Lifeboat Foundation

Predictions indicate that disorder induced by immobile imperfections does not prevent organisms from moving collectively as a group.

Improved fabrication methods for qubits made from erbium-doped silicon waveguides give these qubits the key prerequisites for becoming a contender for future quantum computers.

From superconducting circuits to single atoms, there are many quantum-bit—or “qubit”—systems to choose from when building a quantum computer. New to the game are qubits made from individual erbium atoms implanted in silicon waveguides. Each of these qubits can be controlled and measured with telecom-wavelength light, making the platform practical to implement. But the platform has unfavorable properties that have put that implementation on hold. Now Andreas Reiserer of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany and his colleagues have improved the qubit’s fabrication and detection methods, such that it is viable for near-future use in quantum computing technologies [1]. The results suggest that erbium-doped silicon waveguides could make more promising qubits than previously thought.

One problem with previous erbium-doped silicon waveguides came from the uneven clustering of erbium atoms around impurities in the waveguide. This clustering meant that the erbium atoms had different transition frequencies, making it difficult to simultaneously address multiple atoms and to perform basic operations between them—a necessary component of quantum information processing.

“Dicamba drift”—the movement of the herbicide dicamba off crops through the atmosphere—can result in unintentional damage to neighboring plants. To prevent dicamba drift, other chemicals, typically amines, are mixed with dicamba to “lock” it in place and prevent it from volatilizing, or turning into a vapor that more easily moves in the atmosphere.

Now, new research from the lab of Kimberly Parker, an assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis’ McKelvey School of Engineering, has shed new light on this story by demonstrating for the first time that these amines themselves volatilize, often more than dicamba itself.

Their findings were published Sept. 23 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

When a volcanic eruption occurs in an inhabited area, rapid and accurate lava flow forecasts can save lives and reduce infrastructure and property losses. To ensure that current lava forecasting models can provide outputs fast enough to be useful in practice, they unfortunately must incorporate physical simplifications that limit their accuracy.

To aid evacuation plans, forecast models must predict a lava flow’s speed, direction, and extent. These attributes are intimately connected to how the lava solidifies as it cools. Yet to achieve real-time speed, most current models assume that a flow has a uniform temperature. This is a major simplification that directly influences modeled rates of cooling; generally, lava flows are much cooler at their boundaries, where they are in contact with air or the ground, than they are internally.

Aiming to strike a better compromise between speed and realism, David Hyman and a team developed a 2D, physics-based lava flow model called Lava2d. They extended the traditional, vertically averaged treatment of a lava packet by considering it as three distinct regions: the portion near the lava-air boundary, the portion near the lava-ground boundary, and the fluidlike central core. The top and bottom regions of a modeled flow cool based on the physics of heat transfer to the air and ground, while the temperature in the center remains uniform, as in prior approaches. This setup enables the model to account for a temperature gradient without requiring a computationally expensive 3D approach.

The finding is a turning point in cancer research.

Two major studies published in Nature.

Continue reading “Major breakthrough in cancer research: Papers reveal ‘dark matter’ that contributes to disease’s growth” »

This harkens back to the first time he spoke about Twitter as a town square.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has now confirmed he is buying Twitter. The billionaire has tweeted a letter of sorts addressed to the advertisers who use Twitter. In the letter, Musk explains why he bought Twitter and that most of the speculation surrounding the purchase has been wrong.

Twitter is important to civilization

Continue reading “Elon Musk tweets that the social media platform he’s buying is important to civilization” »

It’s going to get even worse, says the CEO in the earnings call.

Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of building the future of the internet is costing Meta billions of dollars every quarter. In the quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, Reality Labs, Meta’s division tasked with building the metaverse, reported a loss of $3.67 billion in the period between July through September, up from $2.8 billion in the previous quarter, Engadget.

IStock/COM & O

Continue reading “Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse dream is costing billions — and Meta plans to spend more next year” »

In the ongoing work to realize the full potential of quantum computing, scientists could perhaps try peering into our own brains to see what’s possible: A new study suggests that the brain actually has a lot in common with a quantum computer.

It’s illegal to use the carcinogenic color additive Red 3 in cosmetics, such as lipsticks or blush, or externally applied drugs. Yet the discredited chemical is lurking in common varieties of candy corn, Nerds, Peeps, Pez, SweeTarts, and hundreds of candies, cakes, and other foods, including dozens of seasonal Halloween items. That’s why the Center for Science in the Public Interest and 23 other organizations and prominent scientists are today urging the Food and Drug Administration to formally remove Red 3 from the list of approved color additives in foods, dietary supplements, and oral medicines.

Since the early 1980s FDA had evidence that Red 3 caused cancer in laboratory animals. The National Toxicology Program considered the evidence “convincing.” As a result, in 1990, the agency eliminated certain “provisionally listed” uses of the chemical—meaning cosmetics and externally applied drugs. In 1990, FDA also said it would “take steps” to ban its use in foods, ingested drugs, and supplements. But those steps were never taken.

“Halloween has never been the healthiest holiday, but few parents would believe that the FDA permits the use of a dye it acknowledges as a carcinogen to be used as a common ingredient in candy,” said CSPI consultant Lisa Y. Lefferts. “Fewer still would believe that the FDA prohibits this carcinogen in makeup but allows it in food.”