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Category: computing

Biology, not physics, holds the key to reality

Three centuries after Newton described the universe through fixed laws and deterministic equations, science may be entering an entirely new phase.

According to biochemist and complex systems theorist Stuart Kauffman and computer scientist Andrea Roli, the biosphere is not a predictable, clockwork system. Instead, it is a self-organising, ever-evolving web of life that cannot be fully captured by mathematical models.

Organisms reshape their environments in ways that are fundamentally unpredictable. These processes, Kauffman and Roli argue, take place in what they call a “Domain of No Laws.”

This challenges the very foundation of scientific thought. Reality, they suggest, may not be governed by universal laws at all—and it is biology, not physics, that could hold the answers.

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Frequently distracted? Your brain rhythms may be to blame

Scientists may have new answers to why pop-ups or notifications grab our attention. Turns out our attention is on a cycle, shifting seven to 10 times per second. This rhythmic occurrence may be crucial for survival, as it prevents us from becoming overly focused on one thing in our environment. It could help us to see a car backing up in a parking lot while we search for where we parked, or to duck to avoid a low-hanging tree branch on a walk while watching a kid ride a bike.

However, these windows that shift our attention could also make us more susceptible to distractions, especially in modern times. As we live in a world surrounded by screens, digital alerts, and other visual stimuli, these frequent and innate windows for shifting attention may make it easier to be pulled away from a task.

“For our ancestors who had to continue to monitor the environment for predators while foraging for food, this was a beneficial trait,” said Ian Fiebelkorn, Ph.D., assistant professor of Neuroscience at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester and senior author of a study out in the journal PLOS Biology. “But in our modern environment, with laptops open in front of us and a smartphone nearby, rhythmically occurring windows for beneficial attentional shifts might also work against us. That is, rhythmically occurring windows for attentional shifts are also associated with increased susceptibility to distracting information.”

Your car’s tire sensors could be used to track you

Researchers at IMDEA Networks Institute, together with European partners, have found that tire pressure sensors in modern cars can unintentionally expose drivers to tracking. Over a ten-week study, they collected signals from more than 20,000 vehicles, revealing a hidden privacy risk and highlighting the need for stronger security measures in future vehicle sensor systems.

Most modern cars are equipped with a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS), mandatory since the late 2000s in many countries for their contribution to road safety. This system uses small sensors in each wheel to monitor tire pressure and sends wireless signals to the car’s computer to alert the driver if a tire is underinflated.

However, the researchers found that these tire sensors also send a unique ID number in clear, unencrypted wireless signals, meaning that anyone nearby with a simple radio receiver can capture the signal, and recognize the same car again later. Most vehicle tracking today uses cameras that need clear visibility and line-of-sight to a car. TPMS tracking is different: tire sensors automatically send radio signals that pass through walls and vehicles, allowing small hidden wireless receivers to capture them without being seen.

A robust new telecom qubit identified in silicon

Quantum technologies are anticipated to transform computing, communication, and sensing by harnessing the unusual behavior of matter at the atomic scale. Translating quantum’s promise into practical devices will require physical systems that have desirable quantum properties and can be easily manufactured. Silicon, the material behind today’s computer chips, is highly attractive as a platform because it plays to the strengths of the trillion-dollar semiconductor industry that has already been built. Identifying quantum building blocks—qubits—in silicon is, therefore, an important frontier research area.

In a new study, researchers in UC Santa Barbara materials professor Chris Van de Walle’s Computational Materials Group identified a robust new qubit in silicon, called the CN center. The work is published in the journal Physical Review B.

Qubits can be based on atomic-scale defects in a crystal. A prototype example is the NV center, which consists of a nitrogen (N) atom sitting next to a vacancy (V, a missing carbon atom) in a diamond crystal. These defects can interact with both electrons and light, allowing them to emit single photons (quanta of light) that can transmit quantum information or be processed in quantum networks.

A protocol to realize near-perfect atom-photon entanglement

Quantum technologies, devices and systems that operate leveraging quantum mechanical effects, could tackle some tasks more reliably and efficiently than any classical technology could. In recent years, some researchers have been trying to realize quantum networks to scale up the size of quantum computers, which essentially consist of several connected smaller quantum processors.

The devices in a quantum network are connected via entanglement, a quantum effect via which distant quantum particles become inextricably linked and share a single correlated state. One way to create entanglement between different atomic quantum computers is to use an atom-cavity interface, a system in which atoms interact with light inside an optical cavity.

Over two decades ago, two physicists at the University of Aarhus introduced a protocol designed to produce high-quality entangled states, reliably connecting devices in a network. Despite its potential, this framework, known as the state-carving (SC) protocol, was found to only succeed in 50% of cases, which has so far prevented its application on a large scale.

Quantum effect could power the next generation of battery-free devices

A new study has revealed how tiny imperfections and vibrations inside a promising quantum material could be used to control an unusual quantum effect, opening new possibilities for smaller, faster, and more efficient energy-harvesting devices.

The international team, led by Professor Dongchen Qi from the QUT School of Chemistry and Physics and Professor Xiao Renshaw Wang from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, studied the mechanism governing the so-called nonlinear Hall effect (NLHE). The research is published in the journal Newton.

Unlike the classical Hall effect, this quantum version allows alternating electrical signals, like those found in wireless or ambient energy sources, to be converted directly into usable direct current without the need for traditional diodes or bulky components.

Why do microbes team up? A new model explains nutrient sharing in fluctuating environments

Depending on others for something you need may feel like a risky proposition—and perhaps a human one. It is actually a survival strategy found in the microbial world, and far more frequently than one might expect. Discovering why is key to understanding how microbes form stable communities across medical, industrial, and ecological settings.

A new study by bioengineering professor Sergei Maslov (CAIM co-leader), computational scientist Ashish George, and biology professor Tong Wang explores why interdependence can be such a winning move for microbial communities. Their work, published in Cell Systems, demonstrated that a mathematical model of how bacteria produce and share resources accurately predicted the outcome of experiments with living E. coli strains.

The researchers’ collaboration began during their time as colleagues at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. George continued the collaboration in his position at the Broad Institute; Wang, in his appointment at Purdue University. Maslov, who led the study, remains at Illinois and is an affiliate member of the National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology.

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