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New parallel gate entangles diamond qubits 10 times faster at room temperature

Quantum technologies rely on qubits, units of information that can exist in combinations of the states 0 and 1 instead of being limited to one or the other like conventional bits. Qubits can become entangled, which means their states become linked in ways that cannot be explained by considering each qubit separately.

A promising platform for realizing and studying entangled qubits is a nitrogen-vacancy center. This is a tiny defect in diamond in which a nitrogen atom sits beside a missing carbon atom.

In these diamond-based systems, researchers typically entangle groups of qubits through a series of gates (i.e., controlled operations), linking an electron at the defect to the nucleus of one carbon atom at a time. This process takes time and can cause crosstalk, a phenomenon in which an operation also affects qubits it was not supposed to target.

Ions help electrons hop through porous material with potential for brain-inspired computing

Next-generation computing technologies could be one step closer to emulating how neurons respond and communicate with each other, thanks to research examining how electrons and ions move through materials.

Among them, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of materials with potential for advanced electronics.

In a recently published paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Texas A&M University chemical engineering professor Dr. Perla Balbuena and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Alejandro Aviles Sanchez examined the fundamental mechanisms that govern electron and ion transport in these materials.

Small protein helps amplify cell signals from receptors targeted by many medicines

A small protein known as p11 may play a much broader role in cellular signaling than previously thought. Researchers at Karolinska institutet have now shown that p11 interacts with numerous receptors targeted by commonly used medicines, opening new possibilities for treating conditions such as pain, inflammation and depression. The research is published in the journal Science Advances.

“Cells communicate through complicated molecular networks, with most modern drugs acting by tuning these signals on or off. Our study identifies a key protein modulating signal transduction across G protein-coupled receptors, the largest receptor family in mammals. Decoding these signaling networks is essential to advance receptor biology and drive the development of next-generation therapies,” says Marcus Saarinen at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience and the lead author of the study.

New method generates nearly indistinguishable photons for quantum communication

Working in close collaboration, researchers from Paderborn University, the University of Basel and Ruhr University Bochum have made a breakthrough in quantum communication. In their recently published paper in the journal Physical Review Letters, they demonstrate how special semiconductor nanostructures can be used to generate individual photons and pairs of photons that are almost perfectly identical. These “indistinguishable” particles form the basis for quantum entanglement and quantum interference.

In quantum information processing, photons are ideal carriers of information. However, to use these light particles for complex calculations, they must possess exactly the same properties—an aspect known as “indistinguishability.” Until now, such sources have suffered from the fact that the photons generated were temporally correlated or out of focus, which greatly reduced their indistinguishability and thus their quality.

A team of doctoral candidates from Basel and Paderborn has now solved this problem using a process known as “biexciton decay” in semiconductor quantum dots within an optical resonator. This is a process in which a molecule consisting of two bound excitons (each a pair comprising an electron and an electron hole) decays, leaving behind a single exciton and a photon.

AI method predicts retention times of small molecules more reliably

Whether in drug discovery, environmental analysis or metabolomics: anyone analyzing complex biological samples often needs to identify the small molecules they contain. Researchers at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, in collaboration with partners from the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich, have developed a method that addresses a problem in analytical chemistry that has persisted for decades.

The team, led by bioinformatician Prof. Dr. Sebastian Böcker, presents the new tool in Nature Methods.

‘Mini-brains’ model myelin damage and regeneration, offering new tool for MS drug testing

Researchers have developed 3D “mini-brains” they hope will help speed up the search for much-needed drug treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune condition affecting almost 3 million people worldwide. Their research has been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Led by The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health and Monash University, scientists from Australia and New Zealand have used reprogrammed adult stem cells to engineer the human-like central nervous system cell model, which is the size of a grain of rice.

Among only a handful of MS organoids created globally, the “mini-brains” give researchers a highly detailed cellular view of myelin destruction (demyelination) and regeneration (remyelination) in human cells.

Letting light wander through milk—a surprising approach to better imaging

Light scattered in tissue usually ceases to be a useful source of information. But what if, instead of forcing it to travel along a single path, we allowed it to wander a little differently each time? Scientists from ICTER tested this seemingly risky idea and showed that a series of measurements that differ from one another can produce a clearer image than a single frame.

The new method was developed by scientists from the International Center for Translational Eye Research (ICTER), part of the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The team combined a mathematical model, computer simulations and experiments using optical coherence tomography (OCT). The researchers wanted to determine whether controlled changes in the way light is scattered could reduce speckle noise and make images less sensitive to selected optical aberrations.

Why do pickles glow? Researcher investigates explosive answer

If you mount a pickle on two metal forks and plug it into a socket, one end will light up in a brilliant orange glow. It’s a classic K–12 science demonstration, but the exact physics behind the illumination has long remained a mystery.

Josh Méndez, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Portland State University, was surprised to learn that the glowing pickle was still an unsolved electrostatics problem. As a scientist with an interest in obscure electrostatic problems, Méndez felt called to delve into the pickle jar. More than 100 burned pickles later, he is finally approaching an answer.

Because pickles are soaked in salty brine, they readily conduct electricity. When a current passes through, two competing theories usually explain the resulting glow: a spark discharge or the ignition of hydrogen gas.

Scientists Develop Local Anesthetic That Lasts Weeks Instead of Hours

The findings could help researchers make local anesthetics last longer in people.

Patients recovering from surgery may need pain relief beyond the eight to 12 hours, or about a day at most, that most local anesthetics provide.

Seeking a longer-lasting option, researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have redesigned liposomes, microscopic carriers made from fatty molecules, to release a numbing drug more gradually. In rats, the formulation sustained local anesthesia for two to three weeks, compared with about four to eight hours for a commercial formulation.

The Secret to Better Magnetic Memory May Be the Light, Not the Material

Reshaping a laser beam let engineers switch thicker magnetic materials with light, expanding the possibilities for faster, more compact data storage.

Every digital photo, document, and video saved on a hard drive is stored as a vast sequence of 1s and 0s, represented physically by tiny magnetic regions. Writing that information typically means using an external magnetic field to switch those regions between states. The process consumes substantial energy and limits how quickly data can be written.

Light can deliver energy in extremely short bursts and concentrate it into a small area, making it a promising tool for switching magnetic states. Researchers at the University of California San Diego estimate that this process, called optical switching, could be more than 1,000 times faster than approaches that rely on external magnetic fields. But making it work has meant dealing with restrictions on the magnetic material itself.

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