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If you think quantum computing sounds like something out of science fiction, you’re not alone. It’s still more theory than practice, but it might be able to answer questions that are unsolvable by current computers. Earlier this year, IBM made a small quantum computer available via the cloud.

Quantum Mechanics and the Weirdness of Particles

To understand quantum computers, you must first know a little bit about quantum mechanics. In the briefest possible description, quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that models how particles behave at the smallest scales.

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China has made a breakthrough in the research of quantum computing. The quantum laboratory of the University of Science and Technology of China recently announced its success in developing a semiconductor quantum chip.

According to a CNTV report on Aug. 11, the quantum chip is equivalent to the “brain” of future quantum computers; it enables quantum operations and information processing. Besides computing, technologies for quantum storage and control are also essential to the future of this technology. The “sandwich-type” solid-state quantum memory can be operational at a low temperature with magnetic auxiliary equipment.

Zhou Zongquan, a researcher at the Key Laboratory of Quantum Information under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said that the direction of future development is to prolong the life of quantum memory.

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ACQUIRE researchers will confront major challenges in a four-year quest to engineer a quantum communication system on a chip. The chip will need to operate at room temperature with low energy in a fiber optic network with entangled photons.

Currently, such a communication system may be demonstrated in laboratories, but only at cryogenic (very low) temperatures, and with bulky, energy-intensive equipment. However, a fundamental understanding of quantum physics and optical materials, as well as recent progress in nanoscale photonic integration, have brought communication systems scaled to the quantum level within reach.

If successful, the ACQUIRE teams’ results will begin to realize the hardware needed for secure and efficient quantum communication. The findings from the ACQUIRE projects will also advance quantum sensing and computing.

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How many things do we own, that are common today, that didn’t exist 10 years ago? The list is probably longer than you think.

Prior to the iPhone coming out in 2007, we didn’t have smartphones with mobile apps, decent phone cameras for photos/videos, mobile maps, mobile weather, or even mobile shopping.

None of the mobile apps we use today existed 10 years ago: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, Uber, Facetime, LinkedIn, Lyft, Whatsapp, Netflix, Pandora, or Pokemon Go.

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Designer babies, the end of diseases, genetically modified humans that never age. Outrageous things that used to be science fiction are suddenly becoming reality. The only thing we know for sure is that things will change irreversibly.

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Neurons that fire together really do wire together, says a new study in Science, suggesting that the three-pound computer in our heads may be more malleable than we think.

In the latest issue of Science, neuroscientists at Columbia University demonstrate that a set of neurons trained to fire in unison could be reactivated as much as a day later if just one neuron in the network was stimulated. Though further research is needed, their findings suggest that groups of activated neurons may form the basic building blocks of learning and memory, as originally hypothesized by psychologist Donald Hebb in the 1940s.

“I always thought the brain was mostly hard-wired,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Rafael Yuste, a neuroscience professor at Columbia University. “But then I saw the results and said ‘Holy moly, this whole thing is plastic.’ We’re dealing with a plastic computer that’s constantly learning and changing.”

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