Science

How are human beings, animals and plants interconnected? What does the decline of biodiversity mean for these relationships and how we understand them? How can we transform or reconsider existing narratives in a changing world? These questions were the subject of a recent interdisciplinary panel titled “Mending the Living World,” hosted by the Columbia Climate School, the Columbia Maison Française, Alliance Program and Villa Albertine. It was the inaugural edition of Albertine Conversations, a series designed to address the complex issues currently facing our society.  Archaeologist and associate professor at Columbia Climate School Kristina Douglass, French philosopher Corine Pelluchon, conservation scientist Ana Luz Porzecanski and biodiversity policy expert Cyrille Barnérias, disc...

An artist’s representation of qubits in the Quantum Twins simulatorSilicon Quantum Computing An unprecedently large quantum simulator could shed light on how exotic, potentially useful quantum materials work and help us optimise them in the future. Quantum computers may eventually harness quantum phenomena to complete calculations that are intractable for the world’s best conventional computers. Similarly, a simulator harnessing quantum phenomena could help researchers to accurately model poorly understood materials or molecules. This is especially true for materials such as superconductors, which conduct electricity with nearly perfect efficiency, because they derive this property from quantum effects that could be directly implemented on quantum simulators but w...

At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the leaders of several countries launched an Open Coalition on Compliance Carbon Markets. The coalition stresses an international effort to establish carbon markets that operate at scale with credibility, through shared standards across borders. This emphasis mirrors the work of Shubham Deshmukh, who recently graduated from the M.S. in Sustainability Management program at the Columbia School of Professional Studies. Deshmukh determines how carbon markets can finance climate action, from project development in India to the policy questions that shape the markets globally.  Carbon markets are simultaneously promoted as an essential climate financing tool, and criticized as a license to pollute. A carbon market puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions via carbon ...

The increasing mortality rate from opioid overdose is a major global challenge. High-, middle-, and low-income countries are affected, although the situation in North America is particularly striking. In the USA alone, >100,000 people die from opioid overdose annually, up from <20,000 deaths per annum at the turn of the century, despite a mortality decrease in 2025. Similar disturbing trends are observed in Canada. The increased use of opioids, both medically prescribed and illicitly sourced, has social, moral, and medical angles, and opinions differ between experts and within society about the relative importance of these perspectives. Whatever this balance may be, the opioid overdose situation is unquestionably a medical emergency. Medical researchers need to apply science to its f...

The IBM Quantum System Two, which is similar to the machine used to make the new time crystalIBM Research A time crystal more complex than any made before has been created in a quantum computer. Exploring the properties of this unusual quantum setup strengthens the case for quantum computers as machines well-suited for scientific discovery. Typical crystals have atoms arranged in a specific repeating pattern in space, but time crystals are defined by a pattern that repeats in time instead. A time crystal repeatedly cycles through the same set of configurations and, barring deleterious influences from its environment, should continue cycling indefinitely. This indefinite motion initially made time crystals seem like a threat to the fundamental laws of physics, but throu...