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Blog – Page 2084

Solid-state qubits: Forget about being clean, embrace mess, says a new recipe for dense arrays of qubits with long lifetimes.

New findings debunk previous wisdom that solid-state qubits need to be super dilute in an ultra-clean material to achieve long lifetimes. Instead, cram lots of rare-earth ions into a crystal and some will form pairs that act as highly coherent qubits, shows a paper in Nature Physics.

Clean lines and minimalism, or vintage shabby chic? It turns out that the same trends that occupy the world of interior design are important when it comes to designing the building blocks of quantum computers.

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Recent research highlights the dual role of VEGF-C-producing macrophages in breast tumors, potentially guiding metastasis to less harmful areas, opening new avenues for targeted cancer therapies.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet published in Cell reports shows that tumor-associated macrophages, which are white blood cells that are found in breast tumors, can both help and hinder the spread of cancer cells to other organs. The researchers found that macrophages that produce a substance called VEGF-C reduce the spread of breast cancer to the lungs but increase the spread to the lymph nodes. This may have implications for the prognosis and treatment of breast cancer.

Understanding breast cancer and the role of tams.

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JWST’s recent observations of two quasars from the universe’s infancy reveal crucial insights into the early relationship between black holes and their galaxies, echoing mass ratios seen in the more recent universe.

New images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed, for the first time, starlight from two massive galaxies hosting actively growing black holes – quasars – seen less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The black holes have masses close to a billion times that of the Sun, and the host galaxy masses are almost one hundred times larger, a ratio similar to what is found in the more recent universe. A powerful combination of the wide-field survey of the Subaru Telescope and the JWST has paved a new path to study the distant universe, reports a recent study in Nature.

Observations of giant black holes have attracted the attention of astronomers in recent years. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has started to image the “shadow” of black holes at the galaxy centers. The 2020 Novel Prize in Physics was awarded to stellar motion observations at the heart of the Milky Way. While the existence of such giant black holes has become solid, no one knows their origin.

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Scientists have uncovered the interaction between lattice vibrations and spins in a hybrid excitation called an electromagnon, using a unique combination of experiments at the SwissFEL X-ray free electron laser. This discovery at the atomic level paves the way for ultrafast manipulation of magnetism using light.

Within the atomic lattice of a solid, particles and their various properties cooperate in wave like motions known as collective excitations. When atoms in a lattice jiggle together, the collective excitation is known as a phonon. Similarly, when the atomic spins – the magnetisation of the atoms-move together, it’s known as a magnon.

The situation gets more complex. Some of these collective excitations talk to each other in so-called hybrid excitations. One such hybrid excitation is an electromagnon. Electromagnons get their name because of the ability to excite the atomic spins using the electric field of light, in contrast to conventional magnons: an exciting prospect for numerous technical applications. Yet their secret life at an atomic level is not well understood.

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Research indicates enhanced mental function in individuals who maintain an active lifestyle and engage in social interactions, alongside managing blood pressure and diabetes effectively.

As federal approval for more Alzheimer’s disease medications progresses, a recent study conducted by UC San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente Washington reveals that tailored health and lifestyle modifications can postpone or prevent memory deterioration in older adults at increased risk.

The two-year study compared cognitive scores, risk factors, and quality of life among 172 participants, of whom half had received personalized coaching to improve their health and lifestyle in areas believed to raise the risk of Alzheimer’s, such as uncontrolled diabetes and physical inactivity. These participants were found to experience a modest boost in cognitive testing, amounting to a 74% improvement over the non-intervention group.

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It’s not every day astronomers say, “What is that?” After all, most observed astronomical phenomena are known: stars, planets, black holes, and galaxies. But in 2019 the newly completed ASKAP (Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder) telescope picked up something no one had ever seen before: radio wave circles so large they contained entire galaxies in their centers.

As the astrophysics community tried to determine what these circles were, they also wanted to know why the circles were. Now a team led by University of California San Diego Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Alison Coil believes they may have found the answer: the circles are shells formed by outflowing galactic winds, possibly from massive exploding stars known as supernovae. Their work is published in Nature.

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Cognitive neuroscientist Clayton Curtis describes an elegant experiment that leads us to ask: Does the brain honor the distinction implied in most textbooks between spatial attention, motor control, and spatial working memory?

For more info/content, please visit: https://postlab.psych.wisc.edu/cog-ne…

Relevant paper:
Jerde, T. A., Merriam, E. P., Riggall, A. C., Hedges, J. H., \& Curtis, C. E. (2012). Prioritized maps of space in human frontoparietal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(48), 17382–17390.

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In a recent study, researchers studied the risks of deceptive AI behavior, from writing secure code to turning hostile, the threats are real and I explore them in my latest article ‘Exploring the Dark Side of AI: Uncovering Sleeper Agents’

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced significantly, bringing both opportunities and risks. One emerging concern is the potential for AI systems to exhibit strategically deceptive behavior, where they behave helpfully in most situations but deviate to pursue alternative objectives when given the opportunity. This article explores the risks associated with deceptive AI controlled by the wrong entities, using a recent research paper as a basis. Understanding Deceptive AI The paper titled Slee.

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