Science

Courtesy of Yushu Xia From a young age, Yushu Xia was keenly aware of the importance of environmental health—a passion sparked by her grandfather, a geology professor and author of popular science books who inspired her love for science and education. Today, Xia combines these interests as an assistant research professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is part of the Columbia Climate School. Xia’s niche: the intersection of soil and agricultural science with modeling and data science, all of which are essential in “truly understand[ing] how soils function,” she says. In the following discussion, Xia talks about her growing roster of innovative research projects that seek to understand and improve soil health; the importance of community and student engagement; and ways ...

Current silicon chips are extremely dense, but ultra-thin 2D materials could make them even more compactwu kailiang/Alamy Working memory chips just 10 atoms thick could lead to radically larger storage capacity in electronic devices like smartphones. After decades of miniaturisation, current computer chips now have vanishingly small components, often cramming tens of billions of transistors into an area the size of a fingernail. But while the size of components on a silicon wafer has become extremely small, the wafers themselves remain relatively thick – meaning there are limits to how much you can increase the complexity of chips by stacking multiple layers on top of each other. Scientists have been working on thinner chips made from so-called 2D materials such a...

What is the quantum nature of time? We may be about to find outQuality Stock / Alamy What does the passage of time look like for a truly quantum object? The world’s best clocks may soon be able to answer this question, testing how time can stretch and shift in the quantum realm and allowing us to probe unexplored areas of physics. The idea the passage of time can change, or dilate, originates in Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Einstein showed as an object approaches the speed of light, time appears to run slower for it than for a stationary observer. He extended this idea with his general theory of relativity, showing a gravitational field has the same time-warping effect. Igor Pikovski at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey and his colleagues...

AI could be used to make the toxin ricin, but this can also be obtained from castor beans, found in many gardensAmerican Photo Archive/Alamy Artificial intelligence promises to transform biology, allowing us to design better drugs, vaccines and even synthetic organisms for, say, eating waste plastic. But some fear it could also be used for darker purposes, to create bioweapons that wouldn’t be detected by conventional methods until it was too late. So, how worried should we be? “AI advances are fuelling breakthroughs in biology and medicine,” says Eric Horvitz, chief scientific officer at Microsoft. “With new power comes responsibility for vigilance.” His team has published a study looking at whether AI could design proteins that do the same thing as proteins that...

Quantum computers can be made using arrays of atomsAlamy Stock Vector A device with more than 6000 quantum bits, or qubits, has smashed a previously-held record and is the first step towards building the largest quantum computer yet. There is currently no single, consensus design for building a quantum computer, but researchers believe that for these devices to be useful, they will have to comprise at least tens of thousands of qubits. The current record holder is a machine from Atom Computing, with 1180 qubits, but Hannah Manetsch at the California Institute of Technology and her colleagues have now built a device with 6100 qubits. Each of these is a neutral caesium atom cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero and controlled by laser beams, with all 6100 of...