CWL

A Quantum Internet at the Speed of Light?

The realization of quantum networks is one of the major challenges of modern physics. Now, new research shows how high-quality photons can be generated from ‘solid-state’ chips, bringing us closer to the quantum ‘internet’.

Image: An artist’s impression of distributed qubits (the bright spots) linked to each other via photons (the light beams). The colours of the beams represent that the optical frequency of the photons in each link can be tailored to the needs of the network. Credit: Mete Atature

The number of transistors on a microprocessor continues to double every two years, amazingly holding firm to a prediction by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore almost 50 years ago. If this is to continue, conceptual and technical advances harnessing the power of quantum mechanics in microchips will need to be investigated within the next decade.

“We are at the dawn of quantum-enabled technologies, and quantum computing is one of many thrilling possibilities,” says Dr Mete Atature from University of Cambridge Department of Physics. “Our results in particular suggest that multiple distant qubits in a distributed quantum network can share a highly coherent and programmable photonic interconnect that is liberated from the detrimental properties of the chips. Consequently, the ability to generate quantum entanglement and perform quantum teleportation between distant quantum-dot spin qubits with very high fidelity is now only a matter of time.”

Developing a distributed quantum network is one promising direction pursued by many researchers today. A variety of solid-state systems are currently being investigated as candidates for quantum bits of information, or qubits, as well as a number of approaches to quantum computing protocols, and the race is on for identifying the best combination.

Ref: Laser-like photons signal major step towards quantum ‘Internet’

joshbyard:

Chinese Researchers Achieve Quantum Teleportation at Macro Scale

So by entangling two photons, for instance, physicists have demonstrated the ability to transmit quantum information from one place to another by encoding it in these quantum states—influence one of the pair and a change can be measured in the other without any information actually passing between the two. Researchers have done this before, between photons, between ions, and even between a macroscopic object and a microscopic object.

But now Chinese researchers have, for the first time, achieved quantum teleportation between two macroscopic objects across nearly 500 feet using entangled photons…

The two bundles of rubidium atoms that served as sender and receiver are more or less analogs for what we hope will someday be our “quantum Internet”—a system of routers like the ones we have now that, instead of beaming information around a vast network of fiber optic wires, will send and receive information through entangled photons.

So in a way, this is like a first proof of concept, evidence that the idea works at least in the lab. Now all we have to do is figure out is how to build several of these in series so they can actually pass information from one to the other. To do that, we only have to somehow force these quantum states to exist for longer than the hundred microseconds or so that they last now before degrading. Sounds easy enough.

(via Researchers Achieve Quantum Teleportation Between Two Macroscopic Objects For The First Time | Popular Science)

scinerds:

Clownfish Talk Their Way Out of Conflict

Image: Clownfish, made famous in the movie “Finding Nemo,” defend and reinforce their social status with by talking, in this case certain pops and clicks. Credit: Orphal Colleye

Unlike the 360 other species of territorial marine fish in the Pomacentridae family, clownfish don’t make a peep when mating. Researchers wondering why clownfish would bother to make noise in other circumstances discovered that their chatter helps maintain the rank and file among group members.

“Sound could be an interesting strategy for preventing conflict between group members,” lead study author Orphal Colleye, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Liège, Belgium, told LiveScience. “In terms of cost energy, you don’t have to interact with another individual to determine which is the dominant and which is the subordinate, you just need to make a sound.”

Pops and clicks

Clownfish have an unusual home life: Up to six fish form a group around a single sea anemone. The largest of the group is a female, the second largest is a male, and the rest are immature fish that do not have a gender. (Once they do, they will be able to change their gender as mating pairs die out.)

The researchers found that the larger clownfish that dominate the social circles with aggressive moves, such as chasing and charging, make popping sounds distinct from the static-like sounds of the smaller, more submissive clownfish.

Both in the wild and in captivity, a single clownfish can make both sounds: a pop toward a smaller fish, a click toward a larger fish.

Neil Tyson’s Advice to Young Science Communicators

It’s not a predetermined path….Look at for example Phil Plait. Phil Plait is a professional astrophysicist, and then he had a blog, and the blog became a book, and a lot of interest in the book, and he saw the need for skepticism to be addressed in society, and he became a big part of that movement–you don’t pre-script that. It’s hard to prescript it.

My career path–you just don’t pre-script it. You do what you do best, and what you like the most, and you figure out along the way how that best fits into the opportunities of culture and the greater society.

So in graduate school, I wrote a question and answer column for StarDate magazine, out of the University of Texas, and that became a book, and when you have a book, TV shows want your views on things–one thing leads to another. But in all cases, the common denominator is that it starts out by writing.

So my advice to someone who wanted to be a science communicator is, you write. Writing is the excuse you can give yourself to organize ideas in coherent sentences in ways that make sense not only word to word, but sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph. And that is the art of communication, being clear and succinct. And the proving ground for that is writing.

Today, blogs–if you get a popular blog, you can gain some weight in that way, and in an earlier day, I would have said you write op-eds, letters to the editor. A way to get your name out there with your point of view, that others might not have.

But regardless, it’s writing. And initially, you’re not paid for the writing, you’re just writing because you can’t not write, or because the urge is so strong you just have to. And eventually, people take notice, if you say interesting things and you say them well, or humorously, or perceptively, then others take notice of it, and one thing leads to another.

So you can’t pre-script it, you just have to do what feels right, and express what inspires you, and then watch where the chips fall at that point.

Humanity Responds to ‘Alien’ Wow Signal, 35 Years Later

Just in case any aliens out there in the universe are listening, more than 10,000 Twitter messages, plus videos from celebrities such as comedian Stephen Colbert, have been beamed into space as a big “Hello!” from Earth.

The messages are intended as a response to what’s called the Wow! signal, an intriguing radio signal detected on Aug. 15, 1977 that some thought was a call from extraterrestrials. The 72-second transmission was picked up by the Big Ear radio observatory at Ohio State University, coming from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

Because the radio signal was 30 times more powerful than the average radiation from deep space, a volunteer astronomer named Jerry Ehman who was watching the telescope data scrawled “Wow!” on a computer printout, leading to the signal’s moniker. No evidence ever arrived actually linking the transmission to an alien civilization, and no repeat message from the same direction has ever been detected, and the Wow! Signal remains a mystery.

Now, exactly 35 years later, whoever sent the emission may be getting a response.

A project directed by the National Geographic Channel and Arecibo Observatory beamed a package of digital information out to the heavens on Wednesday (Aug. 15) containing Twitter messages from the public, submitted via the hashtag #ChasingUFOs, as well as videos from celebrities such as Stephen Colbert, Jorge Garcia, and Leila Lopes, the 2011 Miss Universe. [Ten Alien Encounters Debunked]

“Greetings, intelligent alien life forms. I am Stephen Colbert and I come to you with an important message on behalf of all the peoples of the Earth,” the comedian says in his video. “We are not delicious. In fact, we’re kind of gamey, and we get stuck in your teeth. It’s really embarrassing at a job interview. If you want something good to munch on, go to the nearby Crab nebula. And bring a bib. Seriously, all you can eat.”

The event was timed to coincide with the premiere of the channel’s new series, “Chasing UFOs,” which documents and debunks myths about extraterrestrials and UFOs.

scinerds:

Weaker Brain Links Found In Psychopaths

Side Note: Wait just a darn minute there Science, you mean to tell us that our traditional way of handling psychopaths and dismissing their conditions as we toss them up in jail cells is completely flawed? Interesting:

Decreased communication between emotional and executive centers may contribute

Brain differences might help explain psychopaths’ cold, calculated and often antisocial behavior, and perhaps even point out better ways to treat or prevent the disorder, a study of Wisconsin prison inmates suggests.

Compared with a group of 13 non-psychopathic criminals, a group of 14 psychopaths had weaker connections between an area near the front of the brain called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, or vmPFC, and the amygdala, a pair of almond-shaped structures deep in the brain. Earlier studies have hinted that this particular link is important for emotional regulation and aggression.

Neuroscientist Michael Koenigs of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and colleagues discovered the weaker connection by taking a mobile brain scanner to a medium-security prison. Psychopaths are overrepresented in prison populations thanks to their lack of empathy and tendency toward antisocial behavior.

After interviewing inmates and scrutinizing their disciplinary records to determine whether they were psychopaths, the scientists conducted two kinds of brain scans. The first measured the strength of brain connections called white matter tracts, which are bundles of nerves that serve as information superhighways that shuttle information between different brain regions. It was those scans that revealed the weaker link between the vmPFC and the amygdala in psychopaths, the team reports November 30 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

scinerds:

Embryonic Turtles Communicate to Coordinate Hatching

Murray River turtles communicate with their siblings while they are still in their shells, buried under the soil, in order to coordinate when they hatch.

Achieving this synchronicity isn’t easy. Although the eggs are always laid at the same time in the same nest, those at the top of the nest near the sun-drenched soil develop much faster than those buried deeper in the cooler soil. However, Murray River turtles are able to tell whether their fellow hatchlings are more or less advanced and adapt their pace of development accordingly, allowing the slow-coaches to play catch-up.

Sperm Whales Really Do Learn From Each Other

Sperm whales, Earth’s biggest-brained animals, live in far-flung clans with lifestyles so different and vocalizations so complex that it’s natural to think they have culture.

But is that really true? Might sperm whales simply be following genetic instructions? Could their “culture” really be a set of instinctive, mechanical imperatives?

Researchers led by Hal Whitehead of Dalhousie University and Luke Rendell of Scotland’s St. Andrews University, two of the world’s foremost sperm whale biologists, have asked just this question.

Their findings: Yes, sperm whale culture really is culture. And how.

“As far as we know, these are the largest cultures on Earth, aside from human ethnicities,” said Whitehead. “They may have thousands or tens of thousands of members, covering thousands of kilometers of ocean.”

In a study published Oct. 21 in Behavior Genetics, Whitehead and Rendell analyzed sound recordings and skin samples from 194 sperm whales in the southwest Pacific Ocean.

The whales belonged to three “vocal clans,” each possessing a distinctively different repertoire of the Morse code-like clicks used by sperm whales to communicate. Were these dialects biologically determined, the whales would have overlapped genetically as well as vocally — but that’s not what the researchers found.

Instead, whales from different clans are often genetically similar. They’re not identical, but there’s no sign of genetic differences large enough to explain clan differences. These aren’t just vocal: Each clan also differs in hunting patterns, reproductive rates and parenting habits.

UVB-76 just stopped transmitting. . From Wikipedia:

UVB-76 is the callsign of a shortwave radio station that usually broadcasts on the frequency 4625 kHz (AM full carrier). It’s known among radio listeners by the nickname The Buzzer. It features a short, monotonous About this sound buzz tone (help·info), repeating at a rate of approximately 25 tones per minute, for 24 hours per day. The station has been observed since around 1982.[1] On rare occasions, the buzzer signal is interrupted and a voice transmission in Russian takes place. Only three to four such events have been noted.

There is much speculation; however, the actual purpose of this station remains unknown

The Wow! Signal in The Tau Sagittarii Star

There was a signal received in 1977 at Ohio state university, caught with The Big Ear Radio Telescope. The signal came from the Saggittarius constellation near the Tau Sagittarii star. The signal begged much attention because it matched the expected signature of an interstellar signal in the antenna used, ” Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment “Wow!” on its side. This comment became the name of the signal.”