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New test certifies quantum measurements that simpler methods cannot mimic

Proving that one quantum measurement is more powerful than another has long been difficult. Physicists from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Lund University and the University of Innsbruck have now developed and demonstrated a simple technique to certify that a certain class of measurements has properties that cannot be mimicked by simpler means. Their paper is published in the journal PRX Quantum.

Measurements are central to all quantum technologies. They are said to “collapse” the quantum state they act on, destroying its quantum properties and serving as the bridge to the classical world. Curiously, quantum mechanics allows for measurements that are more general than the ones we can directly associate with classical properties of a system.

These generalized measurements, or POVMs, short for Positive Operator Valued Measures, are not just a mathematical curiosity. They are known to improve performance in tasks like distinguishing between quantum states that would otherwise be indistinguishable, extracting more information from quantum sensors and securing quantum communication.

Does multitasking ability really differ by sex? Not in the way you’d think

Research simulates real-life multitasking performance to assess potential differences between men and women. When coordinating five different tasks, men ignored the conversational task more than twice as often as women, while showing similar performance to women in all other tasks.

Multitasking, defined as the ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously or switch between them, has become a central feature of modern life, occurring in contexts such as driving, work, household activities and even leisure. Despite the widespread stereotype that women are better at multitasking, research has shown only small and inconsistent sex differences, calling into question the existence of meaningful differences in this domain.

In light of this, with the support of the Bial Foundation, André and Diana Szameitat (from Brunel University of London and City St George’s, University of London, UK, respectively) conducted a study to clarify whether sex differences in multitasking exist and to explore possible explanations for the origin of this stereotype.

NASA space telescope maps magnetic fields of ‘Lighthouse’ pulsar

For the first time, scientists have used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) to directly measure the magnetic fields of PSR J1101−6101, a pulsar located within what is often referred to as the Lighthouse Nebula. The results provide new insight into the structure of some of the most extreme objects in the cosmos, as NASA continues to explore the secrets of how the universe works. A paper describing the results was published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal.

A pulsar is a type of neutron star with a strong magnetic field that spins incredibly fast. The pulsar at the center of the Lighthouse Nebula is rotating 16 times per second. Neutron stars are the leftover cores of massive stars, formed at the end of their life cycles, that possess more mass than the sun. They are condensed down to the size of a city, making them natural laboratories for studying extreme physics.

In June 2025, IXPE spent nearly 18 days focused on the Lighthouse Nebula.

New model maps solar storms across 1 million miles around Earth

A team at the Applied Physics Lab is working to understand the complex science behind predicting invisible threats that can quickly cripple electric grid infrastructure on Earth.

On the morning of Sept. 1, 1859, telegraph operators all over North America and Europe suddenly lost control of their machines. Lines disconnected. Wires sparked and caught fire. Operators received electric shocks.

The source of this widespread disturbance was more than 150 million kilometers (more than 93 million miles) away: the sun. That night, a solar storm caused brilliant auroras to appear far beyond Earth’s poles, waking people in some regions who mistook the light for morning.

Dark energy flips its sign, but the Hubble tension refuses to budge

For nearly a century, astronomers have known that the universe is expanding. In the late 1990s, two independent teams, the Supernova Cosmology Project, led by Saul Perlmutter, and the High-Z Supernova Search Team, led by Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess, discovered something strange: The expansion is speeding up. The finding earned them the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. The leading explanation for this acceleration is “dark energy,” a mysterious force usually modeled as a constant called Lambda, pushing space apart. Combined with cold dark matter, this gives us the LCDM model, the standard picture of the cosmos for the past 25 years.

LCDM is remarkably successful. It fits observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), i.e., the leftover glow from the Big Bang, as well as maps of galaxy clustering and the brightness of exploding stars called Type Ia supernovae. But it has one nagging problem: the Hubble tension.

Cosmologists have proposed dark energy that switches sign over cosmic history. A rigorous new analysis published in Physical Review D checks whether it actually closes the gap.

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