The Quantum Object

Physicists bring human-scale object to near standstill, reaching a quantum state

June 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-physicists-human-scale-standstill-quantum-state.html

I am officially reading science fiction in real time. I have to copy directly from the article to translate the full impact.

But first, a small bit of background -- to stabilize a single pair of entangled photons, even at absolute zero temperatures, has been one of the most important and mind-boggling achievements in science ever. This article is NOT talking about single photons, but macroscopic collections of atoms, an octillion of atoms.

It's the approach that's even more staggering:

Now for the first time, scientists at MIT and elsewhere have cooled a large, human-scale object to close to its motional ground state. The object isn't tangible in the sense of being situated at one location, but is the combined motion of four separate objects, each weighing about 40 kilograms. The "object" that the researchers cooled has an estimated mass of about 10 kilograms, and comprises about 1x1026, or nearly 1 octillion, atoms.

The researchers took advantage of the ability of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) to measure the motion of the masses with extreme precision and super-cool the collective motion of the masses to 77 nanokelvins, just shy of the object's predicted ground state of 10 nanokelvins.

The scientists say they now have a chance to observe the effect of gravity on a massive quantum object.

"Nobody has ever observed how gravity acts on massive quantum states," says Vivishek Sudhir, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, who directed the project.

via Massachusetts Institute of Technology: C. Whittle el al., "Approaching the motional ground state of a 10-kg object," Science (2021). DOI: 10.1126/science.abh2634

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6548/1333

Unrelated image: Caleidoscope on Fractal Forums circa 2017

The Body Buddy

Could plants help us find dead bodies? Forensic botanists want to know

Sep 2020, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-dead-bodies-forensic-botanists.html

Body recovery they call it. Cadaver metabolites: "One thought is if we had a specific person who went missing who was, let's say, a heavy smoker, they could have a chemical profile that could trigger some sort of unique plant response making them easier to locate." Stewart remarks.

Obviously from U of Tennessee's Body Farm: Trends in Plant Science, Brabazon et al.: "Plants to remotely detect human decomposition?" DOI: 10.1016/j.tplants.2020.07.013

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2020.07.013

Guilty as Charged

Consciousness is clickbait, and quantum consciousness is mega-clickbait, so I usually avoid it, but fractal quantum consciousness? They got me. 

Image credit: Fractal Forums, 2018

First let's talk about fractals in real life.

I have the same thing happen in my dreams that you do. I'm trying to leave the house, and I forget something, and now I'm on a side mission to get that thing, but then I forget something else I need for the side thing, and now I'm on a side-side mission, but then I forget something else, ... and it repeats until I wake up. (I never make it out of the house.) 

This happens in real life, at least in New Jersey it does -- you're on a main road and need to make a left, but you have to first make a right, in order to get on an overpass (like a jughandle, aka Jersey left). But when you make the first right, you realize you can't turn from there to the overpass; you instead have to make another right, onto a road parallel to the first main road you were on, but now going in the opposite direction. But even still, you find you can't make a left off this road, so you have to make another right, ad infinitum.

The trajectory of your quest has collapsed into a fractal dimension, from which you might never make it back. 

This year, the recursive nature of consciousness is showing up in some interesting studies. It's beginning to look like those psychedelic images of the Mandelbrot set aren't just a good visual metaphor, they might underlie actual brain patterns, and get us closer to understanding what consciousness is. 

Fractal brain networks support complex thought

Oct 2021, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-09-fractal-brain-networks-complex-thought.html

A Dartmouth study has found a new way to look at brain networks using the mathematical notion of fractals, to convey communication patterns between different brain regions as people listened to a short story.

Researchers show that brain networks organize in a similar way: patterns of brain interactions are mirrored simultaneously at different scales.

When people engage in complex thoughts, their networks seem to spontaneously organize into fractal-like patterns. When those thoughts are disrupted, the fractal patterns become scrambled and lose their integrity.

The study shows that when people listened to an audio recording of a 10-minute story, their brain networks spontaneously organized into fourth-order [fractal] network patterns. ... However, this organization was disrupted when the story's paragraphs were randomly shuffled.

"The more finely the story was shuffled, the more the fractal structures of the network patterns were disrupted,"

-Lucy Owen, first author and graduate student in psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth, link

""

And it works just like you think it would:

The results show that the smallest scale (first-order) interactions occurred in brain regions that process raw sounds. Second-order interactions linked these raw sounds with speech processing regions, and third-order interactions linked sound and speech areas with a network of visual processing regions. The largest-scale (fourth-order) interactions linked these auditory and visual sensory networks with brain structures that support high-level thinking. 

via Dartmouth College: High-level cognition during story listening is reflected in high-order dynamic correlations in neural activity patterns, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25876-x

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25876-x

3D Fractal w Fragmentarium - Adam Majewski on Fractal Forums - 2018

Can consciousness be explained by quantum physics? Research is closer to finding out

Jul 2021, phys.org

https://sciencex.com/news/2021-07-consciousness-quantum-physics-closer.html

The Penrose-Hameroff theory of quantum consciousness argues that microtubules are structured in a fractal pattern which would enable quantum processes to occur.

First they created a quantum fractal by arranging electrons in a  Sierpiński triangle. But now they're using photonics to watch the electrons move in real time. And this means that quantum fractals behave differently than classical fractals. So now they think it's time to revisit.

via Cristiane de Morais Smith and Xian-Min Jin at Shanghai Jiaotong University: Xu, XY., Wang, XW., Chen, DY. et al. Quantum transport in fractal networks. Nat. Photon. (2021).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00845-4

Now that you've been primed on the potential fractal nature of consciousness, it's time to enter the n-dimensional world. 

This next study should make your head spin, literally --

New research finds that collective neural activity is shaped like the surface of a doughnut

Jan 2022, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-neural-surface-doughnut.html

We already know about grid cells, they were discovered not long ago. Grid cells are the types of brain cells that map where you are in space -- your brain keeps a map in your head that's compressed by a layer of hexagonal grid coordinates. 

But now, they found that the grid itself is not a never-ending expanse of hexagons that surrounds us in two dimensions. Instead, it's a grid superimposed on a toroid (but you might call it a donut). That means the map is not two-dimensional, but multidimensional. 

This is because the grid cells do not form as a result of our motor activity as we travel over the  two-dimensional surface of the Earth. Instead these cells form based on their own innate tendencies to arrange in a way that represents a toroid more than a flat grid. Note this is the shape of the data we're talking about, not the shape of the cluster of cells themselves. It's the way the cells interact, not how they're actually laid out. (Kind of like thinking of the difference between actual distance and Hamming distance.)

The big deal though, is that it hints to us how the brain orchestrates all these subregions, coordinating together to create the complexities of higher-order functioning (the kind referenced above as "4th order"). It lies in the network structures, and in this case, those structures are part of continuous attractor networks. (They did get a lot of help from a new tool called Neuropixels, which allows access to raw output from neurons from all over the brain, all at the same time.)

So network theory will become a bigger part of understanding how the brain works. And meanwhile, we can just trip out on the idea that even when walking in a straight line, our brain is superimposing that data on a toroid model. 

Tl;dr -- The brain thinks the landscape is a toroid. (Even in your dreams; or especially in your dreams).

via Norwegian University of Science and Technology's Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience: Richard J. Gardner et al, Toroidal topology of population activity in grid cells, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04268-7

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04268-7

Further Reading:

Isaac Asimov's Robot Dreams -- a robot named Elvex (LVX-1) is updated with "fractal geometry" because the offending young scientist though it would "produce a brain pattern with more complexity, possibly closer to that of a human". The robot begins to dream about self-preservation, in direct opposition to the Laws of Robots, and is subsequently killed ("killed"?).

Maertens, James W. , Donald E. Palumbo. "Chaos Theory, Asimov's Foundations and Robots, and Herbert's Dune: the Fractal Aesthetic of Epic Science Fiction." Utopian Studies, vol. 14, no. 1, winter 2003, pp. 244+. Penn State University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20718595

The Hyperbolic Geometry of DMT Experiences at the Harvard Science of Psychedelics Club in the year 2020, with Andrés Gómez Emilsson from the Qualia Research Institute

https://www.youtube.com/c/QualiaResearchInstitute/videos

Quantum Fractals, 2019

https://networkaddress.blogspot.com/2019/01/quantum-fractals.html

In Silico, In Vivo

The idea for In Silico was first used to describe cellular automata, a kind of artificial life created using a computer and an algorithm. Its first instance in writing comes to us from the Sante Fe Institute, circa 1990.

Today, you can use this helpful distinction to figure out whether that recent covid study was done on humans (just kidding), golden hamsters, isolated neuron cells, or a computer simulation of a spike protein. 

Leaving the world of contemporary research, and thinking about the future of hybrid human bodies, we employ the idea of In Silico to mean something completely different -- 

Artificial fiber spun from liquid crystal elastomer using electricity performs like human muscle fiber

Sep 2021, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2021-09-artificial-fiber-spun-liquid-crystal.html

The new technique involved using a process called electrospinning—a decade's old process developed for smart textiles and in some cases tissue regeneration. In their approach, the researchers started with a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE), which is a type of polymer. They created a solution containing a small amount of LCE and sucked it into a very small syringe-like apparatus. They then subjected the apparatus to a burst of very high voltage which resulted in the polymer shooting out of the tip of the apparatus as a very thin stream. The stream was directed at a spinning metal mesh that served as a collector. As the stream dried, it formed into an elastic fiber measuring 10 to 100 micrometers in diameter, depending on the size of the hole in the tip of the apparatus. Testing of the fiber showed it to have properties similar to human muscle fibers such as tensile strength, high power density and quick responsiveness. They also found the fiber could be activated (constricted) using either heat or near-infrared light.

The researchers note that their process is both easy and inexpensive, suggesting it could be used to create fibers for a wide variety of applications.

via University of California Dan Diego: Qiguang He et al, Electrospun liquid crystal elastomer microfiber actuator, Science Robotics (2021). DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.abi9704

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.abi9704

Unrelated image credit: Biocompatible 3D-printed Titanium Alloy w Cells, Cornell University, 2021

Notes:

"Physiological Studies in silico" by Hans Sieburg, in the book The Proceedings of the 1990 Complex Systems Summer School Santa Ee, New Mexico June, 1990.

https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429503573

Look Mom No Data

AKA From Deep Learning to Deep Reasoning

DRNets can solve Sudoku, speed scientific discovery

Sep 2021, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2021-09-drnets-sudoku-scientific-discovery.html

You can teach a machine to recognize a dog by showing it 1,000 pictures of dogs, Gomes said, but scientific discovery is not like that.

"You are not going to have lots and lots of labeled data," she said. "And in general, the examples you have are not exactly what you are looking for, but then you reason about what you know scientifically about the domain, and you can infer new knowledge."

Key to DRNets is the idea of an "interpretable latent space." Basically, it gives DRNets the ability to reason about the constraints of the domain—in this case materials science—from input data.

They started with Sudoku -- de-mixing overlapping handwritten Sudoku puzzles—grids. The computer had to separate the puzzles into two solved Sudokus, without any training data, which it was able to achieve with close to 100% accuracy.

The researchers then put DRNets to work on a real-world problem: automating crystal-structure phase mapping of solar-fuels materials, using X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns. Crystal-structure phase mapping involves separating the source XRD signals of the desired crystal structures from "noisy" mixtures of XRD patterns, a task for which labeled training data are typically not available. ... DRNets was able to identify and separate a total of 13 crystal phases (single-phase materials) in 19 unique mixtures of the single-phase materials. ... DRNets' findings, verified using manual analysis, enable the discovery of complex mixtures of crystalline materials that convert solar energy into storable solar chemical fuels.

via Cornell University: Di Chen et al, Automating crystal-structure phase mapping by combining deep learning with constraint reasoning, Nature Machine Intelligence (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s42256-021-00384-1

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42256-021-00384-1

Image credit: De-Mixed Sudoko, Cornell University, 2021

Programmable Matter and Ubiquitous Intelligence

Intelligence is going to be embedded in everything -- smart clothes, smart furniture, smart air.

I still think of a computer as a piece of hardware, a metal box with "electronics" inside. But if you told me that a cup of water could also be a computer, I'd have a hard time imagining that. It's one of those paradigm shifts that separates us from the future. Like if you just discovered fire, but then someone tells you there's another way to "cook" food in the slow fire of fermentation.

You would realize that food is cooking all the time, without our intervention. We just learned how to control it. 

If I try to imagine that a river can be a computer, it's hard. You mean the weather itself can be a computer that we can then use to forecast the weather? Yes, something like that, but not really (Gödel might want a word). 

Image credit: Efoia via Fractal Forums - Pseudo-kleinian folded with sphere inversion rendered in Oak Fractal Sandbox with Monte Carlo path tracing - 2017 [link]

How simple liquids like water can perform complex calculations

Jan 2022, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-01-simple-liquids-complex.html

Reservoir computing is a relatively recent idea in computing. Instead of traditional binary programs run on semiconductor chips, the reactions of a nonlinear dynamical system—the reservoir—are used to perform much of the calculation. Various nonlinear dynamical systems from quantum processes to optical laser components have been considered as reservoirs.

"It turns out that deionized water is best for solving second-order nonlinear problems." The good performance of these solutions demonstrates their potential for more complicated tasks, such as handwriting font recognition, isolated word recognition, and other classification tasks", says Professor Akai-Kasaya.

I'm having visions of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris (1961), which featured an extra-terrestial intelligent terrestrial, aka a planetary superorganism. Considering that Lem intended to explore "the limitations of human rationality", I imagine he would enjoy seeing this branch of science develop.

via Osaka University: Shaohua Kan et al, Physical Implementation of Reservoir Computing through Electrochemical Reaction, Advanced Science (2021). DOI: 10.1002/advs.202104076

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/advs.202104076

Researchers find a single-celled slime mold with no nervous system that remembers food locations

Feb 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-single-celled-slime-mold-nervous-food.html

The researchers discovered that the organism weaves memories of food encounters directly into the architecture of the network-like body and uses the stored information when making future decisions.

"Past feeding events are embedded in the hierarchy of tube diameters, specifically in the arrangement of thick and thin tubes in the network," says Mirna Kramar, first author of the study. 

via Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and Technical University of Munich: Mirna Kramar et al. Encoding memory in tube diameter hierarchy of living flow network, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2007815118

http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2007815118

Thinking without a brain - Studies in brainless slime molds reveal that they use physical cues to decide where to grow

Jul 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-brain-brainless-slime-molds-reveal.html

Physarum polycephalum uses its body to sense mechanical cues in its surrounding environment, and performs computations similar to what we call "thinking".

via Wyss Institute at Harvard University and the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University: Advanced Materials (2021). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202008161

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.202008161

Quantum Heartbeat Encryption

AKA - Diamonds Are For Growing

Image credit: Random twists between layers of crystalline sheets - Neuroncollective dotcom, Daniel Spacek, Pavel Jirak, Chalmers University - 2021 [link]

Rounding up some common topics here, a meditation on the future of computing and ubiquitous intelligence -- quantum lasers, liquid crystals, optical lattices, photon traps, nanosandwiches; it's hard to keep track -- 

The modern world is fast becoming a wireless, infrared world

June 2020, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-06-modern-world-fast-wireless-infrared.html

Steerable, narrow infrared beams sending large amounts of data to individual user devices sounds like a solution to the limits of radio-based wifi: Optical wireless communications, which use optical wavelengths over a wide spectral range from a few hundred nanometers to a few micrometers that includes visible and infrared radiation. Ton Koonen and researchers at the Institute for Photonic Integration are designing prototype systems with a capacity of more than two thousand times that of current shared WiFi systems. 

via Eindhoven University of Technology, Institute for Photonic Integration: Ton Koonen et al. Ultra-high-capacity wireless communication by means of steered narrow optical beams, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2019.0192

http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2019.0192

Researchers trap electrons to create elusive crystal

Nov 2020, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-electrons-elusive-crystal.html

Cornell researchers stacked two-dimensional semiconductors [monolayers of tungsten disulfide (WS2) and tungsten diselenide (WSe2)] to create a moiré superlattice structure that traps electrons in a repeating pattern, ultimately forming the long-hypothesized Wigner crystal.

via Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering, and the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science: Yang Xu et al. Correlated insulating states at fractional fillings of moiré superlattices, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2868-6

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2868-6

Diamonds are not just for jewelry anymore

Dec 2020, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-diamonds-jewelry-anymore.html

When it comes to the semiconductor industry, silicon has reigned as king in the electronics field, but it is coming to the end of its physical limits.

To more effectively power the electrical grid, locomotives and even electric cars, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are turning to diamond as an ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor.

Diamond has been shown to have superior carrier mobility, break down electric field and thermal conductivity, the most important properties to power electronic devices. It became especially desirable after the development of a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process for growth of high-quality single crystals.

via Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: P. Grivickas et al. Carrier recombination and diffusion in high-purity diamond after electron irradiation and annealing, Applied Physics Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1063/5.0028363

http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0028363

Advent of the 3-D diamond valleytronic transistor

Feb 2021, phys.org

https://sciencex.com/news/2021-02-advent-d-diamond-valleytronic-transistor.html

Not many people are aware of it, but diamond is actually a wide-bandgap semiconductor with many extremely good properties, such as high thermal conductivity, high breakdown field, high carrier mobilities and chemical inertness. These properties, together with the possibility to synthesize high-purity, single-crystalline diamond make it a very interesting material and a candidate for use in power electronics. The low impurity concentration achieved when fabricating diamond, together with its rigid lattice, cause it to exhibit a uniquely low scattering rate, especially at low temperatures. For this reason, electrons tend to remain in a defined valley and it is then possible to observe valley-polarized electron ensembles, which we have previously proven to exist.

via Uppsala university, Sweden, and Element Six, U.K.: Nattakarn Suntornwipat et al., "A Valleytronic Diamond Transistor: Electrostatic Control of Valley Currents and Charge-State Manipulation of NV Centers", Nano Letters 21, (1), 868-874 (2021), dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04712

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04712

Image credit: Soliton spectral interference patterns - Moritz B. Heindl University of Bayreuth - 2021

[link]

Scientists create liquid crystals that look a lot like their solid counterparts

Feb 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-scientists-liquid-crystals-lot-solid.html

May one day lead to new types of smart windows and television or computer displays that can bend and control light.

via University of Colorado at Boulder: Wensink, H.H. et al. Thermally reconfigurable monoclinic nematic colloidal fluids. Nature 590, 268–274 (2021). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03249-0

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03249-0

Using new quantum computing architectures to create time crystals

Nov 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-11-quantum-architectures-crystals.html

Just time crystals

via University of California - Berkeley: J. Randall et al, Many-body-localized discrete time crystal with a programmable spin-based quantum simulator, Science (2021). DOI: 10.1126/science.abk0603

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abk0603

A. Kyprianidis et al, Observation of a prethermal discrete time crystal, Science (2021). DOI: 10.1126/science.abg8102

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abg8102

Norman Y. Yao et al, Time crystals in periodically driven systems, Physics Today (2018). DOI: 10.1063/PT.3.4020

http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.4020

Fluorescent nanodiamonds successfully injected into living cells

Mar 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-fluorescent-nanodiamonds-successfully-cells.html

"Biocampatible" they say.

And for diagnostic purposes.

via Lund University: Elke Hebisch et al. Nanostraw‐Assisted Cellular Injection of Fluorescent Nanodiamonds via Direct Membrane Opening, Small (2021). DOI: 10.1002/smll.202006421

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smll.202006421

Image credit: Quantum Computer - MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab - 2022

New invention keeps qubits of light stable at room temperature

June 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-qubits-stable-room-temperature.html

Room temperature is always good.

"Right now, we produce the qubits of light at a low rate, one photon per second, while cooled systems can produce millions in the same amount of time. But we believe there are important advantages to this new technology and that we can overcome this challenge in time," Eugene concludes.

via University of Copenhagen: Karsten B. Dideriksen et al, Room-temperature single-photon source with near-millisecond built-in memory, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24033-8

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24033-8

Team develops quantum simulator with 256 qubits, largest of its kind ever created

Jul 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-team-quantum-simulator-qubits-largest.html

"Optical tweezer beams"

via Harvard: Sepehr Ebadi et al, Quantum phases of matter on a 256-atom programmable quantum simulator, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03582-4

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03582-4

Optical levitation of glass nanosphere enables quantum control

Jul 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-optical-levitation-glass-nanosphere-enables.html

Researchers at ETH Zurich have trapped a tiny sphere measuring a hundred nanometres using light and slowed down its motion to the lowest quantum mechanical state. This technique could help researchers to study quantum effects in macroscopic objects and build extremely sensitive sensors.

via ETH Zurich: Felix Tebbenjohanns et al, Quantum control of a nanoparticle optically levitated in cryogenic free space, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03617-w

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03617-w

Image credit: Six-fold symmetric microcavity, KAIST, 2021

Quantum laser turns energy loss into gain

Jul 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-quantum-laser-energy-loss-gain.html

Laser system that generates highly interactive quantum particles at room temperature. 

via The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology: Hyun Gyu Song et al, Room-temperature polaritonic non-Hermitian system with single microcavity, Nature Photonics (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-021-00820-z

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00820-z

Chinese achieve new milestone with 56 qubit computer

Jul 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-chinese-milestone-qubit.html

2D programable computer called Zuchongzhi

via University of Science and Technology of China: Strong quantum computational advantage using a superconducting quantum processor, arXiv:2106.14734 [quant-ph] arxiv.org/abs/2106.14734

https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.14734

Implementing a 46-node quantum metropolitan area network

Oct 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-node-quantum-metropolitan-area-network.html

Cool and everything, but this part stands out -- 

To join the network, a new user first had to send a heartbeat frame from their QKD (quantum key distribution) device to the key management server for authentication to then cue the device to generate keys. 

via Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China: Teng-Yun Chen et al, Implementation of a 46-node quantum metropolitan area network, npj Quantum Information (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41534-021-00474-3

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41534-021-00474-3

And: Sebastian Nauerth et al, Air-to-ground quantum communication, Nature Photonics (2013). DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.46

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.46

Image credit: Quantum Computer - Chao-Yang Lu University of Science and Technology of China - 2021

Two Chinese teams claim to have reached primacy with quantum computers

Oct 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-chinese-teams-primacy-quantum.html

56 cubits

via Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the University of Science and Technology of China: Han-Sen Zhong et al, Phase-Programmable Gaussian Boson Sampling Using Stimulated Squeezed Light, Physical Review Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.180502

http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.180502

A potential hangup for quantum computing - Cosmic rays

Dec 2021, Ars Technica

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/12/cosmic-rays-can-swamp-error-correction-on-quantum-processors/

It makes error correction not work, which makes quantum computers not work. 

via University of California, Santa Barbara, and Google Quantum AI: Resolving catastrophic error bursts from cosmic rays in large arrays of superconducting qubits. Nature Physics, 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41567-021-01432-8 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-021-01432-8

Tiny probes could sail to outer planets with the help of low-power lasers

Feb 2022, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-tiny-probes-outer-planets-low-power.html

Just space lasers -- I saw this on Sir Isaac Arthur's show, and it's become the default no-brainer when I try to imagine what space travel will be like. Why carry your fuel with you when you can keep it right here on Earth?

via American Chemical Society: Ho-Ting Tung et al, Low-Power Laser Sailing for Fast-Transit Space Flight, Nano Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04188

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04188

Researchers set record by preserving quantum states for more than 5 seconds

Feb 2022, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-quantum-states-seconds.html

via U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago: Christopher P. Anderson et al, Five-second coherence of a single spin with single-shot readout in silicon carbide, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm5912

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abm5912

Researchers show how to make a 'computer' out of liquid crystals

Mar 2022, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-03-liquid-crystals.html

Liquid crystals (yes, like LCD screens) are weird because their molecules are ordered like in a diamond crystal, yet they move around. So they have this property -- "the ordered regions bump up against each other and their orientations don't quite match, creating what scientists call "topological defects."

Scientists think these defects can carry information. And it looks like they're right -- they can create "the elementary building blocks of a circuit—gates, amplifiers, and conductors".

via University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Argonne National Laboratory: Rui Zhang et al, Logic operations with active topological defects, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg9060

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abg9060