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Awesome.

What once took months by some of the world’s leading scientists can now be done in seconds by undergraduate students thanks to software developed at the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing, paving the way for fast, secure quantum communication.

Researchers at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo developed the first available software to evaluate the security of any protocol for Quantum Key Distribution (QKD).

QKD allows two parties, Alice and Bob, to establish a shared secret key by exchanging photons. Photons behave according to the laws of quantum mechanics, and the laws state that you cannot measure a without disturbing it. So if an eavesdropper, Eve, intercepts and measures the photons, she will cause a disturbance that is detectable by Alice and Bob. On the other hand, if there is no disturbance, Alice and Bob can guarantee the security of their shared key.

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BOSTON, May 19 (UPI) — Engineers at MIT and Harvard have designed a tiny bee-like robot capable of pausing mid-flight to perch on a variety of objects before once again taking to the air. The robot uses static electricity to momentarily cling to the underside of objects.

Robots designed for aerial surveys and related observational tasks, like quadcopters, are currently limited by short flight times. They tend to run out of battery rather quickly. While perching won’t extend a drone’s actual time in the air, the technology could empower UAVs to employ their power more strategically — periodically taking a moment to rest their wings, or blades.

Researchers tested their technology on RoboBee, a bug-like flying robot no bigger than a quarter. A small jolt of static electricity emitted through a tiny foam patch on the bee’s head allows it to land on and adhere to the underside of a plant or to the ceiling.

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A new cheaper way in creating magnets.

US researchers have created a powerful permanent magnet out of iron and nitrogen, two plentiful cheap materials, as part of a programme to cut the need for ‘rare earth’ metals.

It is only a tiny sample, a film 500nm thick, but it is the real thing.

“To the best of our knowledge, this could be the first experimental evidence of the existence of a giant saturation magnetisation, an obviously large coercivity, with a magnetic energy product of up to 20 MGOe, in a bulk-type FeN sample.” said the team in ‘Synthesis of Fe16 N2 compound free-standing foils with 20MGOe magnetic energy product by nitrogen ion-implantation’, a Nature Scientic Reports paper written by a team from the University of Minnesota, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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