entangled dot cloud
MIT engineers develop a magnetic transistor for more energy-efficient electronics
Transistors, the building blocks of modern electronics, are typically made of silicon. Because it’s a semiconductor, this material can control the flow of electricity in a circuit. But silicon has fundamental physical limits that restrict how compact and energy-efficient a transistor can be.MIT researchers have now replaced silicon with a magnetic semiconductor, creating a magnetic transistor that could enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient circuits. The material’s magnetism strongly
Ran a 5k queries on 50k documents to understand the file vs. vector RAG debate
title: Ran a 5k queries on 50k documents to understand the file vs vector rag debateWas curious about the noise on file-based RAG as opposed to vector-RAG. So benchmarked Tantivy vs. Chroma to quantify the trade-offs in modern RAG pipelines. I used 5 datasets: CodeXGlue, MS MARCO, SQuAD, HotpotQA, and SciQ.- Indexing/Embedding was 76x slower for Vectors ($O(s)$ vs $O(ms)$). Query latency was 11x slower- In SciQ, keyword search outperformed vectors by 32% (MRR). Terms like "Mitochondria
How gender bias influences math education
Young children are more inclined to believe incorrect math information from men than accurate information from women, according to a Rutgers University–New Brunswick study published in the journal Developmental Science.
Turning crystal flaws into quantum highways: A new route towards scalable solid-state qubits
Building large-scale quantum technologies requires reliable ways to connect individual quantum bits (qubits) without destroying their fragile quantum states. In a new theoretical study, published in npj Computational Materials, researchers show that crystal dislocations—line defects long regarded as imperfections—can instead serve as powerful building blocks for quantum interconnects.
Slowing down muon decay with short laser pulses
Muons are unstable subatomic particles that spontaneously and rapidly transform into other particles via a process known as electroweak decay. Altering the speed with which muons decay into other particles was so far deemed a challenging quest, requiring very strong electromagnetic fields that cannot be produced in conventional laboratory settings.
New research challenges the cold dark matter assumption
Dark matter, one of the Universe’s greatest mysteries, may have been born blazing hot instead of cold and sluggish as scientists long believed. New research shows that dark matter particles could have been moving near the speed of light shortly after the Big Bang, only to cool down later and still help form galaxies. By focusing on a chaotic early era known as post-inflationary reheating, researchers reveal that “red-hot” dark matter could survive long enough to become the calm, structure-buildi
How everyday foam reveals the secret logic of artificial intelligence
Foams were once thought to behave like glass, with bubbles frozen in place at the microscopic level. But new simulations reveal that foam bubbles are always shifting, even while the foam keeps its overall shape. Remarkably, this restless motion follows the same math used to train artificial intelligence. The finding hints that learning-like behavior may be a fundamental principle shared by materials, machines, and living cells.
Your consciousness may emerge from a mysterious quantum field, radical new theory suggests
This interaction could help explain both why quantum processes can occur within environments like the brain and why we lose ...
Rigetti Stock Slips After a Delay. What the 108-Qubit System Means for RGTI
A delay in the general availability of Rigetti Computing's (NASDAQ:RGTI) 108-qubit Cepheus-1-108Q system pushed the stock ...
How should investors interpret Rigetti's 108-qubit roadmap update?
Rigetti Computing’s RGTI latest update on its 108-qubit Cepheus-1-108Q system reflects a deliberate shift toward performance ...
Scientists realize a three-qubit quantum register in a silicon photonic chip
Quantum technologies are highly promising devices that process, transfer or store information leveraging quantum mechanical ...
Scientists crack 3-qubit quantum register on a tiny silicon photonic chip
Quantum engineers have now demonstrated a fully controllable three‑qubit register on a silicon photonic chip, turning a ...
Trapping of single atoms in metasurface optical tweezer arrays
<p>Nature, Published online: 14 January 2026; <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09961-5">doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09961-5</a></p>Single strontium atoms are trapped in optical tweezer arrays generated via holographic metasurfaces, overcoming a critical barrier to realizing scalable neutral-atom quantum technologies.
Memories of items and their contexts are encoded by separate groups of human brain cells
<p>Nature, Published online: 14 January 2026; <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00016-x">doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00016-x</a></p>Human memory often needs to link specific items to the situation in which they feature. Brain recordings reveal that two distinct groups of neurons respond to stimuli and contextual information. These groups then cooperate to form flexible memories, rather than individual neurons encoding both signal types.
At MIT, a continued commitment to understanding intelligence
The MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence (SQI), a research unit in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, brings together researchers from across MIT who combine their diverse expertise to understand intelligence through tightly coupled scientific inquiry and rigorous engineering. These researchers engage in collaborative efforts spanning science, engineering, the humanities, and more. SQI seeks to comprehend how brains produce intelligence and how it can be replicated in artificial s
Neutral-atom arrays, a rapidly emerging quantum computing platform, get a boost from researchers
For quantum computers to outperform their classical counterparts, they need more quantum bits, or qubits. State-of-the-art quantum computers have around 1,000 qubits. Columbia physicists Sebastian Will and Nanfang Yu have their sights set much higher.
Quantum simulator reveals how vibrations steer energy flow in molecules
Researchers led by Rice University's Guido Pagano used a specialized quantum device to simulate a vibrating molecule and track how energy moves within it. The work, published Dec. 5 in Nature Communications, could improve understanding of basic mechanisms behind phenomena such as photosynthesis and solar energy conversion.
New state of matter discovered in a quantum material
At TU Wien, researchers have discovered a state in a quantum material that had previously been considered impossible. The definition of topological states should be generalized.
Chemists determine the structure of the fuzzy coat that surrounds Tau proteins
One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease is the clumping of proteins called Tau, which form tangled fibrils in the brain. The more severe the clumping, the more advanced the disease is.The Tau protein, which has also been linked to many other neurodegenerative diseases, is unstructured in its normal state, but in the pathological state it consists of a well-ordered rigid core surrounded by floppy segments. These disordered segments form a “fuzzy coat” that helps determine how Tau interacts wi
Quantum Acceleration For Frontier AI: Does It Cut The Cost Of Training?
Where, exactly, could quantum hardware reduce end-to-end training cost rather than merely improve asymptotic complexity on a ...