UNSW engineers have demonstrated a well-known quantum thought experiment in the real world. Their findings deliver a new and more robust way to perform quantum computations—and they have important implications for error correction, one of the biggest obstacles standing between them and a working quantum computer.

Quantum mechanics has puzzled scientists and philosophers for more than a century. One of the most famous quantum thought experiments is that of the “Schrödinger’s cat”—a cat whose life or death depends on the decay of a radioactive atom.

According to quantum mechanics, unless the atom is directly observed, it must be considered to be in a superposition—that is, being in multiple states at the same time—of decayed and not decayed. This leads to the troubling conclusion that the cat is in a superposition of dead and alive.

A new study reveals how Staphylococcus aureus can adapt and evolve to survive in and on its human carriers at a genetic level.

Biological replacement and cryopreservation to significantly extend human lifespans — eli mohamad & kai micah mills — hydradao and cryodao.

Eli Mohamad is a prominent figure in the biotech, space, and AI industries who has co-founded several successful startups and has a real passion for groundbreaking ventures that focus on the development of futuristic technologies.

Currently as a Core Team Member at CryoDAO (https://www.cryodao.org/), a decentralized organization focused on sourcing and funding research in cryopreservation, Eli continues to work at the forefront of innovative technologies and applies his extensive experience in biotechnology and innovative projects to advance novel cryopreservation technologies and their various applications, from critical tissue and organ preservation, to cryo-sleep and suspended animation for space exploration.

Eli has also been involved in setting up another decentralized organization called HydraDAO (https://hydradao.org/) which is focused on funding and incubating biological replacement research to significantly extend human lifespan and will be looking at everything from Limb Regeneration, Organ Bioprinting and Xenotransplantation, to Progressive Brain Replacement, head/brain transplants, and even whole body replacement via non sentient cloning.

Throughout his career, Eli has held various leadership positions in cutting-edge companies including as Co-founder and Chief Business Officer at X-Therma Inc., a company focused on complex tissue preservation; Advisor and Chief Business Officer at Rimac Automobili, working on high-performance electric vehicles; CFO/CBO at Insilico Medicine, Inc., as well as Co-founder of Organ Preservation Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to the future of organ banking, Orphidia Ltd., a medical diagnostics company, and Walkmore, a data science company.

Eli holds a Master’s degree in Science, Technology and Innovation Management from the University of Sussex. He is also an alumnus of Singularity University’s GSP (Global start up) 2012 program.

Kai Micah Mills (https://kaimicahmills.com/) is the visionary founder of Cryopets (https://cryopets.com/), a company focused on advancing cryopreservation technologies for pets. Cryopets was founded in 2023 with the aim of revolutionizing the field of cryopreservation. Starting with pets, the company is innovating on existing methods to create reliable and accessible cryopreservation services. Cryopets aspires to make cryopreservation available in local veterinary clinics and, eventually, in human hospitals.

With a deep passion for defeating death, Kai is driven by the belief that true progress in longevity science must be bold and unapologetic. He has received backing from the prestigious Thiel Fellowship and is a recognized thought leader in the radical life extension community.

In a groundbreaking experiment, UNSW researchers successfully applied the Schrödinger’s cat concept using an antimony atom to enhance quantum computations.

This method significantly improves the reliability of quantum data processing and error correction, potentially accelerating the advent of practical quantum computing.

Understanding quantum mechanics through schrödinger’s cat.

Following the disbanding and reinstating of OpenAI’s robotics department over the past years and reports of OpenAI building its own robot, a series of new job listings on the robotics team suggest the company is finally ready to leap into hardware.

Also: I tried an AI wristband that listens to you 24/7 — and makes IRL conversations searchable

Last Friday, Caitlin Kalinowski, who joined OpenAI in November to lead the robotics and consumer hardware team, shared the first OpenAI Robotics hardware roles via an X post. These job postings include an EE Sensing Engineer, Robotics Mechanical Design Engineer, and TPM Manager.

Surging emissions, battlefield algorithms, Trump’s chip war, and other predictions.

A new way of measuring structures deep inside Earth has highlighted numerous previously unknown blobs within our planet’s mantle. These anomalies are surprisingly similar to sunken chunks of Earth’s crust but appear in seemingly impossible places.

A recently-discovered class of magnets called altermagnets has been imaged in detail for the first time thanks to a technique developed by physicists at the University of Nottingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy in the UK. The team exploited the unique properties of altermagnetism to map the magnetic domains in the altermagnet manganese telluride (MnTe) down to the nanoscale level, raising hopes that its unusual magnetic ordering could be controlled and exploited in technological applications.

In most magnetically-ordered materials, the spins of atoms (that is, their magnetic moments) have two options: they can line up parallel with each other, or antiparallel, alternating up and down. These arrangements arise from the exchange interaction between atoms, and lead to ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, respectively.

Altermagnets, which were discovered in 2024, are different. While their neighbouring spins are antiparallel, like an antiferromagnet, the atoms hosting these spins are rotated relative to their neighbours. This means that they combine some properties from both types of conventional magnetism. For example, the up, down, up ordering of their spins leads to a net magnetization of zero because – as in antiferromagnets – the spins essentially cancel each other out. However, their spin splitting is non-relativistic, as in ferromagnets.

GE Aerospace is advancing hypersonic flight with plans to scale up its dual-mode ramjet technology in 2025.

To create a full propulsion system, engineers will improve sophisticated controls and use state-of-the-art materials from jet engine advancements in the upcoming months. This will be a crucial step in reaching flying capabilities.

An sophisticated hypersonic dual-mode ramjet that can handle high-speed, long-range flying across a variety of multi-mission aircraft was unveiled by GE Aerospace in July 2024.

If you’re setting out to build an underwater robot that’s speedy, maneuverable and versatile, why not just copy what already works in the natural world? That’s exactly what China’s Beatbot has done, with its bio-inspired Amphibious RoboTurtle.

Unveiled in prototype form last week at CES, the autonomous robot is designed for applications including ecological research, environmental monitoring, and disaster response.

As such, it can be equipped with hardware such as a water sampling unit, GPS module, ultrasonic sensors, and AI-enabled cameras. The latter reportedly allow it to perceive and react to changes in its environment, and to autonomously track/follow marine animals.