Calculations with 14 Quantum Bits

Quantum physicists from the University of Innsbruck have set another world record: They have achieved controlled entanglement of 14 quantum bits (qubits) and, thus, realized the largest quantum register that has ever been produced. With this experiment the scientists have not only come closer to the realization of a quantum computer but they also show surprising results for the quantum mechanical phenomenon of entanglement.

The term entanglement was introduced by the Austrian Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, and it describes a quantum mechanical phenomenon that while it can clearly be demonstrated experimentally, is not understood completely. Entangled particles cannot be defined as single particles with defined states but rather as a whole system. By entangling single quantum bits, a quantum computer will solve problems considerably faster than conventional computers. “It becomes even more difficult to understand entanglement when there are more than two particles involved,“ says Thomas Monz, junior scientist in the research group led by Rainer Blatt at the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck. “And now our experiment with many particles provides us with new insights into this phenomenon,“ adds Blatt. …

via Calculations with 14 Quantum Bits – Presseinformation der Universität Innsbruck.

‘Good cholesterol’ nanoparticles seek and destroy cancer cells

High-density lipoprotein’s hauls excess cholesterol to the liver for disposal, but new research suggests “good cholesterol” can also act as a special delivery vehicle of destruction for cancer.

Synthetic HDL nanoparticles loaded with small interfering RNA to silence cancer-promoting genes selectively shrunk or destroyed ovarian cancer tumors in mice, a research team led by scientists from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of North Texas Health Science Center reports in the April edition of Neoplasia.

“RNA interference has great therapeutic potential but delivering it to cancer cells has been problematic,” said Anil Sood, M.D., the study’s senior author and MD Anderson’s director of Ovarian Cancer Research and co-director of the Center for RNA Interference and Non-Coding RNA at MD Anderson. “Combining siRNA with HDL provides an efficient way to get these molecules to their targets. This study has several important implications in the ability to fight certain cancers.”

Sood and Andras Lacko, Ph.D., professor of Molecular Biology and Immunology at UNT Health Science Center, jointly developed the nanoparticles, which build on Lacko’s original insight about HDL’s potential for cancer drug delivery.

The next step is to prepare for human clinical trials, the two scientists said. “If we can knock out 70, 80 or 90 percent of tumors without drug accumulation in normal tissues in mice, it is likely that many cancer patients could benefit from this new type of treatment in the long run,” Lacko said.

Previous studies have shown that cancer cells attract and scavenge HDL by producing high levels of its receptor, SR-B1. As cancer cells take in HDL, they grow and proliferate. The only other site in the body that makes SR-B1 receptor is the liver. This selectivity for cancer cells protects normal, healthy cells from side effects.

Previous attempts to deliver siRNA by lipsomes and other nanoparticles have been hampered by toxicity and other concerns. The tiny bits of RNA, which regulate genes in a highly targeted fashion, can’t simply be injected, for example.

“If siRNA is not in a nanoparticle, it gets broken down and excreted before it can be effective,” Sood said. “HDL is completely biocompatible and is a safety improvement over other types of nanoparticles.”

via ‘Good cholesterol’ nanoparticles seek and destroy cancer cells.

April Fools’ Day, Real News that people thought were jokes.

Via wikipedia:

• The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Island earthquake tsunami that killed 165 people in Hawaii and Alaska resulted in the creation of a tsunami warning system, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, established in 1949 for Pacific Ocean countries. The tsunami in question is known in Hawaii as the “April Fools’ Day Tsunami” due to people drowning because of the assumptions that the warnings were an April Fools’ prank.
• The death of King George II of Greece was on April 1, 1947.
• The AMC Gremlin was first introduced on April 1, 1970.^[79]
• In 1979, Iran declared April 1 its national Republic Day. Thirty-one years on, this continues to be mistaken for a joke.^[80]
• On April 1, 1984, singer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father. Originally, people assumed that it was a fake news story, especially considering the bizarre aspect of the father being the murderer.
• On April 1, 1991, news emerged that David Icke, the British sports reporter, had announced that he was the son of God and that the world was about to end in an apocalypse. Not surprisingly, many people took the reports as an April Fool. Icke has, however, continued to expound his views.
• On April 1, 1993, NASCAR Winston Cup Series Champion Alan Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash involving Hooters of America executives in Blountville, Tennessee near the Tri-Cities Airport. The party were travelling to the Food City 500 qualifying scheduled for the next day.
• The suicide death of Deathrock legend Rozz Williams was on April 1, 1998.
• On April 1, 1999, the Canadian Northwest Territories was split, and the territory now known as Nunavut came to be.
• Gmail‘s April 1, 2004 launch was widely believed to be a prank, as Google traditionally perpetrates April Fools’ Day hoaxes each April 1, and the announced 1GB online storage was at the time vastly more than existing online email services (see Google’s hoaxes.) Another Google-related event that turned out not to be a hoax occurred on April 1, 2007, when employees at Google’s New York City office were alerted that a ball python kept in an engineer’s cubicle had escaped and was on the loose. An internal e-mail acknowledged that “the timing…could not be more awkward” but that the snake’s escape was in fact an actual occurrence and not a prank.^[81]
• On April 1, 2008, it was reported that UEFA would require the Swedish fast food chain Max to close their restaurant at the Borås Arena during the European Under-21 Football Championship due to a conflict with official sponsor McDonald’s and a requirement that only official sponsors may operate around the arena. The arena was later replaced as a tournament site.^[82]
• On April 1, 2008, Persch announced that the GNOME desktop web browser Epiphany would be switched from Mozilla‘s Gecko engine to the WebKit engine used by Safari and KDE‘s equivalent application Konqueror.^[83]
• Also, on April 1, 2009, a Virus/Worm called Conficker was released in December 2008 but reports about its spread to millions of computers, releasing personal info and deleting files came out on April 1st. This was supposed to be a joke, but random computers throughout America were hit. Before this happened, news media like NBC, Fox News, ABC and CBS told the viewers to install firewalls and updates to their Windows computers before it hit.^{[citation needed]}
• On April 1, 2011, word of Betty White to host a prank show called Betty White’s Off Their Rockers hit the news.^[84]

For Farmers In Fukushima, Japan, Growing Uncertainty

Jason Beaubien – As Japan continues to grapple with the effects of the March 11 earthquake, the prefecture of Fukushima faces some of the biggest challenges.

Fukushima’s roads were damaged in the earthquake, its coast was battered by the tsunami, and now leaking radiation around the crippled Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has made parts of the prefecture unlivable.

The tsunami pushed seawater more than 2 miles inland in some places. Rail lines in Fukushima — Japan’s third-largest prefecture — were destroyed along the coast; train traffic still hasn’t resumed through the prefecture. Radiation from the leaking nuclear complex has forced tens of thousands of residents from their homes. The sale of many vegetables from Fukushima has been banned.

Akio Nagato, the director general of the Fukushima governor’s office, says the tsunami and earthquake mainly affected the coast but the radiation is affecting the entire prefecture, which spans more than 5,000 square miles.

Even outside the 12-mile mandatory evacuation zone around the Fukushima Dai-chi nuclear plant, Nagato says, businesses are packing up and moving. He says the cleanup along the coast has barely started because vehicles can’t travel through the nuclear exclusion zone.

“We are not just talking about rebuilding houses,” Nagato says, speaking of the Fukushima coast. “We are talking about places of work, ports, railroads all being unusable. We are talking about the big picture here. We are talking about putting everything back together.”

Unsafe Food

The nuclear disaster is now also a disaster for Fukushima’s farmers. The government has banned the sale of milk, spinach and other leafy vegetables, not just from here but also from neighboring prefectures.

The Japanese Health Ministry found that the radiation level in these foods exceeds legal limits for human consumption. This has left farmers such as Shinichi Asaka with goods they can’t sell.

“We are going to have throw it out,” he says through an interpreter, regarding rows and rows of green spinach. “Get a big tractor, load it up and throw it out. There’s nothing else to do.” …

via For Farmers In Fukushima, Japan, Growing Uncertainty : NPR.