Lifeboat Foundation

Professional athletic sports require elite athletes to function at the very limit of their abilities. After all, their competition consists entirely of other elite athletes trying to do just that. In this environment of fast-paced action and reaction, the difference between a hit or miss, catch or drop, goal or block, win or loss—milliseconds matter.

Researchers from institutions across Europe and the United States have demonstrated that light-based manipulation of visual processing can significantly enhance visual and visuomotor skills in professional soccer players. The six-week intervention focused on the effects of training under reduced light conditions using the Okkulo system, a novel technology designed to slow down visual processing speed.

Visual and visuomotor abilities are critical in sports, requiring rapid decision-making and accurate physical interactions in coordination with moving objects and other players. Previous research has shown athletes outperform non-athletes in these abilities.

We tie our shoes, we put on neckties, we wrestle with power cords. Yet despite deep familiarity with knots, most people cannot tell a weak knot from a strong one by looking at them, new Johns Hopkins University research finds.

Researchers showed people pictures of two knots and asked them to point to the strongest one. They couldn’t.

They showed people videos of each knot, where the knots spin slowly so they could get a good long look. They still failed.

Quantum error correction that suppresses errors below a critical threshold needed for achieving future practical quantum computing applications is demonstrated on the newest generation quantum chips from Google Quantum AI, reports a paper in Nature this week. The device performance, if scaled, could facilitate the operational requirements of large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Quantum computing has the potential to speed up computing and exceed the capabilities of classical computers at certain tasks. However, quantum computers are prone to errors, making current prototypes unable to run long enough to achieve practical outputs.

The strategy devised by quantum computing researchers to address this relies on quantum error correction, where information is spread over many qubits (units of quantum information, similar to classical computer bits) allowing the identification and compensation of errors without damaging the computation. The overhead in qubits required by quantum error correction potentially introduces more errors than it corrects.

The authors demonstrate electrically pumped continuous-wave operation of a SiGeSn/GeSn lasers. The devices are based on a multi-quantum-well design in a small footprint micro-disk cavity resulting in driving parameters compatible with on-chip operation.

Frequency-scanning systems with narrow instantaneous linewidth hold promise for various fields. Here, the authors report the use of time-variant parity-time symmetry to dynamically narrow the instantaneous linewidth of frequency-scanning systems.

A new study by Rice University physicist Qimiao Si unravels the enigmatic behaviors of quantum critical metals—materials that defy conventional physics at low temperatures. Published in Nature Physics Dec. 9, the research examines quantum critical points (QCPs), where materials teeter on the edge between two distinct phases, such as magnetism and nonmagnetism. The findings illuminate the peculiarities of these metals and provide a deeper understanding of high-temperature superconductors, which conduct electricity without resistance at relatively high temperatures.

Key to this study is quantum criticality, a delicate state where the material becomes ultrasensitive to quantum fluctuations—microscopic disturbances that alter electron behavior. While ordinary metals obey well-established principles, quantum critical metals defy these norms, exhibiting strange and collective properties that have long puzzled scientists. Physicists call such systems “strange metals.”

“Our work dives into how quasiparticles lose their identity in strange metals at these quantum critical points, which leads to unique properties that defy traditional theories,” said Si, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy and director of Rice’s Extreme Quantum Materials Alliance.

Current optical skyrmion generators involve complex bulky systems, hindering further practical applications. We propose an integrated metafiber for high-quality photonic skyrmions, with subwavelength polarization features and topology tunability.

A team of researchers from the University of Cologne, Hasselt University (Belgium) and the University of St Andrews (Scotland) has succeeded in using the quantum mechanical principle of strong light-matter coupling for an optical technology that overcomes the long-standing problem of angular dependence in optical systems.

The study, “Breaking the angular dispersion limit in thin film optics by ultra-strong light-matter coupling,” published in Nature Communications presents ultra-stable thin-film polariton filters that open new avenues in photonics, sensor technology, optical imaging and display technology.

The study at the University of Cologne was led by Professor Dr. Malte Gather, director of the Humboldt Center for Nano-and Biophotonics at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

Researchers have discovered that old elliptical galaxies can form from intense star formation in early galaxy cores.

This finding, derived from data analyzed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, shows that these spheroidal galaxies, often considered static and inert, were once dynamic regions of intense star formation during the cosmic noon. This transformative view on galaxy evolution helps clarify the processes behind the formation of the universe’s most massive galaxies.

Groundbreaking Discovery in Galaxy Formation.