A Science Advances study proposes cells may process information using quantum mechanisms far faster than classical biochemical signaling.
Category: computing – Page 49
Scientists merge two ‘impossible’ materials into new artificial structure
An international team led by Rutgers University-New Brunswick researchers has merged two lab-synthesized materials into a synthetic quantum structure once thought impossible to exist and produced an exotic structure expected to provide insights that could lead to new materials at the core of quantum computing.
The work, described in a cover story in the journal Nano Letters, explains how four years of continuous experimentation led to a novel method to design and build a unique, tiny sandwich composed of distinct atomic layers.
One slice of the microscopic structure is made of dysprosium titanate, an inorganic compound used in nuclear reactors to trap radioactive materials and contain elusive magnetic monopole particles, while the other is composed of pyrochlore iridate, a new magnetic semimetal mainly used in today’s experimental research due to its distinctive electronic, topological and magnetic properties.
Boosted quantum teleportation
npj Quantum Inf ormation volume 11, Article number: 37 (2025) Cite this article.
Magnesium becomes a possible superconductor near the 2D limit
Magnesium is a common chemical element, an alkaline earth metal, which is highly chemically reactive and is very light (even lighter than aluminum). Magnesium is abundant in plants and minerals and plays a role in human physiology and metabolism. In the cosmos, it is produced by large aging stars.
Among its physical properties, while it is a good conductor of electricity, magnesium is not known to be a superconductor. Superconductors are particularly promising materials with the potential to revolutionize energy transmission, medical imaging, and quantum computing, and are defined by their ability to conduct electricity without resistance below a certain critical temperature.
Recently, with my colleague Giovanni Ummarino from Turin Polytechnic, I have started challenging the textbook paradigm that states only certain elements in the periodic table can be superconductors. In particular, my colleague and I have shown that the phenomenon of quantum confinement can turn non-superconducting elements into superconductors. Our research is published in Condensed Matter.
New Ubuntu Linux security bypasses require manual mitigations
Three security bypasses have been discovered in Ubuntu Linux’s unprivileged user namespace restrictions, which could be enable a local attacker to exploit vulnerabilities in kernel components.
The issues allow local unprivileged users to create user namespaces with full administrative capabilities and impact Ubuntu versions 23.10, where unprivileged user namespaces restrictions are enabled, and 24.04 which has them active by default.
Linux user namespaces allow users to act as root inside an isolated sandbox (namespace) without having the same privileges on the host.
Microsoft’s killing script used to avoid Microsoft Account in Windows 11
Microsoft has removed the ‘BypassNRO.cmd’ script from Windows 11 preview builds, which allowed users to bypass the requirement to use a Microsoft Account when installing the operating system.
This change was introduced in the latest Windows 11 Insider Dev preview build, which means it will likely be coming to production builds.
“We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11,” reads the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5516 release notes.
Earth’s storage of water in soil, lakes and rivers is dwindling. And it’s especially bad for farming
University of Melbourne hydrology professor Dongryeol Ryu and his collaborator Ki-Weon Seo were on a train to visit Ryu’s family when they found something startling. Stopped at a station for technical issues, Seo had pulled out his computer to pass the time with some work when a result popped up in their data that Ryu could hardly believe: It suggested a “remarkable” amount of Earth’s water stored on land had been depleted.
“At first we thought, ‘That’s an error in the model,’” Ryu said.
After a year of checking, they determined it wasn’t.
Quantum fiber optics in the brain enhance processing, may protect against degenerative diseases
The effects of quantum mechanics—the laws of physics that apply at exceedingly small scales—are extremely sensitive to disturbances. This is why quantum computers must be held at temperatures colder than outer space, and only very, very small objects, such as atoms and molecules, generally display quantum properties.
By quantum standards, biological systems are quite hostile environments: they’re warm and chaotic, and even their fundamental components—such as cells—are considered very large.
But a group of theoretical and experimental researchers has discovered a distinctly quantum effect in biology that survives these difficult conditions and may also present a way for the brain to protect itself from degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
