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A QEG team has provided unprecedented visibility into the spread of information in large quantum mechanical systems, via a novel measurement methodology and metric described in a new article in Physics Review Letters. The team has been able, for the first time, to measure the spread of correlations among quantum spins in fluorapatite crystal, using an adaptation of room-temperature solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques. Researchers increasingly believe that a clearer understanding of information spreading is not only essential to understanding the workings of the quantum realm, where classical laws of physics often do not apply, but could also help engineer the internal “wiring” of quantum computers, sensors, and other devices....

Now a study led by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and University of Southern California (USC) revealed that this biological response hinged on unexpectedly high concentrations of nitrate, despite the negligible amount of nitrogen in basaltic lava. The research team determined that nitrate was brought to the surface of the ocean when heat from the substantial input of lava into the ocean warmed nutrient-rich deep waters and caused them to rise up, supplying the sunlit layer with nutrients....

Defective mitochondria – the ‘batteries’ that power the cells of our bodies – could in the future be repaired using gene-editing techniques. Scientists at the University of Cambridge have shown that it is possible to modify the mitochondrial genome in live mice, paving the way for new treatments for incurable mitochondrial disorders. Our cells contain mitochondria, which provide the energy for our cells to function. Each of these mitochondria contains a tiny amount of mitochondrial DNA....

Large impacts on the Moon can form wide craters and turn surface rock liquid. Geophysicists once assumed that liquid rock would be homogenous when it cooled. Now researchers have found evidence that pre-existing mineralogy can survive impact melt. Despite the unimaginable energy produced during large impacts on the Moon, those impacts may not wipe the mineralogical slate clean, according to new research led by Brown University geoscientists. The researchers have discovered a rock body with a distinct mineralogy snaking for 18 miles across the floor of Copernicus crater, a 60-mile-wide hole on the Moon’s near side....

Tens of billions spent on habitat and surveillance would avoid trillions of annual costs. We can pay now or pay far more later. That’s the takeaway of a new peer-reviewed study, published on February 4, 2022, in the journal Science Advances, that compares the costs of preventing a pandemic to those incurred trying to control one. “It turns out prevention really is the best medicine,” said Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at Duke University, who was co-lead author of the study....

In a new study, the researchers showed that by delivering a combination of antibiotic drugs and probiotics, they could eradicate two strains of drug-resistant bacteria that often infect wounds. To achieve this, they encapsulated the probiotic bacteria in a protective shell of alginate, a biocompatible material that prevents the probiotics from being killed by the antibiotic. “There are so many bacteria now that are resistant to antibiotics, which is a serious problem for human health....

Operating since the end of November, this pulsar-based timing system is hosted in the Galileo Timing and Geodetic Validation Facility of ESA’s ESTEC establishment, at Noordwijk in the Netherlands, and relies on ongoing observations by a five-strong array of radio telescopes across Europe. Neutron stars are the densest form of the observable matter in the cosmos, formed out of the collapsed core of exploding stars. Tiny in cosmic terms, on the order of a dozen kilometers in diameter, they still have a higher mass than Earth’s Sun....

Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have excellent electronic and mechanical properties, making them ideal candidates for use in a wide range of electronic devices, including the thin-film transistors found in LCD displays. A problem is that only two-thirds of manufactured SWCNTs are suitable for use in electronic devices. The useful semiconducting SWCNTs must be separated from the unwanted metallic ones. But the most powerful purification process, known as aqueous two-phase extraction, currently involves the use of a costly polysaccharide, called dextran....

In the case of quasars, our viewing angle is such that these dusty tori do not obscure the light and the bright core of a quasar dominates the galaxy’s emission. The most distant known quasar dates from the era only about 700 million years after the big bang, with dozens more known dating from the first few billion years. One outstanding puzzle is how the supermassive black holes in these young quasars could have formed in the short time available since the universe existed....

University of Queensland researchers have successfully verified a counterintuitive idea from quantum theory – that ignorance of the whole does not necessarily imply ignorance of the parts – in the lab. UQ physicist Dr. Jacqui Romero from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS) said the team’s findings would be important when evaluating security in quantum encryption. “What’s also really nice is that we provide an accessible, real-world interpretation of a statement that comes from pure probability theory,” Dr....

Only six individual were ever found, with the last published record of this Australian endemic bee species, Pharohylaeus lactiferus (Colletidae: Hylaeinae), from 1923 in Queensland. “This is concerning because it is the only Australian species in the Pharohylaeus genus and nothing was known of its biology,” Flinders University researcher James Dorey says in a new scientific paper in the journal Journal of Hymenoptera Research. The hunt began after fellow bee experts Olivia Davies and Dr....

Scientists studying the most common and aggressive type of brain tumor in adults have discovered a new way of analyzing diseased and healthy cells from the same patient. Crucially, the work which has been funded by the charity Brain Tumour Research could pave the way for truly personalized treatment for patients diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Only 25% of patients with this type of brain tumor survive for more than one year and just 5% live for more than five years....

UMass Amherst research first to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in infant stool. Women vaccinated against COVID-19 transfer SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to their breastfed infants, potentially giving their babies passive immunity against the coronavirus, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research. The study, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, measured the immune response to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in both breast milk and the stools of breastfed infants. “This research is the first to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in stool samples from infants of vaccinated mothers,” says lead author Vignesh Narayanaswamy, a Ph....

In a new study out of University of California San Diego School of Medicine, researchers found a drug used for heart failure improves symptoms associated with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, otherwise known as POTS. This complex, debilitating disorder affects the body’s autonomic nervous system, causing a high heart rate, usually when standing. Writing in the February 15, 2021, online issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, study authors investigated the drug ivabradine and its effects on heart rate, quality of life and plasma norepinephrine levels in persons living with POTS....

Researchers at Yale, Oxford, the University of Leicester, Imperial College London, and University College London have identified a 430 million-year-old fossil as a new species related to living sea cucumbers. They named the creature Sollasina cthulhu, after H.P. Lovecraft’s tentacled monster, Cthulhu. A study announcing the discovery appears on April 10 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The new cthulhu, Sollasina, had 45 tentacle-like tube feet, which it used to crawl along the ocean floor and capture food....

Researchers have now found that electrons play a surprising role in the energy transfer between layers of 2D semiconductor materials WSe2 and WS2. Despite the layers not being tightly bonded, electrons bridge the gap and facilitate rapid heat transfer. “Our work shows that we need to go beyond the analogy of Lego blocks to understand stacks of disparate 2D materials, even though the layers aren’t strongly bonded to one another,” said Archana Raja, a scientist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), who led the study....

This feature of light is more than a mathematical trick; optical quantum memory, optical storage, and other systems that depend on interactions of just a few photons at a time rely on the process, called electromagnetically induced transparency, also known as EIT. Because of its usefulness in existing and emerging quantum and optical technologies, researchers are interested in the ability to manipulate EIT without the introduction of an outside influence, such as additional photons that could perturb the already delicate system....

Pancreatic cancer is a highly deadly form of cancer, ranking third in the United States after lung and colorectal cancer, albeit less prevalent. It is also one of the most challenging cancers to effectively treat, with pancreatic cancer stem cells rapidly developing resistance to both conventional and targeted treatments like chemotherapy and immunotherapies. Consequently, the 5-year survival rate for individuals diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is a mere 10%. An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, has uncovered another mechanism by which the most resistant pancreatic cancer cells evade treatment....

The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is suspected of being linked to a small number of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) cases, which recently emerged within Europe as millions of people received vaccinations. This led several countries to suspend AstraZeneca injections and investigate the causal links to DVT. Researchers within Europe teamed up to explore a hypothesis that pausing AstraZeneca vaccinations, even for a short duration, could cause additional deaths from the faster spread of COVID-19 within a population of susceptible individuals....

Gamma-rays are the most energetic known form of electromagnetic radiation, with each gamma ray being at least one hundred thousand times more energetic than an optical light photon. The most potent gamma rays, the so-called VHE (very high energy) gamma rays, pack energies a billion times this amount, or even more. Astronomers think that VHE gamma rays are produced in the environment of the winds or jets of the compact, ultra-dense remnant ashes of massive stars left behind from supernova explosions....