New study finds polyester fibers throughout the Arctic Ocean

A new study has found that pollution from microplastics is widespread in the Arctic Ocean, and 92% of those particles are minuscule synthetic fibers from our clothes. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/polyester-fibers-arctic-ocean-microplastic-pollution…

Entangling electrons with heat

A joint group of scientists from Finland, Russia, China and the U.S. has demonstrated that temperature difference can be used to entangle pairs of electrons in superconducting structures. The experimental discovery, published in Nature Communications, promises powerful applications in quantum devices, bringing us one step closer to applications of the second quantum revolution. …

Reading out qubits like toppling dominoes: A new scalable approach towards the quantum computer

Creating a powerful, large-scale quantum computer depends on a clever design such that many qubits (the building block of a quantum computer) can be controlled and read out. Researchers at QuTech, a collaboration between TU Delft and TNO, have invented a new readout method that is an important step forward on the road towards such a large-scale quantum computer. They have…

Important milestone in the creation of a quantum computer

Quantum computer: One of the obstacles for progress in the quest for a working quantum computer has been that the working devices that go into a quantum computer and perform the actual calculations, the qubits, have hitherto been made by universities and in small numbers. But in recent years, a pan-European collaboration, in partnership with French microelectronics leader CEA-Leti, has been…

Using AI to count and map craters on the moon

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China, one from Italy and one from Iceland has used a machine-learning artificial intelligence application to count and note the location of over 100,000 craters on the moon. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes programming their system to recognize craters by training it with data collected…

Salesforce Claims Its AI Can Spot Signs of Breast Cancer With 92% Accuracy

Salesforce today peeled back the curtains on ReceptorNet, a machine learning system researchers at the company developed in partnership with clinicians at the University of Southern California’s Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC. From a report: The system, which can determine a critical biomarker for oncologists when deciding on the appropriate treatment for breast cancer patients, achieved 92%…

Researchers uncover key clues about the solar system’s history

In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, researchers at the University of Rochester were able to use magnetism to determine, for the first time, when carbonaceous chondrite asteroids—asteroids that are rich in water and amino acids—first arrived in the inner solar system. The research provides data that helps inform scientists about the early origins of…

A photonic crystal coupled to a transmission line via an artificial atom

Researchers have recently displayed the interaction of superconducting qubits; the basic unit of quantum information, with surface acoustic wave resonators; a surface-wave equivalent of the crystal resonator, in quantum physics. This phenomena opens a new field of research, defined as quantum acoustodynamics to allow the development of new types of quantum devices. The main challenge in this venture is to manufacture…

A phononic crystal coupled to a transmission line via an artificial atom

Researchers have recently displayed the interaction of superconducting qubits; the basic unit of quantum information, with surface acoustic wave resonators; a surface-wave equivalent of the crystal resonator, in quantum physics. This phenomena opens a new field of research, defined as quantum acoustodynamics to allow the development of new types of quantum devices. The main challenge in this venture is to manufacture…

Leaf-Cutter Ants Have Rocky Crystal Armor, Never Before Seen in Insects

Leaf-cutter ants are named for their Herculean feats: they chomp foliage and carry unwieldy pieces, like green flags many times their size, long distances to their colonies. There they chew up the leaves to feed underground fungus farms. Along the way, the insects brave all manner of predators — and regularly engage in wars with other ants. But these insects are…