News

A Preview of Bristlecone, Google’s New Quantum Processor

The goal of the Google Quantum AI lab is to build a quantum computer that can be used to solve real-world problems. Our strategy is to explore near-term applications using systems that are forward compatible to a large-scale universal error-corrected quantum computer. In order for a quantum processor to be able to run algorithms beyond the scope of classical simulations, it requires not only a large number of qubits.

Jeff Bezos Has Spent $42M Building a Clock to Run 10,000 Years

First firing of air-breathing Electric Truster

In a world-first, an ESA-led team has built and fired an electric thruster to ingest scarce air molecules from the top of the atmosphere for propellant, opening the way to satellites flying in very low orbits for years on end.

A new storage engine for PostgreSQL to provide better control over bloat

New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

For decades, descriptions of viruses have straddled life and nonlife, a divide that usually isn’t difficult to navigate. Their hallmark characteristics, namely their small size, tiny genomes and parasitic dependence on cellular hosts for replication, set them apart from all other living things despite their animation. But that story has gotten far more puzzling — particularly since the discovery of the first giant virus in 2003, which was so large that researchers initially thought it was a bacterium.

Insulator or superconductor? Physicists find graphene is both

Physicists at MIT and Harvard University have found that graphene, a lacy, honeycomb-like sheet of carbon atoms, can behave at two electrical extremes: as an insulator, in which electrons are completely blocked from flowing; and as a superconductor, in which electrical current can stream through without resistance.

Founding Stories Are Myths

Why You Should Ignore Every Founder’s Story About How They Started Their Company.

The Human Driving Manifesto

Do you like driving? I do. It’s not about speed.

Australia could become first country to eradicate cervical cancer

HPV (human papillomavirus) is a sexually transmitted infection that causes 99.9% of cervical cancers. In 2007, the federal government began providing the vaccine for free to girls aged 12-13 years, and in 2013, it extended the program to boys.

Scientists observe a new quantum particle with properties of ball lightning