Nuclear-spin swap extends room-temperature entanglement lifetime up to 240-fold

Researchers in China have extended the lifetime of entanglement in a room-temperature, solid-state system by up to a factor of 240. Led by Shuo Ren and Rui-Jian Liang at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, the team transferred entangled states from the electron spins of solid-state defects to the spins of surrounding atomic nuclei, which are far more resilient to noise. The research has been published in Physical Review Letters.

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Calif. governor vetoes bill that would have lowered retirement age, added benefits for police, firefighters

Gov. Gavin Newsom cited concerns that the move would not be financially sound; AB 1383 would have lowered retirement ages by 2 years and raised maximum accrual rates by .3%

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BWC: Man points gun at car dealership worker, Ohio police before fatal OIS

Body camera footage shows Alliance Police officers deploying a TASER through the man’s open truck door; when he produced a gun, they fired shots

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Quantum communication protocol enables three users to establish a shared secure key

Quantum key distribution allows two users to establish secret keys whose security is grounded in the laws of quantum mechanics. Extending this capability to multiple users is an essential step toward quantum networks that support secure communication among many participants. Quantum cryptographic conferencing addresses this need by enabling multiple users to share the same secure key, which they can then use to protect group communications.

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Scientists teleport quantum states across 100 parallel optical channels

Quantum communication networks consist of several connected nodes that exchange information encoded in quantum states. These networks could potentially enable more secure communications between quantum devices in different locations.

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A ‘rebellious’ exoplanet orbits in the opposite direction of its star

A star and its planets form when a cloud of gas and dust collapses in on itself somewhere in space. The cloud then forms a disk around the nascent star, within which the planets will form. This protostar and its disk then rotate in the same direction.

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N.Y. officer fired, decertified after being shot with own gun in off-duty bar fight

The Phoenix police officer was shot with his gun after losing his grip on it during a bar fight that began when he pushed a woman to the ground

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The Red Planet has a purple side

Oxidized iron dominates the Martian color palette. The dusty reds, ochers, browns and tans give the planet its nickname: the Red Planet. But new images of Mars’ south polar region show something different. Swirls of pink, purple and red highlight the region and a feature named Thyles Rupes, an icy crag with cliffs higher than 1 km (0.6 miles). Rupes means cliff in Latin, while Thyles is a mythical northern land spoken of in the ancient world.

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Researchers measure the environment where the first supermassive black holes formed

When the James Webb Space Telescope pointed its powerful instruments toward the early universe, scientists were surprised by what it found. At high-redshift (z) values, corresponding to less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang, astronomers witnessed an abundance of galaxies that hosted what appeared to be the “seeds” of supermassive black holes (SMBHs).

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X-ray light is like guitar music, with frequencies sliding continuously between harmonics

Ultrashort laser pulses can be used to generate X-rays. Normally, however, only certain specific frequencies are produced. A team from TU Wien and the University of California San Diego has developed a method that makes it possible to tune the frequency continuously.

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Photonic Legos of functional 3D thin-films unlock high-performance heterogeneous photonic integration

Photonic integrated circuits route information with optical signals instead of relying only on electrical currents. Silicon (Si) and silicon nitride (SiNx) are excellent photonic platforms for waveguides, but they cannot efficiently perform the ever-increasing tasks required for fully integrated optical systems. A heterogeneous photonic integration platform capable of interfacing different optical materials with high performance is thus an ongoing challenge for both academia and industry.

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Cooling liquids reveal self-limiting particle clusters behind glass transition

Before diving into the mystery of glass, theoretical physicist Corentin Laudicina takes us back to high school physics for a moment. Although he has spent years studying exactly what happens in a material during the glass transition, he also understands that his research is not the easiest thing to explain off the cuff at the cafeteria table.

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Venus ate its moon: How Earth’s ‘twin’ could have swallowed a rocky satellite

Scientists have long speculated why Venus, with a size, mass and structure similar to Earth’s, doesn’t have a moon. New UC Riverside research shows that our hungry twin likely swallowed it.

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To understand the solar cycle, notice how the sun sleeps

The sun is such a constant in our lives that it can be difficult to imagine our star ever changing. But the sun can be quite variable. There are times when its magnetic field is turbulent and generates many sunspots and other times when it is quiet and dormant. Since the 1800s, we’ve known that these active and passive periods follow an 11-year pattern known as the solar cycle. But even after centuries of observation, we still have a difficult time predicting exactly when solar maximum will occur and just how intense it will be. This is important because solar activity can have a significant impact on our modern technological infrastructure.

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Video: Fla. deputies call in back-up after responding to find 8-foot alligator

“Yeah, this is a job for a trapper,” a Manatee County deputy can be heard saying after coming face to face with the large reptile; FWC responded to capture the alligator

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