Science

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Quantum computing closer as RMIT drives towards first quantum data bus: RMIT researchers trialling a quantum processor capable of routing information from different locations have found a pathway towards the quantum data bus

RMIT University researchers have trialled a quantum processor capable of routing quantum information from different locations in a critical breakthrough for quantum computing.

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Quantum information is encoded in single particles of light (photons). The perfect state transfer is applied to one photon of an entangled pair, relocating it to a distant location while preserving the delicate quantum information and entanglement.

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Saturn Spacecraft Samples Interstellar Dust

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Of the millions of dust grains Cassini has sampled at Saturn, a few dozen appear to have come from beyond our solar system. Scientists believe these special grains have interstellar origins because they moved much faster and in different directions compared to dusty material native to Saturn.

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A Space Spider Watches Over Young Stars

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The Spider Nebula lies about 10,000 light-years away from Earth and is a site of active star formation.

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Researchers create perfect nanoscrolls from graphene’s imperfect form

Water filters of the future may be made from billions of tiny, graphene-based nanoscrolls. Each scroll, made by rolling up a single, atom-thick layer of graphene, could be tailored to trap specific molecules and pollutants in its tightly wound folds. Billions of these scrolls, stacked layer by layer, may produce a lightweight, durable, and highly selective water purification membrane.

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This sketch illustrates how a nanoscroll forms from a graphene oxide flake as a result of ultrasonic irradiation.

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Elusive state of superconducting matter discovered after 50 years

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cornell University, and collaborators have produced the first direct evidence of a state of electronic matter first predicted by theorists in 1964.

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A schematic image representing a periodic variation in the density of Cooper pairs (pairs of blue arrows pointing in opposite directions) within a cuprate superconductor. Densely packed rows of Cooper pairs alternate with regions having lower pair density and no pairs at all. Such a "Cooper pair density wave" was predicted 50 years ago but was just discovered using a unique "scanning Josephson tunneling microscope.

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Searching for Far Out and Wandering Worlds

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As an exoplanet passes in front of a more distant star, its gravity causes the trajectory of the starlight to bend, and in some cases, results in a brief brightening of the background star as seen by a telescope. The artistic animation illustrates this effect. This phenomenon of gravitational microlensing enables scientists to search for exoplanets that are too distant and dark to detect any other way.

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NASA Invests in Two-Dimensional Spacecraft, Reprogrammable Microorganisms

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Three-way battles in the quantum world

When water in a pot is slowly heated to the boil, an exciting duel of energies takes place inside the liquid. On the one hand there is the interaction energy that wants to keep the water molecules together because of their mutual attraction. On the other hand, however, the motional energy, which increases due to heating, tries to separate the molecules. Below the boiling point the interaction energy prevails, but as soon as the motional energy wins the water boils and turns into water vapour. This process is also known as a phase transition. In this scenario the interaction only involves water molecules that are in immediate proximity to one another.

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An artificial quantum world of atoms and light: Atoms (red) spontaneously arrange themselves in a checkerboard pattern as a result of the complex interplay between short- and long-range interactions.

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Topology explains queer electrical current boost in non-magnetic metal: Scientists reduce resistance in PdCoO2 with magnetic fields

Insights from pure mathematics are lending new insights to material physics, which could aid in development of new devices and sensors. Now an international team of physicists has discovered that applying a magnetic field to a non-magnetic metal made it conduct 70% more electricity, even though basic physics principles would have predicted the opposite.

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Applying a magnetic field to PdCoO2, a non-magnetic metal, made it conduct 70% more electricity, even though basic physics principles would have predicted the opposite.

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Catalyst could make production of key chemical more eco-friendly

The world has more carbon dioxide than it needs, and a team of Brown University chemists has come up with a potential way to put some of it to good use.

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This is nitrogen-rich graphene festooned with finely tuned copper nanoparticles selectively converts carbon dioxide to ethylene, a key commodity chemical.