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Researchers at the John Innes Centre have identified a biological mechanism that helps plant roots create a more hospitable environment for beneficial soil microbes. This breakthrough has the potential to promote more sustainable farming practices by reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers.

Most major crops currently rely on nitrate and phosphate fertilizers, but excessive fertilizer use can have harmful environmental consequences. By leveraging the natural, mutually beneficial relationships between plant roots and soil microbes to improve nutrient uptake, it may be possible to significantly cut down on the use of inorganic fertilizers.

Researchers in the group of Dr Myriam Charpentier discovered a mutation in a gene in the legume Medicago truncatula that reprogrammes the signaling capacity of the plant so that it enhances partnerships with nitrogen fixing bacteria called rhizobia and arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi (AMF) which supply roots with phosphorus.

MIT researchers are developing techniques to make quantum gates, the basic operations of a quantum computer, as fast as possible in order to reduce the impact of decoherence. However, as gates get faster, another type of error, arising from counter-rotating dynamics, can be introduced because of the way qubits are controlled using electromagnetic waves.

Single-qubit gates are usually implemented with a resonant pulse, which induces Rabi oscillations between the qubit states. When the pulses are too fast, however, “Rabi gates” are not so consistent, due to unwanted errors from counter-rotating effects. The faster the gate, the more the counter-rotating error is manifest. For low-frequency qubits such as fluxonium, counter-rotating errors limit the fidelity of fast gates.

“Getting rid of these errors was a fun challenge for us,” says Rower. “Initially, Leon had the idea to utilize circularly polarized microwave drives, analogous to circularly polarized light, but realized by controlling the relative phase of charge and flux drives of a superconducting qubit. Such a circularly polarized drive would ideally be immune to counter-rotating errors.”

A new tapered flow channel design for electrodes improves the efficiency of battery-based seawater desalination, potentially reducing energy use compared to reverse osmosis. This breakthrough may benefit other electrochemical devices, but manufacturing challenges need to be addressed.

Engineers have developed a solution to eliminate fluid flow “dead zones” in electrodes used for battery-based seawater desalination. This breakthrough involves a physics-driven tapered flow channel design within the electrodes, enabling faster and more efficient fluid movement. This design has the potential to consume less energy compared to conventional reverse osmosis techniques.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” Callum said, looking down at his hands as he wrung them together in his lap. “It’s just that everything feels like a dream. I know I’m not dreaming – I mean – I think I’m really here, but at the same time I’m not sure. Everything feels off somehow.”

A deep sigh. “No one gets what I mean.”

The slim 18-year-old across from me looks defeated, dejected and thoroughly fed up. This is typical in my line of work. Not just because I’m a mental health professional, so I rarely get to meet people who are in the middle of the best time of their lives, but because I specialize in dissociation and depersonalization.

The campaign is unique for its focus on the Chinese-speaking demographic and the use of software-related lures to activate the attack chain.

“Equally striking is the attackers’ sophisticated use of legitimate software as a delivery mechanism for malware, seamlessly blending malicious activities with seemingly benign applications,” Fishbein said.

“The adaptability of the PNGPlug loader further elevates the threat, as its modular design allows it to be tailored for multiple campaigns.”