Researchers at Stanford University announced Tuesday that they had successfully leveraged the “spooky” interaction of entangled electrons to send a message between them over a span of 1.2 miles. This is by far the longest distance that scientists have managed to send entangled particles and provides the strongest evidence to date that quantum computing can have practical applications. Quantum computers exploit the phenomenon known as quantum entanglement , what Einstein famously referred to as ” spooky action over distance “, wherein two particles are connected regardless of the distance between them. That is, as in this case, if two electrons are entangled, the direction of their spin will always be the same. If one electron is spinning clockwise, the other will be too. If one reverses the direction of its spin, the other will as well. Doesn’t matter if they’re on the opposite sides of a molecule or on opposite sides of the galaxy, the two particles and their behaviors are inextricably linked. “Electron spin is the basic unit of a quantum computer, ” Stanford physicist Leo Yu said in a statement. “This work can pave the way for future quantum networks that can send highly secure data around the world.” The problem is that electrons are confined to atoms. And in order to get two electrons to entangle over long distances (and allow their quantum computer networks to communicate with one another) they need photons to act as the messengers. This is accomplished by “pairing” the photon and electron, a process called “quantum correlation”. But that runs into another issue: photons love to change the direction of their spin while travelling through fiber optic lines. So while you can get the first electron and the photon to correlate pretty easily, keeping the photon on task as it travels to the second electron is way more difficult. To overcome this, the Stanford team created “time-stamps” for the photons that act as reference points for the photons, allowing them to confirm that they arrived with the same spin orientation that they left with. Using this method, the team successfully entangled a pair of electrons over 2 kilometers of fiber optic line. Their research has been published in the journal Nature Communications . [Image Credit: L.A. Cicero] Via: Stanford University Source: Nature Communications
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Scientists use ‘spooky action’ to mail electron messages a mile
Scientists have long been perplexed by HIV’s ability to spread through the body – until now, that is. A team of medical researchers from Yale University have for the first time recorded the retrovirus’ movement through a mouse host. The team did so by marking the virus with a fluorescent dye and then injecting it into a mouse’s lymph node (as seen in the video below). The lymphatic system is the seat of the body’s immune system. “It’s all very different than what people thought, ” Walther Mothes, associate professor of microbial pathogenesis and co-senior author the paper, said in a statement. Once there, the HIV went about binding itself to macrophages, immune cells tasked with consuming foreign particles and dead cells. But that’s only a temporary viral vehicle. The HIV particle will then jump ship and attach itself to a rare type of B-cell responsible for generating antibodies, as you can see below. What’s more, these cells can move between the lymphatic system and surrounding tissues. These B-cells basically act as invisibility cloaks for the virus, shielding them from the rest of the body’s defenses. And with it, HIV particles can quickly spread through the rest of the organism. This discovery could yield clues in slowing the virus’ movements or, potentially, a way to prevent it from infecting macrophages in the first place. The Yale team’s study has been published in the journal, Science . [Image Credit: UIG via Getty Images] Via: Yale University Source: Science