Category: Quantum Stuff

In the past, researchers have tried to improve on Shor’s algorithm for factoring by simulating a qubit using a continuous system, with its expanded set of possible values. But even if your system computes with continuous qubits, it will still need a lot of them to factor numbers, and it won’t necessarily go any faster.… Continue reading New Quantum Algorithm Factors Numbers With One Qubit

Two blind spots torture physicists: the birth of the universe and the center of a black hole. The former may feel like a moment in time and the latter a point in space, but in both cases the normally interwoven threads of space and time seem to stop short. These mysterious points are known as… Continue reading Singularities in Space-Time Prove Hard to Kill

CLIMATEWIRE | When federal regulators were crafting a first-ever proposal to protect workers from extreme heat, they relied on government health experts who had been working on the deadly effects of high temperatures for years. Now that entire team is gone due to President Donald Trump’s personnel purges. It comes ahead of summertime heat waves… Continue reading Trump Fired the Heat Experts. Now He Might Kill Their Heat Rule

Whether we’re considering global trade, new technologies or scientific research, everything seems to become more complex over time. In the past, polymaths became well versed in various disciplines and made important contributions to each. But today it is far more difficult for a person to excel in multiple domains, in part because of greater specialization.… Continue reading It’s Not Just You. Everything Really Is Getting More Complicated over Time

In 2012 NASA stealthily slipped a morgue into orbit. No press release. No fanfare. Just a sealed, soft-sided pouch tucked in a cargo shipment to the International Space Station (ISS) alongside freeze-dried meals and scientific gear. Officially, it was called the Human Remains Containment Unit (HRCU). To the untrained eye it looked like a shipping… Continue reading NASA Is Approaching the Final Frontier of Mortality

We discovered that the cell has a beautiful buoyancy engine. It inflates like a hot air balloon and is a lot like a desalination plant. Aquaporins, [proteins that form pores in cell membranes], bring in fresh water that has a lower density, so it can suddenly skyrocket up 250 to 300 meters. It produces proteins… Continue reading How Paradoxical Questions and Simple Wonder Lead to Great Science

Late last week the Trump Administration released its detailed budget request for fiscal year 2026 —a request that, if enacted, would be the equivalent of carpet-bombing the national scientific enterprise. “This is a profound, generational threat to scientific leadership in the United States,” says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a… Continue reading This Budget Plan Would Devastate U.S. Space Science

February 5, 2025 3 min read Trump Administration Shutters Climate Health Office A climate office at the Department of Health and Human Services has been shuttered, and its staff was placed on administrative leave By Ariel Wittenberg & E&E News An elderly man faints in front of the Supreme Court in June 2024 as temperatures… Continue reading Trump Administration Shutters Climate Health Office

For decades, string theory has been hailed as the leading candidate for the theory of everything in our universe. Yet despite its mathematical elegance, the theory still lacks empirical evidence. One of its most intriguing, yet vexing, implications is that if all matter and forces are composed of vibrations of tiny strands, then this allows… Continue reading Will We Ever Prove String Theory?