Tag Archives: Conventional

Quantum data sent securely through conventional internet cables

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There could be a secure quantum internet in the middle

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Another step to the quantum internet has been completed and no special communication equipment is required. Two German data centers have already used existing communication fibers to exchange quantum safe information at room temperature. This is in contrast to most quantum communications, and in many cases it requires cooling to very low temperatures to protect quantum particles from environmental disturbances.

Thanks to being encoded into quantum particles of light, known as photons, the quantum internet, which allows for extremely secure exchange of information, is rapidly expanding into the world outside of labs. In March, microsatellites enabled quantum links between China’s ground stations and South Africa. A few weeks ago, the first operating system for quantum communications networks was announced.

now, Mirko Pittaluga Toshiba Europe Limited and his colleagues are sending quantum information through optical fibers between two facilities, approximately 250 km apart, in Kehl and Frankfurt, Germany. This information passed through the third station between them, just over 150km from Frankfurt.

Photons can be lost or damaged when crossing long distances through fiber optic cables, so large quantum internet iterations require “quantum repeaters” and reduce these losses. In this setup, the midway station played a similar role, allowing the network to outweigh the simpler connections between the two previously tested endpoints.

In a notable improvement on previous quantum networks, the team used existing fibers and devices that could be easily slotted into racks that already house traditional communication equipment. This enhances the case where Quantum Internet will ultimately become plug-and-play operations.

The researchers also used photon detectors that cost much less than those used in previous experiments. Although some of these previous experiments spanned hundreds of kilometers, they say that using these detectors reduces both the cost and energy requirements of the new network. Raja Yehea At the Institute of Photonic Science in Spain.

Premkumar Northwestern University in Illinois says that using the types of quantum communications protocols here on commercial equipment highlights how quantum networks are approaching practicality. “Systems engineers can see this and see that it works,” Kumar says. However, he says that in order to be completely practical, networks need to exchange information faster.

Medi Namaji Quantum Communication Start-Up Qunnect in New York says that this approach could be beneficial for future networks of quantum computers or quantum sensors, but it is not as efficient as involving true quantum repeaters.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

A new realm of tiny creatures shakes up conventional notions of existence

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Theodor Diener had a problem. It was in 1967, and he and his colleagues successfully isolated an infectious agent that caused spindle tuber disease in potatoes that destroy crops. But it wasn’t like what they realised. They called it a virus, but it didn’t act like one thing.

It took Diener four years to demonstrate that mystical beings are even simpler than viruses. It is a single “naked” molecule that can infect potato cells and thus reproduce. He suggested calling it a wild. It was the smallest replicating agent ever identified. With a stroke, dinner expanded my understanding of living in the microscope world.

You might think that such a dramatic discovery would, uh, go viral. Almost no one noticed it yet. Apart from several other plant pathologists, the world of science has forgotten much about wilds for half a century. They had never even heard of him in 2020 when Benjamin Lee of the National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Maryland, was encouraged to look into Wild.

Since then, there has been an explosion of discovery thanks to Lee and others. Now we know thousands of wilds and violids-like entities, with exotic names such as obelisks, ribojunctions, satellites and more. They appear to be found everywhere in a vast range of organisms and microorganisms. I don’t know what most of them are doing, whether most of them are benign or dangerous. However, these simplest replicators raise basic questions about the meaning of being alive. They can even go back to the origins of…

Source: www.newscientist.com

Ancient molluscs challenge our stereotypes: punk and emo fossils defy conventional perceptions

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Digital model of an ancient mollusk punk ferox and emo swirl, Created from X-ray scans of fossils

Sutton et al. Nature (2025)

Two prehistoric marine mollusk fossils with distinctive spiky 'hairstyles' have been discovered and named. punk and Emotional.

Its strange appearance highlights the ancient diversity of molluscs, which today include creatures such as snails, slugs, clams, and octopuses.

“Some people may have a bit of a soft spot for molluscs. My partner called them loser animals, but they are one of the really important areas of life.” he says. mark sutton At Imperial College London.

He and his colleagues unearthed artifacts dating back 430 million years at a British site known as . herefordshire lagerstedt.

The fossil, from a group of molluscs known as Aculifera, was so delicate that researchers couldn't simply crack open the stone it contained.

Instead, Sutton and his colleagues use X-ray scans to identify structures inside rocks, slice the material thinly and photograph each layer, and combine the images to show what living things might look like. A 3D image was created. Both were earthworm-like animals with long spines about 2 centimeters long.

Sutton said the music-related nickname was originally a pet name. The name stuck and was officially proposed because the spike-laden fossil was reminiscent of the hairstyle of the punk rock movement. punk ferox and emo swirl.


“The spikes are probably primarily for protection,” Sutton said, but it's also possible that the spikes formed because the creatures needed to remove calcium buildup in their bodies while living in the ocean. be. In many cases, he says, such hard protrusions can serve both purposes.

Researchers don't quite understand how punk The specimen was moved, but the specimen emo It is preserved in a folded state, suggesting that it increments like a caterpillar. emo It also had many sturdy downward-pointing spines on its back, which may have acted as ratchets to aid movement, Sutton said.

These spines would have stopped it from sliding backwards in the sediment as it turned, ensuring it moved forward, he says. “This inching has never really been shown in any fossils before,” Sutton said.

“I love the name; it fits these spiky mollusks,” he says. luke parry at Oxford University. “Molluscan fossils that preserve soft tissue like this are extremely rare, so seeing in 3D what these rare and ancient animals looked like is truly spectacular. It’s like a treasure trove, like the Pompeii of insect-eating molluscs.”

He agrees that the spikes were likely primarily for protection, since both species were definitely moving around on the ocean floor rather than burrowing.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Organic Farms Impact Pesticide Usage on Nearby Conventional Farms

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On organic farms, conventional farming practices appear to inadvertently cause more pesticides to be used in surrounding fields

Daniel Balderas/Shutterstock

Organic farmers dedicate their working lives to producing food with minimal use of pesticides, but by curbing the use of chemicals on their land, they can unknowingly damage their neighbor’s fence. may be causing a sharp increase in pesticide use.

Ashley Larsen and colleagues from the University of California, Santa Barbara, evaluated land use and pesticide data across 14,000 fields in Kern County, California. It is one of the largest agricultural counties in the state, producing agricultural products such as almonds, grapes, carrots, and pistachios.

The researchers found that when organic farmland is surrounded by conventional agriculture, neighboring farmers appear to increase their use of pesticides, which is associated with a 10 percent increase in organic farmland. Total pesticide use in conventional fields increases by 0.3%. Most of that is due to increased use of pesticides, the researchers found.

This is because more insects, pests or not, are present on organic land and tend to ‘bleed-off’ onto adjacent conventional farmland, leading these farmers to increase their use of pesticides. It is considered. “Pests come and sow the seeds for new outbreaks. [farmers] We will increase the use of pesticides,” Larsen told reporters at a press conference. This effect appears to be strongest when the adjacent field is within 2.5 kilometers of the organic “focal field”.

Conversely, the researchers found that the presence of organic fields was associated with reduced pesticide use in adjacent organic fields, with a 10 percent increase in the area of surrounding organic fields reducing total pesticide use on organic fields by 3%. He pointed out that it is associated with a decrease in the percentage of organic focal field. This may be because larger areas of organic farmland allow for larger and more stable communities of beneficial insects.

Organic agriculture only covers about 2 percent of the world’s land, but in Kern County, about 5.5 percent of the farmed area is organic.

If organic farming occupies a high proportion of agricultural land, perhaps Researchers say that regardless of where organic fields are located, net pesticide use is reduced by more than 20 percent.

However, when relatively small areas of organic cropland are evenly distributed across the landscape, such as in Kern County, net pesticide use may actually be higher than if no organic cropland were present.

“Our simulations suggest that low levels of organic agriculture in the landscape may actually increase net pesticide use,” Larsen said.

However, she said this impact can be completely mitigated by clustering organic farmland to minimize potential pest spillover. “Basically, at the policy level, how do we encourage the spatial clustering of new organic fields to take advantage of the pest control benefits of organic and limit the potential costs of organic to conventional growers?” It might be worth considering.

This could include paying subsidies to farmers to convert more land to organic farming in certain areas, or even creating buffer zones between organic and non-organic land. be.

robert finger Switzerland’s ETH Zurich said the study results demonstrate the need for policymakers to consider land use policy at a “landscape scale” to maximize the environmental benefits of organic farming. “Fundamentally, it’s not enough to think about a single field or a single farm,” he says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com