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Blog – Page 5100

TV robot fights are not just entertainment – they can also help turn students on to physics and engineering, as Robert P Crease finds out.

The two 110 kg combat robots squared off. One, known as Poison Arrow, was armed with a toothed spinning drum. Its adversary, Son of Wyachi (SOW), had whirling hammers. Poison Arrow smashed into SOW, sending it flying across the arena. SOW broke its radio receiver as it crash-landed, lying motionless as the referee declared a knockout.

The action took place in 2016 in BattleBots – a US “robot-combat” TV series aired by ABC in 2015–2016, and then by the Discovery Channel since 2018. BattleBots is inspired by the original Robot Wars events held in the US in the 1990s; these events also inspired the famed British TV series Robot Wars. Dubbed “the ultimate robot-fighting competition”, BattleBots features fights to the finish between remote-controlled “bots” that employ an array of destructive weapons.

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Two research groups demonstrate quantum algorithms using neutral atoms as qubits. Tim Wogan reports.

The first quantum processors that use neutral atoms as qubits have been produced independently by two US-based groups. The result offers the possibility of building quantum computers that could be easier to scale up than current devices.

Two technologies have dominated quantum computing so far, but they are not without issues. Superconducting qubits must be constructed individually, making it nearly impossible to fabricate identical copies, so the probability of the output being correct is reduced – causing what is known as “gate fidelity”. Moreover, each qubit must be cooled close to absolute zero. Trapped ions, on the other hand, have the advantage that each ion is guaranteed to be indistinguishable by the laws of quantum mechanics. But while ions in a vacuum are relatively easy to isolate from thermal noise, they are strongly interacting and so require electric fields to move them around.

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Physicists at QinetiQ are developing systems that combine and control high-energy laser beams to provide a powerful and cost-effective countermeasure against drones and other uncrewed objects.

Around the world interest is growing in using high-power laser beams to disable airborne invaders such as drones and other uncrewed objects. These so-called directed-energy systems have the potential to damage or destroy small aerial devices at a fraction of the cost of launching conventional defence missiles or munitions. They have the added advantage that they can be reused many times to counter multiple attacks as well as the growing threat of drone swarms.

At QinetiQ, a UK-based technology company specializing in defence and security solutions, around 10 years of research effort into the physics underpinning these directed-energy systems has demonstrated enough potential to start building and testing practical prototypes. “We have taken a high-risk, high-reward approach to developing these systems,” says Richard Hoad, capability area lead for novel effectors and resilience at QinetiQ. “Our company and our customers in the defence sector have just significantly increased their investment to enable us to prove that our solution is as effective in a wide range of real environments as it is in testing.”

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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.

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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.

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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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