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In quantum mechanics, particles can exist in multiple states at the same time, defying the logic of everyday experiences. This property, known as quantum superposition, is the basis for emerging quantum technologies that promise to transform computing, communication, and sensing. But quantum superpositions face a significant challenge: quantum decoherence. During this process, the delicate superposition of quantum states breaks down when interacting with its surrounding environment.

To unlock the power of chemistry to build complex molecular architectures for practical quantum applications, scientists need to understand and control so that they can design with specific quantum coherence properties. Doing so requires knowing how to rationally modify a molecule’s chemical structure to modulate or mitigate quantum decoherence.

To that end, scientists need to know the “spectral density,” the quantity that summarizes how fast the environment moves and how strongly it interacts with the quantum system.

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Superconductors have intrigued physicists for decades. But these materials, which allow the perfect, lossless flow of electrons, usually only exhibit this quantum-mechanical peculiarity at temperatures so low—a few degrees above absolute zero—as to render them impractical.

A research team led by Harvard Professor of Physics and Applied Physics Philip Kim has demonstrated a new strategy for making and manipulating a widely studied class of higher-temperature superconductors called cuprates, clearing a path to engineering new, unusual forms of superconductivity in previously unattainable materials.

Using a uniquely low-temperature device fabrication method, Kim and his team report in the journal Science a promising candidate for the world’s first high-temperature, superconducting diode—essentially, a switch that makes current flow in one direction—made out of thin crystals.

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Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed a modeling tool for assessing the potential use of a nuclear device to defend the planet against catastrophic asteroid impacts.

The research, published today in the Planetary Science Journal, introduces a novel approach to simulating the from a nuclear device on an asteroid’s surface. This new tool improves our understanding of the nuclear deflection’s radiation interactions on the asteroid’s surface while opening the door to new research on the shockwave dynamics affecting the inner asteroid.

This model will allow researchers to build upon the insights gained from NASA’s recent Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, where, in Sept. 2022, a kinetic impactor was deliberately crashed into an asteroid to alter its trajectory. However, with limitations in the mass that can be lifted to space, scientists continue to explore nuclear deflection as a viable alternative to kinetic impact missions.

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An orange tabby cat named Taters stars in the first video transmitted by laser from deep space, stealing the show as he chases a red laser light.

The 15-second video was beamed to Earth from NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, 19 million miles (30 million kilometers) away. It took less than two minutes for the ultra high-definition video to reach Caltech’s Palomar Observatory, sent at the test system’s maximum rate of 267 megabits per second.

The video was loaded into Psyche’s laser communication experiment before the spacecraft blasted off to a rare metal asteroid in October. The mission team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, decided to feature an employee’s 3-year-old playful kitty.

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“Even now, quantum systems can serve as scientific tools,” Oliver Dial, IBM Quantum CTO told IE in an interview. Quantum utility might already be here, but will we soon see a company achieve quantum advantage?

But what exactly does that mean?

Oliver Dial, IBM Fellow and CTO, IBM Quantum walked us through some of these updates. In doing so, he highlighted the fact that “even now, quantum systems can serve as scientific tools to explore utility-scale classes of problems in chemistry, physics, and materials beyond brute force classical simulation of quantum mechanics.”

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Why are we mentally sharper at certain times of day? A study led by Jonathan Lipton MD, Ph.D., at Boston Children’s Hospital spells out the relationship between circadian rhythms—the body’s natural day/night cycles—and the brain connections known as synapses.

The work is the first to provide a cellular and molecular explanation for natural fluctuations over the day in alertness, cognition, and the ability to learn and remember.

“We have known for more than a century that the time of day influences cognition and memory, but until now the mechanisms have been elusive,” says Lipton, a sleep physician in the Department of Neurology and researcher in the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center.

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DNA is the building block of life, and the genetic alphabet comprises just four letters or nucleotides. These biochemical building blocks comprise all types of DNA, and scientists have long wondered whether creating working artificial DNA would be possible. Now, a breakthrough may finally provide the answer.

The main goal of a new study, the findings of which were published in Nature Communications this month, shows that scientists may finally be able to create new medicines for certain diseases by creating DNA with new nucleotides that can create custom proteins.

Being able to create artificial DNA could open the door for several important uses. Being able to expand the genetic code could very well diversify the “range of molecules we can synthesize in the lab,” the study’s senior author Dong Wang, Ph.D., explained (via Phys.org).

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A pair of roboticists at the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI), Technical University of Munich, in Germany, has found that it is possible to give robots some degree of proprioception using machine-learning techniques. In their study reported in the journal Science Robotics, Fernando Díaz Ledezma and Sami Haddadin developed a new machine-learning approach to allow a robot to learn the specifics of its body.

Giving robots the ability to move around in the real world involves fitting them with technology such as cameras and —data from such devices is then processed and used to direct the legs and/or feet to carry out appropriate actions. This is vastly different from the way animals, including humans, get the job done.

With animals, the brain is aware of its body state—it knows where the hands and legs are, how they work and how they can be used to move around or interact with the environment. Such knowledge is known as proprioception. In this new effort, the researchers conferred similar abilities to robots using .

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