibility features to iPads and iPhones — including the ability to control your device with eye-tracking, create custom shortcuts using your voice, and experience music with a haptic engine. Read More

ThreadsDeck?: Instagram Threads is testing pinned columns on the web, which could be a good replacement for TweetDeck. In 2023, X turned TweetDeck into X Pro and put it behind a paywall. Read More

Analysis

Did Meta give enterprise a fair shot?: Meta pulled the plug on its enterprise product Workday on Tuesday, bringing the curtain down on the enterprise experiment nine years after it launched. Ron Miller writes that it’s fair to wonder if Meta was ever serious about it. Read More

Mark Zuckerberg, style icon: Recent photos of the Meta CEO have gone viral as users noticed a sudden shift in his personal style. Gone are the gray shirts and jeans, replaced by gold chains and graphic tees. Amanda Silberling explores whether his newfound makeover is a carefully crafted rebrand. Read More

Tesla’s Supercharger is in limbo: Despite being the undisputed king of EV fast charging — and being profitable — Tesla CEO Elon Musk axed the entire Supercharger division. Tim De Chant investigates how the network came to be and what’s next now that it’s in limbo. Read More

Photon-number distributions of various light sources have been studied extensively, but little is known about the statistical distribution of electrons emitted under the effect of intense quantum light.

However, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have made a discovery that highlights this phenomenon.

Studying electron emission from quantum light

Published in the journal Nature Physics, the study led by Prof. Maria Chekhova at MPL and Prof. Peter Hommelhoff at FAU reveals extreme and highly unusual statistical events in electron-number distributions obtained when nanometer-sized metal needle tips are illuminated with ultrashort pulses of bright quantum light.

These findings prove that the number of electrons is influenced by the light statistics and contribute to a deeper understanding of the process of electron emission, which could help further improve electron microscopes.

Understanding electron emission

Electron emission is the process by which electrons are released from a material, typically a metal or semiconductor, into a vacuum or another medium. There are several types of electron emission, each with its own unique characteristics and underlying mechanisms.

Thermionic emission

• Occurs when a material is heated to high temperatures, causing electrons to gain enough energy to overcome the work function and escape the surface.
• Commonly used in vacuum tubes, cathode ray tubes (CRTs), and electron microscopes.

Photoelectric emission

• Happens when a material absorbs photons (light particles) with sufficient energy to overcome the work function, causing electrons to be ejected from the surface.
• The basis for photoelectric sensors, solar cells, and photomultiplier tubes.

Field emission

• Involves applying a strong external electric field to a material, which narrows the potential barrier and allows electrons to tunnel through the barrier and escape the surface.
• Used in field emission displays, electron microscopes, and vacuum microelectronics.

Secondary electron emission

• Occurs when a material is bombarded with high-energy particles (e.g., electrons or ions), causing the emission of low-energy secondary electrons from the surface.
• Important in electron multipliers, photomultiplier tubes, and scanning electron microscopes.

Schottky emission

• A combination of thermionic and field emission, where an external electric field lowers the work function, making it easier for electrons to escape the surface at lower temperatures.
• Used in high-brightness electron sources and vacuum microelectronics.

The study of electron emission is crucial for understanding the behavior of materials under various conditions and for developing advanced technologies such as electron microscopes, vacuum electronics, and energy conversion devices.

By manipulating the factors that influence electron emission, researchers can design materials and devices with specific electronic properties tailored to various applications.

Needle tips, electrons, and quantum light

In this collaborative project, the researchers illuminate nanometer-sized metal needle tips with pulses of classical light and quantum light. They then detect the electrons released from the metal and study their statistical properties.

When classical light is used, the electrons follow a Poissonian distribution, meaning that each electron is emitted independently of the others. This results in only slight variations in the number of electrons emitted from pulse to pulse.

‘Bright squeezed vacuum’ quantum light

By switching to a quantum light source called bright squeezed vacuum, which exhibits strong photon-number fluctuations, the researchers demonstrated that the statistics of photons can be transferred to electrons.

Using this technique, they measured extreme statistical events with up to 65 electrons from a single light pulse, with an average value of 0.27 electrons per pulse.

To put this into perspective, if the electrons followed a Poissonian distribution, the probability of such an event — an outlier exceeding the mean by a factor of 240 — would be as low as 10-128.

By changing the number of modes of the squeezed vacuum, the scientists could tailor the electron-number distribution on demand.

“Our results show that photon statistics are imprinted from the driving light onto the emitted electrons, opening the door to new sensor devices and strong-field optics with quantum light and electrons,” says Maria Chekhova, research group leader at MPL.

Raisin muffins and electron distributions

Jonas Heimerl, an FAU Ph.D. student, explains the dimensions of this discovery using an everyday example.

“If you spread raisins on muffins, the probability of finding a certain number of raisins in the muffin follows a Poisson distribution. Let us assume that there is an average (mean) of two raisins per muffin,” Heimerl pontificated.

“It may therefore happen that there are no raisins or five raisins in the muffin, but in most cases, there will be two. However, the probability of getting more than 50 raisins is impossible with a Poisson distribution,” he explained.

In contrast, the multi-electron events observed in these experiments were like finding 480 raisins in a single muffin — a discovery that would undoubtedly delight any raisin lover.

Quantum light opens doors to tech innovation

In summary, this research from MPL and FAU has unveiled the surprising influence of quantum light on electron emission.

By illuminating nanometer-sized metal needle tips with bright squeezed vacuum, they have demonstrated that the statistical properties of photons can be imprinted onto electrons, leading to extreme and highly unusual electron-number distributions.

This discovery deepens our understanding of the fundamental processes governing electron emission and opens doors to exciting possibilities for the development of new sensor devices, advancements in electron microscopy, and the exploration of strong-field optics with quantum light and electrons.

As we continue to unravel the mysteries of the quantum world, these findings serve as a testament to the power of innovative research and the potential for quantum phenomena to revolutionize our understanding of the universe.

The full study was published in the journal Nature Physics.

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