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Pedram Roushan, from Google’s Quantum AI team in California, describes this elusive form of matter – and how it could be simulated on the company’s Sycamore quantum processor.

With their enchanting beauty, crystalline solids have captivated us for centuries. Crystals, which range from snowflakes to diamonds, are made up of atoms or molecules that are regularly arranged in space. They have provided foundational insights that led to the development of the quantum theory of solids. Crystals have also helped develop a framework for understanding other spatially ordered phases, such as superconductors, liquid crystals and ferromagnets.

Periodic oscillations are another ubiquitous phenomenon. They appear at all scales, ranging from atomic oscillations to orbiting planets. For many years, we used them to mark the passage of time, and they even made us ponder the possibility of perpetual motion. What is common between these periodic patterns – either in space or time – is that they lead to systems with reduced symmetries. Without periodicity, any position in space, or any instance of time, is indistinguishable from any other. Periodicity breaks the translational symmetry of space or time.

Tight squeeze The Xanadu X8 quantum photonic processor used in the study. (Courtesy: Xanadu) Computers are made of chips, and in the future, some of those chips might use light as their main ingredient. Scientists from the Ontario, Canada-based…

Giant bacteria, Ca. Thiomargarita magnifica, have been found in Guadeloupe. They have organelles, DNA and measure one centimeter long.

Giant bacteria, Ca. Thiomargarita magnifica, have been found in Guadeloupe. They have organelles, DNA and measure one centimeter long.

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🎥 vGIS Inc.

A small trial of a new cancer drug has reportedly provided a result never before seen — the total remission of cancer in all of its participants.

According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, a dozen rectal cancer patients saw their tumors disappear completely after they received an experimental drug called dostarlimab.

“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,” Dr. Luis Alberto Diaz Jr., one of the trial leaders and a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center, told The New York Times.

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The crater could help identify the (probably Chinese) rocket.

LRO just identified a crater formed by the rocket booster that crashed into the far side of the Moon in March.

Error free quantum computing 😀

A fault-tolerant, universal set of single-and two-qubit quantum gates is demonstrated between two instances of the seven-qubit colour code in a trapped-ion quantum computer.

Worlds that hold onto their dense primordial atmospheres of hydrogen and helium may stay warm enough to maintain liquid water on their surfaces, even without starlight.