The science behind RHCs liver thread

Yeah, and as a minimum they would use lasers to precisely aim communications rather than wasting energy sending out radio waves in every direction

 

If so, it may get ****ing noisy any time soon

 

World's Most Powerful Particle Collider Taps AI to Expose Hack Attacks
Machine learning is crucial to staying ahead of hackers trying to break into at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider’s (LHC) massive worldwide computing grid

• By Jesse Emspak on June 19, 2017

please log in to view this image

A general view of the CERN Computer / Data Center and server farm. Credit: Dean Mouhtaropoulos Getty Images
Thousands of scientists worldwide tap into CERN’s computer networks each day in their quest to better understand the fundamental structure of the universe. Unfortunately, they are not the only ones who want a piece of this vast pool of computing power, which serves the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. The hundreds of thousands of computers in CERN’s grid are also a prime target for hackers who want to hijack those resources to make money or attack other computer systems. But rather than engaging in a perpetual game of hide-and-seek with these cyber intruders via conventional security systems, CERN scientists are turning to artificial intelligence to help them outsmart their online opponents.

Current detection systems typically spot attacks on networks by scanning incoming data for known viruses and other types of malicious code. But these systems are relatively useless against new and unfamiliar threats. Given how quickly malware changes these days, CERN is developing new systems that use machine learning to recognize and report abnormal network traffic to an administrator. For example, a system might learn to flag traffic that requires an uncharacteristically large amount of bandwidth, uses the incorrect procedure when it tries to enter the network (much like using the wrong secret knock on a door) or seeks network access via an unauthorized port (essentially trying to get in through a door that is off-limits).

CERN’s cybersecurity department is training its AI software to learn the difference between normal and dubious behavior on the network, and to then alert staff via phone text, e-mail or computer message of any potential threat. The system could even be automated to shut down suspicious activity on its own, says Andres Gomez, lead author of a paper describing the new cybersecurity framework.

CERN’S JEWEL
CERN—the French acronym for the European Organization for Nuclear Research lab, which sits on the Franco-Swiss border—is opting for this new approach to protect a computer grid used by more than 8,000 physicists to quickly access and analyze large volumes of data produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC’s main job is to collide atomic particles at high-speed so that scientists can study how particles interact. Particle detectors and other scientific instruments within the LHC gather information about these collisions, and CERN makes it available to laboratories and universities worldwide for use in their own research projects.

The LHC is expected to generate a total of about 50 petabytes of data (equal to 15 million high-definition movies) in 2017 alone, and demands more computing power and data storage than CERN itself can provide. In anticipation of that type of growth the laboratory in 2002 created its Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, which connects computers from more than 170 research facilities across more than 40 countries. CERN’s computer network functions somewhat like an electrical grid, which relies on a network of generating stations that create and deliver electricity as needed to a particular community of homes and businesses. In CERN’s case the community consists of research labs that require varying amounts of computing resources, based on the type of work they are doing at any given time.

GRID GUARDIANS
One of the biggest challenges to defending a computer grid is the fact that security cannot interfere with the sharing of processing power and data storage. Scientists from labs in different parts of the world might end up accessing the same computers to do their research if demand on the grid is high or if their projects are similar. CERN also has to worry about whether the computers of the scientists’ connecting into the grid are free of viruses and other malicious software that could enter and spread quickly due to all the sharing. A virus might, for example, allow hackers to take over parts of the grid and use those computers either to generate digital currency known as bitcoins or to launch cyber attacks against other computers. “In normal situations, antivirus programs try to keep intrusions out of a single machine,” Gomez says. “In the grid we have to protect hundreds of thousands of machines that already allow” researchers outside CERN to use a variety of software programs they need for their different experiments. “The magnitude of the data you can collect and the very distributed environment make intrusion detection on [a] grid far more complex,” he says.

Jarno Niemelä, a senior security researcher at F-Secure, a company that designs antivirus and computer security systems, says CERN’s use of machine learning to train its network defenses will give the lab much-needed flexibility in protecting its grid, especially when searching for new threats. Still, artificially intelligent intrusion detection is not without risks—and one of the biggest is whether Gomez and his team can develop machine-learning algorithms that can tell the difference between normal and harmful activity on the network without raising a lot of false alarms, Niemelä says.

CERN’s AI cybersecurity upgrades are still in the early stages and will be rolled out over time. The first test will be protecting the portion of the grid used by ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment)—a key LHC project to study the collisions of lead nuclei. If tests on ALICE are successful, CERN’s machine learning–based security could then be used to defend parts of the grid used by the institution’s six other detector experiments.

 

Satellite trio will hunt gravitational waves from space
European Space Agency green-lights LISA detector, expected to launch in 2034
BY
LISA GROSSMAN
4:58PM, JUNE 20, 2017

please log in to view this image

IN THE BALANCE A trio of freefloating spacecraft called LISA (one of the satellites illustrated) will search for gravitational waves from space in a mission expected to launch in 2034.

• The hunt for gravitational waves is moving upward. A space-based detector called the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, was selected as a mission in the European Space Agency’s science program, the agency announced June 20.

LISA will consist of three identical satellites arranged in a triangle that will cartwheel through space in orbit around the sun just behind Earth. The spacecraft will use lasers to detect changes in the distance between each satellite. Those changes would indicate the passage of gravitational waves, the ripples in spacetime that massive bodies such as black holes shake off when they move.

The spacecraft was originally planned as a joint mission between ESA and NASA, but NASA pulled out in 2011 citing budget issues. In December 2015, ESA launched a single satellite called LISA Pathfinder to test the concept — a test it passed with flying colors.

Interest in LISA increased in 2016 after researchers at the ground-based LIGO detectors announced that they had finally observed gravitational waves. LIGO is best suited for detecting the crash caused when dense objects such as neutron stars or solar-mass black holes collide.

LISA, on the other hand, will be sensitive to the collision of much more massive objects — such as the supermassive black holes that make up most galaxies’ cores.

The mission design and cost are still being completed. If all goes as planned, LISA will launch in 2034.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...king-s-Big-Bang-theory-WRONG-says-friend.html

You know, as I think I've said on here many times, my late dad was always a proponent of a hybrid between steady state and quantum froth. Interesting stuff.

 

Behind big pharma's race to develop the next wave of cancer therapy
Register for free HL Newsroom emails

please log in to view this image

Author: Iain Withers

Published by

please log in to view this image

Pharmaceutical companies are betting big on a new wave of innovative cancer therapies they believe will be more effective than existing treatments and move them a big step closer to finding a cure for the disease.

The fast-emerging branch of therapies – immuno-oncology (IO) – works by equipping the body’s immune system with the tools to kill cancer cells.

Britain’s FTSE 100 giant AstraZeneca and rival pharma conglomerates, including America’s Merck & Co and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Switzerland’s Roche and Germany’s Merck KGaA are in a race to develop the most effective IO therapies.

When they work, the body learns to fend off cancer as it would a virus, developing a long-term memory for killing off tumours in the process.

They are already transforming lives, with tens of thousands of patients around the world benefiting from first generation IO treatments, which can extend lives for months or years longer than chemotherapy and radiotherapy with fewer debilitating side effects.

It’s this “long-term benefit” and “curative potential” that excites Stuart Farrow, director of biology at Cancer Research UK’s commercial arm Cancer Research Technology, which is partnering with industry on developing IO treatments. “It is the biggest breakthrough in oncology R&D for 20 years, possibly even since chemo,” he says.

As well as providing potential life-changing medical benefits, effective IO treatments bring big commercial rewards. IO drugs sales hit $8bn (£6.3bn) last year, led by blockbuster forerunners Keytruda and Opdivo, produced by Merck & Co and BMS respectively.

But analysts say the potential prize is much larger – a $50bn a year market if the future pipeline of IO drugs realise their full potential. That’s because there are still substantial gaps to plug in the market, both for Merck and BMS and its international rivals playing catch-up, including AstraZeneca. Only around 25-30pc of patients have been responsive to the early IO treatments. They also haven’t been approved for every type of cancer, with lung cancer remaining the largest – and largely unmet – potential market opportunity, worth up to an estimated $10bn a year. It is also the biggest cancer killer, responsible for more than 1.6m deaths each year.

So the race is on, with pharma companies increasingly turning to trials of combinations of drugs to try to boost response rates.

For AstraZeneca, Mystic can go a long way to validating CEO Pascal Soriot’s decision to rebuff Pfizer’s £69bn takeover approachCredit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Two such closely watched trials are due to report by the end of the year – AstraZeneca’s Mystic this summer and BMS’s CM-227, both of which are phase three lung cancer trials that will go some way to demonstrating the medical and commercial potential of IO treatments.

They are also likely to be big market-movers. AstraZeneca investors expect a positive result in Mystic would lead to a 17pc jump in the company’s share price, while a negative result would send them crashing 12pc, according to an average of responses to a Credit Suisse survey.

David Cook, analyst at Panmure, cautions: “Everyone is watching Mystic to see what happens. If it’s a failure the reaction will likely be severe. With clinical trials the market tends to punish you when it goes wrong.”

Meanwhile, BMS shareholders will be hoping the company’s combination of Opdivo and Yervoy will garner positive results, after a failed lung cancer trial last August sent shares nosediving. They are still more than 20pc down since the news, slashing its market capitalisation by more than $30bn to $92bn.

For AstraZeneca, Mystic can go a long way to validating CEO Pascal Soriot’s decision three years ago to rebuff American rival Pfizer’s £69bn takeover approach in order to focus on its drugs pipeline, and on oncology R&D in particular. Since then AstraZeneca has doubled its spending on oncology R&D to around $2.6bn, almost half its total $6bn spend. A group of 1,118 patients in 17 countries are taking part in the Mystic trial, which combines IO drug durvalumab, commercially known as Imfinzi, with antibody tremelimumab.

For its part AstraZeneca insists Mystic should not be seen as the “binary” market event some investors are making it out to be.

Robert Iannone, head of IO at AstraZeneca, stresses “there’s quite a bit of optionality” built into the Mystic trial, as it will capture data for a variety of types of patients, as well as produce further “more robust” overall survival data in 2018.

AstraZeneca has seven late stage cancer drug trials underway, and another seven outside the cancer space
Nor is AstraZeneca a one-horse stable when it comes to cancer drug development. Mystic is one of seven late stage cancer drug trials the firm is working on, while it has another seven outside the cancer space.

Imfinzi has already generated positive headlines for AstraZeneca this year, boosting investor confidence ahead of Mystic, by winning US approval for use by some bladder cancer patients and producing positive trial results in a separate group of lung cancer sufferers.

Elsewhere, fellow FTSE 100 firm GSK has largely vacated the oncology market after selling its cancer drugs portfolio to Novartis in 2015, but it retains an oncology R&D operation that investors will want to keep an eye on.

Yet the IO drugs space is not just the domain of massive conglomerates. A whole host of innovative start-ups are investing in developing IO therapies, including UK firms working in partnership with Britain’s world-leading bioscience universities.

Smaller firms working in IO include Crescendo Biologics, Cell Medica, e-Therapeutics, F-star, Targovax, ANGLE, IGEM and Scancell.

“IO is a huge opportunity for UK plc,” says Cancer Research’s Dr Farrow. “We have an incredibly vibrant science community here.” The fierce race among big pharma companies to become IO market leaders means even small firms with limited clinical data can be candidates for takeovers or successful IPOs, industry insiders say.

But companies working in this cutting-edge field still face big challenges. IO drugs are known to produce significant side-effects for some patients, including the immune system mistakenly attacking normal organs and gut problems such as severe diarrhoea.

Then there’s the cost, put at around £150,000 a year per patient for a typical IO treatment. Will the NHS and other country’s health services be willing to pay this?

Scientists in the field say the potential for side-effects and the high costs make it more crucial than ever to identify which patients stand to get the best outcomes from particular treatments, by identifying biomarkers that make them most suitable and through more targeted treatments.

IO nonetheless offers up huge potential, with scientists estimating the approach may be able to address 60pc of all cancers through combinations of drugs within five years.

Dr David Berman, head of oncology innovative medicines at MedImmune, part of AstraZeneca, is bullish for the future of his field: “This is a golden age for patients and an exciting time.”

I was with Stuart farrow when I was down in London and Cambridge the week before last

 

http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/27/uranu...-blasts-of-hot-wind-scientists-claim-6738877/

This one is proper science in a proper journal.

 

FFS

 

I thought you'd like it

 

Quantum computers are about to get real
As the first qubit-based machines come online, scientists imagine the possibilities
BY
EMILY CONOVER
7:00AM, JUNE 29, 2017

please log in to view this image

SEEKING QUANTUM SUPREMACY Google, IBM and others are developing quantum computers. IBM has made its five-qubit computer accessible online for free, and the company is planning a 50-qubit computer for commercial use. The large tank shown here holds the cooling system that keeps a 17-qubit processor cold.

ANDY AARON/IBM RESEARCH/FLICKR (CC BY-ND 2.0)

• Although the term “quantum computer” might suggest a miniature, sleek device, the latest incarnations are a far cry from anything available in the Apple Store. In a laboratory just 60 kilometers north of New York City, scientists are running a fledgling quantum computer through its paces — and the whole package looks like something that might be found in a dark corner of a basement. The cooling system that envelops the computer is about the size and shape of a household water heater.

Beneath that clunky exterior sits the heart of the computer, the quantum processor, a tiny, precisely engineered chip about a centimeter on each side. Chilled to temperatures just above absolute zero, the computer — made by IBM and housed at the company’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. — comprises 16 quantum bits, or qubits, enough for only simple calculations.

If this computer can be scaled up, though, it could transcend current limits of computation. Computers based on the physics of the supersmall can solve puzzles no other computer can — at least in theory — because quantum entities behave unlike anything in a larger realm.

Quantum computers aren’t putting standard computers to shame just yet. The most advanced computers are working with fewer than two dozen qubits. But teams from industry and academia are working on expanding their own versions of quantum computers to 50 or 100 qubits, enough to perform certain calculations that the most powerful supercomputers can’t pull off.

The race is on to reach that milestone, known as “quantum supremacy.” Scientists should meet this goal within a couple of years, says quantum physicist David Schuster of the University of Chicago. “There’s no reason that I see that it won’t work.”

Deep freeze
Cooling systems (Google’s shown) maintain frigid temperatures for the superconducting quantum processor, which sits at the bottom of the contraption. The system is enclosed in a water heater–sized container.

please log in to view this image

ERIK LUCERO
But supremacy is only an initial step, a symbolic marker akin to sticking a flagpole into the ground of an unexplored landscape. The first tasks where quantum computers prevail will be contrived problems set up to be difficult for a standard computer but easy for a quantum one. Eventually, the hope is, the computers will become prized tools of scientists and businesses.

Attention-getting ideas
Some of the first useful problems quantum computers will probably tackle will be to simulate small molecules or chemical reactions. From there, the computers could go on to speed the search for new drugs or kick-start the development of energy-saving catalysts to accelerate chemical reactions. To find the best material for a particular job, quantum computers could search through millions of possibilities to pinpoint the ideal choice, for example, ultrastrong polymers for use in airplane wings. Advertisers could use a quantum algorithm to improve their product recommendations — dishing out an ad for that new cell phone just when you’re on the verge of purchasing one.

Quantum computers could provide a boost to machine learning, too, allowing for nearly flawless handwriting recognition or helping self-driving cars assess the flood of data pouring in from their sensors to swerve away from a child running into the street. And scientists might use quantum computers to explore exotic realms of physics, simulating what might happen deep inside a black hole, for example.

But quantum computers won’t reach their real potential — which will require harnessing the power of millions of qubits — for more than a decade. Exactly what possibilities exist for the long-term future of quantum computers is still up in the air.

The outlook is similar to the patchy vision that surrounded the development of standard computers — which quantum scientists refer to as “classical” computers — in the middle of the 20th century. When they began to tinker with electronic computers, scientists couldn’t fathom all of the eventual applications; they just knew the machines possessed great power. From that initial promise, classical computers have become indispensable in science and business, dominating daily life, with handheld smartphones becoming constant companions (SN: 4/1/17, p. 18).

We’re very excited about the potential to really revolutionize … what we can compute.

— Krysta Svore

Since the 1980s, when the idea of a quantum computer first attracted interest, progress has come in fits and starts. Without the ability to create real quantum computers, the work remained theoretical, and it wasn’t clear when — or if — quantum computations would be achievable. Now, with the small quantum computers at hand, and new developments coming swiftly, scientists and corporations are preparing for a new technology that finally seems within reach.

“Companies are really paying attention,” Microsoft’s Krysta Svore said March 13 in New Orleans during a packed session at a meeting of the American Physical Society. Enthusiastic physicists filled the room and huddled at the doorways, straining to hear as she spoke. Svore and her team are exploring what these nascent quantum computers might eventually be capable of. “We’re very excited about the potential to really revolutionize … what we can compute.”

Anatomy of a qubit
Quantum computing’s promise is rooted in quantum mechanics, the counterintuitive physics that governs tiny entities such as atoms, electrons and molecules. The basic element of a quantum computer is the qubit (pronounced “CUE-bit”). Unlike a standard computer bit, which can take on a value of 0 or 1, a qubit can be 0, 1 or a combination of the two — a sort of purgatory between 0 and 1 known as a quantum superposition. When a qubit is measured, there’s some chance of getting 0 and some chance of getting 1. But before it’s measured, it’s both 0 and 1.

Because qubits can represent 0 and 1 simultaneously, they can encode a wealth of information. In computations, both possibilities — 0 and 1 — are operated on at the same time, allowing for a sort of parallel computation that speeds up solutions.

Another qubit quirk: Their properties can be intertwined through the quantum phenomenon of entanglement (SN: 4/29/17, p. 8). A measurement of one qubit in an entangled pair instantly reveals the value of its partner, even if they are far apart — what Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”

Story continues after diagram

Gated community
In quantum computing, programmers execute a series of operations, called gates, to flip qubits (represented by black horizontal lines), entangle them to link their properties, or put them in a superposition, representing 0 and 1 simultaneously. First, some gate definitions:

X gate: Flips a qubit from a 0 to a 1, or vice versa.

please log in to view this image

Hadamard gate: Puts a qubit into a superposition of states.

please log in to view this image

Controlled not gate: Flips a second qubit only if the first qubit is 1.

please log in to view this image

please log in to view this image

Entanglement: A Hadamard gate puts the first qubit in a superposition. The controlled not gate both flips and does not flip the second qubit. Assuming the qubits start as 0, when measured, they will be 11 or 00, but never 10 or 01.
Scientists can combine gates like the ones above into complex sequences to perform calculations that are not possible with classical computers. One such quantum algorithm, called Grover’s search, speeds up searches, such as scanning fingerprint databases for a match. To understand how this works, consider a simple game show.

In this game show, four doors hide one car and three goats. A contestant must open a door at random in hopes of finding the car. Grover’s search looks at all possibilities at once and amplifies the desired one, so the contestant is more likely to find the car. The two qubits represent four doors, labeled in binary as 00, 01, 10 and 11. In this example, the car is hidden behind door 11.

please log in to view this image

Step 1: Puts both qubits in a superposition. All four doors have equal probability.
Step 2: Hides the car behind door 11. In a real-world example, this information would be stored in a quantum database.
Step 3: Amplifies the probability of getting the correct answer, 11, when the qubits are measured.
Step 4: Measures both qubits; the result is 11.

Source: IBM Research; Graphics: T. Tibbitts

Such weird quantum properties can make for superefficient calculations. But the approach won’t speed up solutions for every problem thrown at it. Quantum calculators are particularly suited to certain types of puzzles, the kind for which correct answers can be selected by a process called quantum interference. Through quantum interference, the correct answer is amplified while others are canceled out, like sets of ripples meeting one another in a lake, causing some peaks to become larger and others to disappear.

One of the most famous potential uses for quantum computers is breaking up large integers into their prime factors. For classical computers, this task is so difficult that credit card data and other sensitive information are secured via encryption based on factoring numbers. Eventually, a large enough quantum computer could break this type of encryption, factoring numbers that would take millions of years for a classical computer to crack.

Quantum computers also promise to speed up searches, using qubits to more efficiently pick out an information needle in a data haystack.

Qubits can be made using a variety of materials, including ions, silicon or superconductors, which conduct electricity without resistance. Unfortunately, none of these technologies allow for a computer that will fit easily on a desktop. Though the computer chips themselves are tiny, they depend on large cooling systems, vacuum chambers or other bulky equipment to maintain the delicate quantum properties of the qubits. Quantum computers will probably be confined to specialized laboratories for the foreseeable future, to be accessed remotely via the internet.

Going supreme
That vision of Web-connected quantum computers has already begun to Quantum computing is exciting. It’s coming, and we want a lot more people to be well-versed in itmaterialize. In 2016, IBM unveiled the Quantum Experience, a quantum computer that anyone around the world can access online for free.

Quantum computing is exciting. It’s coming, and we want a lot more people to be well-versed in it.

— Jerry Chow

With only five qubits, the Quantum Experience is “limited in what you can do,” says Jerry Chow, who manages IBM’s experimental quantum computing group. (IBM’s 16-qubit computer is in beta testing, so Quantum Experience users are just beginning to get their hands on it.) Despite its limitations, the Quantum Experience has allowed scientists, computer programmers and the public to become familiar with programming quantum computers — which follow different rules than standard computers and therefore require new ways of thinking about problems. “Quantum computing is exciting. It’s coming, and we want a lot more people to be well-versed in it,” Chow says. “That’ll make the development and the advancement even faster.”

But to fully jump-start quantum computing, scientists will need to prove that their machines can outperform the best standard computers. “This step is important to convince the community that you’re building an actual quantum computer,” says quantum physicist Simon Devitt of Macquarie University in Sydney. A demonstration of such quantum supremacy could come by the end of the year or in 2018, Devitt predicts.

Researchers from Google set out a strategy to demonstrate quantum supremacy, posted online at arXiv.org in 2016. They proposed an algorithm that, if run on a large enough quantum computer, would produce results that couldn’t be replicated by the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

The method involves performing random operations on the qubits, and measuring the distribution of answers that are spit out. Getting the same distribution on a classical supercomputer would require simulating the complex inner workings of a quantum computer. Simulating a quantum computer with more than about 45 qubits becomes unmanageable. Supercomputers haven’t been able to reach these quantum wilds.

To enter this hinterland, Google, which has a nine-qubit computer, has aggressive plans to scale up to 49 qubits. “We’re pretty optimistic,” says Google’s John Martinis, also a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Martinis and colleagues plan to proceed in stages, working out the kinks along the way. “You build something, and then if it’s not working exquisitely well, then you don’t do the next one — you fix what’s going on,” he says. The researchers are currently developing quantum computers of 15 and 22 qubits.

IBM, like Google, also plans to go big. In March, the company announced it would build a 50-qubit computer in the next few years and make it available to businesses eager to be among the first adopters of the burgeoning technology. Just two months later, in May, IBM announced that its scientists had created the 16-qubit quantum computer, as well as a 17-qubit prototype that will be a technological jumping-off point for the company’s future line of commercial computers.

Story continues after image

please log in to view this image

One of IBM’s newest quantum computers has 16 qubits made of superconducting materials. Two columns of eight qubits can be seen on this chip. The zigzag lines are microwave resonators, which allow qubits to interact.
IBM RESEARCH/FLICKR (CC BY-ND 2.0)


But a quantum computer is much more than the sum of its qubits. “One of the real key aspects about scaling up is not simply … qubit number, but really improving the device performance,” Chow says. So IBM researchers are focusing on a standard they call “quantum volume,” which takes into account several factors. These include the number of qubits, how each qubit is connected to its neighbors, how quickly errors slip into calculations and how many operations can be performed at once. “These are all factors that really give your quantum processor its power,” Chow says.

Errors are a major obstacle to boosting quantum volume. With their delicate quantum properties, qubits can accumulate glitches with each operation. Qubits must resist these errors or calculations quickly become unreliable. Eventually, quantum computers with many qubits will be able to fix errors that crop up, through a procedure known as error correction. Still, to boost the complexity of calculations quantum computers can take on, qubit reliability will need to keep improving.

Different technologies for forming qubits have various strengths and weaknesses, which affect quantum volume. IBM and Google build their qubits out of superconducting materials, as do many academic scientists. In superconductors cooled to extremely low temperatures, electrons flow unimpeded. To fashion superconducting qubits, scientists form circuits in which current flows inside a loop of wire made of aluminum or another superconducting material.

Several teams of academic researchers create qubits from single ions, trapped in place and probed with lasers. Intel and others are working with qubits fabricated from tiny bits of silicon known as quantum dots (SN: 7/11/15, p. 22). Microsoft is studying what are known as topological qubits, which would be extra-resistant to errors creeping into calculations. Qubits can even be forged from diamond, using defects in the crystal that isolate a single electron. Photonic quantum computers, meanwhile, make calculations using particles of light. A Chinese-led team demonstrated in a paper published May 1 in Nature Photonics that a light-based quantum computer could outperform the earliest electronic computers on a particular problem.

One company, D-Wave, claims to have a quantum computer that can perform serious calculations, albeit using a more limited strategy than other quantum computers (SN: 7/26/14, p. 6). But many scientists are skeptical about the approach. “The general consensus at the moment is that something quantum is happening, but it’s still very unclear what it is,” says Devitt.

Identical ions
While superconducting qubits have received the most attention from giants like IBM and Google, underdogs taking different approaches could eventually pass these companies by. One potential upstart is Chris Monroe, who crafts ion-based quantum computers.

please log in to view this image

Some quantum computers use ions as their qubits, trapping them in a device like this one at the University of Maryland. Five ions sit in the gap at the center of the gold-colored blades, each about 2 centimeters long.
EMILY EDWARDS/JOINT QUANTUM INSTITUTE/UNIV. OF MARYLAND
On a walkway near his office on the University of Maryland campus in College Park, a banner featuring a larger-than-life portrait of Monroe adorns a fence. The message: Monroe’s quantum computers are a “fearless idea.” The banner is part of an advertising campaign featuring several of the university’s researchers, but Monroe seems an apt choice, because his research bucks the trend of working with superconducting qubits.


Monroe and his small army of researchers arrange ions in neat lines, manipulating them with lasers. In a paper published in Nature in 2016, Monroe and colleagues debuted a five-qubit quantum computer, made of ytterbium ions, allowing scientists to carry out various quantum computations. A 32-ion computer is in the works, he says.

Monroe’s labs — he has half a dozen of them on campus — don’t resemble anything normally associated with computers. Tables hold an indecipherable mess of lenses and mirrors, surrounding a vacuum chamber that houses the ions. As with IBM’s computer, although the full package is bulky, the quantum part is minuscule: The chain of ions spans just hundredths of a millimeter.

Scientists in laser goggles tend to the whole setup. The foreign nature of the equipment explains why ion technology for quantum computing hasn’t taken off yet, Monroe says. So he and colleagues took matters into their own hands, creating a start-up called IonQ, which plans to refine ion computers to make them easier to work with.

Monroe points out a few advantages of his technology. In particular, ions of the same type are identical. In other systems, tiny differences between qubits can muck up a quantum computer’s operations. As quantum computers scale up, Monroe says, there will be a big price to pay for those small differences. “Having qubits that are identical, over millions of them, is going to be really important.”

In a paper published in March in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Monroe and colleagues compared their quantum computer with IBM’s Quantum Experience. The ion computer performed operations more slowly than IBM’s superconducting one, but it benefited from being more interconnected — each ion can be entangled with any other ion, whereas IBM’s qubits can be entangled only with adjacent qubits. That interconnectedness means that calculations can be performed in fewer steps, helping to make up for the slower operation speed, and minimizing the opportunity for errors.

Story continues below table

Quantum vs. quantum
Two different quantum computers — one using ion qubits, the other superconducting qubits — went head-to-head in a recent comparison. Both five-qubit computers performed similarly, but each had its own advantages: The superconducting computer was faster; the ion computer was more interconnected, needing fewer steps to perform calculations.

Goal Ions Superconductors
Error rate: Minimize calculation errors A few errors per 100 operations A few errors per 100 operations
Qubit lifetime: Retain quantum properties over long periods About 0.5 seconds About 0.00005 seconds
Speed: Operations should be quick About 0.3 milliseconds About 0.0003 milliseconds
Interconnectivity: Each qubit can "talk" to all other qubits Full connectivity Qubits can only talk to their neighbors
Source: N.M. Linke et al/PNAS 2017

Early applications
Computers like Monroe’s are still far from unlocking the full power of quantum computing. To perform increasingly complex tasks, scientists will have to correct the errors that slip into calculations, fixing problems on the fly by spreading information out among many qubits. Unfortunately, such error correction multiplies the number of qubits required by a factor of 10, 100 or even thousands, depending on the quality of the qubits. Fully error-corrected quantum computers will require millions of qubits. That’s still a long way off.

So scientists are sketching out some simple problems that quantum computers could dig into without error correction. One of the most important early applications will be to study the chemistry of small molecules or simple reactions, by using quantum computers to simulate the quantum mechanics of chemical systems. In 2016, scientists from Google, Harvard University and other institutions performed such a quantum simulation of a hydrogen molecule. Hydrogen has already been simulated with classical computers with similar results, but more complex molecules could follow as quantum computers scale up.

Once error-corrected quantum computers appear, many quantum physicists have their eye on one chemistry problem in particular: making fertilizer. Though it seems an unlikely mission for quantum physicists, the task illustrates the game-changing potential of quantum computers.

The Haber-Bosch process, which is used to create nitrogen-rich fertilizers, is hugely energy intensive, demanding high temperatures and pressures. The process, essential for modern farming, consumes around 1 percent of the world’s energy supply. There may be a better way. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria easily extract nitrogen from the air, thanks to the enzyme nitrogenase. Quantum computers could help simulate this enzyme and reveal its properties, perhaps allowing scientists “to design a catalyst to improve the nitrogen fixation reaction, make it more efficient, and save on the world’s energy,” says Microsoft’s Svore. “That’s the kind of thing we want to do on a quantum computer. And for that problem it looks like we’ll need error correction.”

Pinpointing applications that don’t require error correction is difficult, and the possibilities are not fully mapped out. “It’s not because they don’t exist; I think it’s because physicists are not the right people to be finding them,” says Devitt, of Macquarie. Once the hardware is available, the thinking goes, computer scientists will come up with new ideas.

That’s why companies like IBM are pushing their quantum computers to users via the Web. “A lot of these companies are realizing that they need people to start playing around with these things,” Devitt says.

Quantum scientists are trekking into a new, uncharted realm of computation, bringing computer programmers along for the ride. The capabilities of these fledgling systems could reshape the way society uses computers.

Eventually, quantum computers may become part of the fabric of our technological society. Quantum computers could become integrated into a quantum internet, for example, which would be more secure than what exists today (SN: 10/15/16, p. 13).

“Quantum computers and quantum communication effectively allow you to do things in a much more private way,” says physicist Seth Lloyd of MIT, who envisions Web searches that not even the search engine can spy on.

There are probably plenty more uses for quantum computers that nobody has thought up yet.

“We’re not sure exactly what these are going to be used for. That makes it a little weird,” Monroe says. But, he maintains, the computers will find their niches. “Build it and they will come.”


What the flying ****???

 

That article is nowhere near as fun as mine

 

I'm wearing my new Higgs boson T **** today, while it's our monthly dress-down Friday

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...derly-lonelybut-pleasure-bots-have-dark-side/

Believe it or not, after my prostatectomy in May I saw my consultant on Monday and, as everything is okay, he told me I have to **** more (albeit a dry ****). Surely I can get one of the above honeys on the NHS? It's not as if they're saving it for the nurses...

 

“I can tell you that robots are certainly coming,”

 

The one I get will -multiple times. I'm hoping for Thandie Newton. What does a robot say when she comes eleven times? 'Thanks Donga'.

 

That's weirder than what's going on with me in real life on the Cheese thread

 

That's debatable. Mass debatable, as it were.

 

#shockingpun

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...aryon-quark-heavier-than-proton-a7828621.html

 

That is this, presumably.

Scientists discover new subatomic particle at Large Hadron Collider laboratory
Physicists hope findings will help explain a key force that binds matter together

• 
  The Independent Online

please log in to view this image

A model of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel is seen in the CERN (European Organization For Nuclear Research) Getty
Scientists have found an extra charming new subatomic particle that they hope will help further explain a key force that binds matter together.

Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe announced on Thursday the fleeting discovery of a long theorised but never-before-seen type of baryon.

Baryons are subatomic particles made up of quarks. Protons and neutrons are the most common baryons. Quarks are even smaller particles that come in six types, two common types that are light and four heavier types.

The high-speed collisions at the world's biggest atom smasher created for a fraction of a second a baryon particle called Xi cc, said Oxford physicist Guy Wilkinson, who is part of the experiment.

• The particle has two heavy quarks — both of a type that are called "charm"— and a light one. In the natural world, baryons have at most one heavy quark.

It may have been brief, but in particle physics it lived for "an appreciably long time," he said.

The two heavy quarks are in a dance that's just like the interaction of a star system with two suns and the third lighter quark circles the dancing pair, Mr Wilkinson said.

"People have looked for it for a long time," Mr Wilkinson said. He said this opens up a whole new "family" of baryons for physicists to find and study.

"It gives us a very unique and interesting laboratory to give us an interesting new angle on the behavior of the strong interaction (between particles), which is one of the key forces in nature," Mr Wilkinson said.

• Chris Quigg, a theoretical physicist at the Fermilab near Chicago, who wasn't part of the discovery team, praised the discovery and said "it gives us a lot to think about."

The team has submitted a paper to the journal Physical Review Letters.