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Research Team Unlocks Secret Path to a Bright Quantum Future

Lead image: Artist’s illustration of hydrodynamical behavior from an interacting ensemble of quantum spin defects in diamond. Credit: Norman Yao/Berkeley Lab Berkeley Lab-led research key to next-gen quantum computing and technologies. In 1998, researchers including Mark Kubinec of UC Berkeley performed one of the first simple quantum computations using individual molecules. They used pulses of radio waves to flip the spins of two nuclei in a molecule, with each spin’s “up” or “down” orientation storing information in the way that a “0” or “1” state stores information in a classical data bit. In those early days of quantum computers, the…

Predicting Traffic Crashes Before They Happen With Artificial Intelligence

A deep model was trained on historical crash data, road maps, satellite imagery, and GPS to enable high-resolution crash maps that could lead to safer roads. Today’s world is one big maze, connected by layers of concrete and asphalt that afford us the luxury of navigation by vehicle. For many of our road-related advancements — GPS lets us fire fewer neurons thanks to map apps, cameras alert us to potentially costly scrapes and scratches, and electric autonomous cars have lower fuel costs — our safety measures haven’t quite caught up. We still rely on a steady diet of traffic signals,…

Hubble Finds Mysterious Replenishment of Water Vapor on Jupiter’s Moon Europa

Lead image: Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute Ice Sublimating Off the Surface Replenishes a Tenuous Envelope You would think that living half-a-billion miles from the Sun would be no place to call home. But planetary astronomers are very interested in exploring the moon Europa in search of life. Slightly smaller than Earth’s moon, Europa orbits monstrous Jupiter. Surface temperatures on the icy moon never rise above a frigid minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit. A temperature so cold that water-ice is as hard as rock. Yet, beneath the solid ice crust there may be a global ocean with more water than…

NASA Perseverance Mars Rover Images Confirm Jezero Crater Is an Ancient Martian Lake

Lead Image: Images from the Perseverance rover confirm that Jezero crater is an ancient Martian lake, researchers say. This Mastcam-Z enhanced color photo mosaic shows a butte near Jezero crater informally dubbed “Kodiak” by the rover team. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS; edited by Jim Bell/ASU The findings include signs of flash flooding that carried huge boulders downstream into the lakebed. The first scientific analysis of images taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover has now confirmed that Mars’ Jezero crater — which today is a dry, wind-eroded depression — was once a quiet lake, fed steadily by a small river some 3.7 billion years…