Culture

Researchers at UNSW Sydney have demonstrated the lowest noise level on record for a semiconductor quantum bit, or qubit. The research was published in Advanced Materials.

For quantum computers to perform useful calculations, quantum information must be close to 100 per cent accurate. Charge noise - caused by imperfections in the material environment that hosts qubits - interferes with quantum information encoded on qubits, impacting the accuracy of the information.

"The level of charge noise in semiconductor qubits has been a critical obstacle to achieving the accuracy levels we need for large-scale error-corrected quantum computers," says lead author Ludwik Kranz, a PhD student at UNSW's Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) working with the Centre's spin off company Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC).

"Our research has demonstrated that we can reduce charge noise to a significantly low level, minimising the impact it has on our qubits," says Kranz.

"By optimising the fabrication process of the silicon chip, we achieved a noise level 10 times lower than previously recorded. This is the lowest recorded charge noise of any semiconductor qubit."

Creating quiet qubits

Qubits made from electrons hosted on atom qubits in silicon - the approach that Prof. Simmons has championed since 2000 - are a promising platform for large-scale quantum computers.

However, qubits hosted in any semiconductor platform such as silicon, are sensitive to charge noise.

The team's research revealed that the presence of defects either within the silicon chip or at the interface to the surface were significant contributors to the charge noise.

"This was a surprise, as we have spent a lot of time optimising the quality of our silicon chip but this showed that even a few impurities nearby can affect the noise," says Kranz.

By reducing the impurities in the silicon chip and positioning the atoms away from the surface and interfaces where most of the noise originates, the team were able to produce the record-breaking result.

"Our results continue to show that silicon is a terrific material to host qubits. With our ability to engineer every aspect of the qubit environment, we are systematically proving that atom qubits in silicon are reproducible, fast and stable," says Prof. Michelle Simmons, Director CQC2T.

"Our next challenge is to move to isotopically pure crystalline Si-28 to capitalise on the long coherence times already demonstrated in this system."

Timing is everything

Using the newly fabricated silicon chip, the team then performed a range of experiments to characterise the charge noise, with unanticipated results.

"We measured the charge noise using both a single electron transistor and an exchange-coupled qubit pair that collectively provide a consistent charge noise spectrum across a wide frequency range," says CQC2T co-author Dr Sam Gorman.

The measurements revealed a key factor that impacts charge noise - time.

"From the noise spectrum we measured, we know that the longer the computation - the more noise affects our system," says Dr Gorman.

"This has major implications for the design of future devices, with quantum operations needing to be completed in exceptionally short time frames so that the charge noise doesn't become worse over time, adding errors to the computation."

Working systematically towards a commercially available silicon quantum computer

To perform error-free calculations required for large-scale quantum computing, a two-qubit gate - the central building block of any quantum computer - needs a fidelity - or accuracy - of over 99%. To reach this fidelity threshold quantum operations need to be stable and fast.

In a recent paper - published in Physical Review X - the Simmons group, using their atomic precision capability, demonstrated the ability to read out the qubits in 1 microsecond.

"This research combined with our lowest charge noise results shows that it is possible to achieve a 99.99% fidelity in atom qubits in silicon," says Prof. Simmons, who is also the founder of SQC.

"Our team is now working towards delivering all of these key results on a single device - fast, stable, high fidelity and with long coherence times - moving a major step closer to a full-scale quantum processor in silicon."

Professor Simmons is working with SQC to build the first useful, commercial quantum computer in silicon. Co-located with CQC2T on the UNSW Sydney campus, SQC's goal is to demonstrate the capability required to reliably produce a 10-qubit prototype quantum integrated processor by 2023.

"Our team's results further confirm that our unique approach - of precisely positioning phosphorus atoms in silicon - is an extremely promising prospect for building the error-corrected, large-scale architecture required for the commercialisation of silicon quantum computers," Prof. Simmons says.

New findings from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission suggest that the interior of the asteroid Bennu could be weaker and less dense than its outer layers--like a crème-filled chocolate egg flying though space.

The results appear in a study published today in the journal Science Advances and led by the University of Colorado Boulder's OSIRIS-REx team, including professors Daniel Scheeres and Jay McMahon. The findings could give scientists new insights into the evolution of the solar system's asteroids--how bodies like Bennu transform over millions of years or more.

OSIRIS-REx rendezvoused with Bennu, an asteroid orbiting the sun more than 200 million miles from Earth, in late 2018. Since then, the spacecraft, built by Colorado-based Lockheed Martin, has studied the object in more detail than any other asteroid in the history of space exploration.

So far, however, one question has remained elusive: What's Bennu like on the inside?

Scheeres, McMahon and their colleagues on the mission's radio science team now think that they have an answer--or at least part of one. Using OSIRIS-REx's own navigational instruments and other tools, the group spent nearly two years mapping out the ebbs and flows of Bennu's gravity field. Think of it like taking an X-ray of a chunk of space debris with an average width about the height of the Empire State Building.

"If you can measure the gravity field with enough precision, that places hard constraints on where the mass is located, even if you can't see it directly," said Andrew French, a coauthor of the new study and a former graduate student at CU Boulder, now at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

What the team has found may also spell trouble for Bennu. The asteroid's core appears to be weaker than its exterior, a fact that could put its survival at risk in the not-too-distant future.

"You could imagine maybe in a million years or less the whole thing flying apart," said Scheeres, a distinguished professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

Evolution of asteroids

Of course, that's part of the fun of studying asteroids. Scheeres explained that Bennu belongs to a class of smaller bodies that scientists call "rubble pile" asteroids--which, as their name suggests, resemble loosely held-together mounds of debris.

Asteroids also change over time more than people think.

"None of them have sat out there unchanging since the dawn of the solar system," Scheeres said. "They're being changed by things like sunlight affecting how they spin and collisions with other asteroids."

To study how Bennu and other similar asteroids may change, however, he and his colleagues needed to take a peek inside.

This is where the team got lucky. When OSIRIS-REx first arrived at Bennu, the spacecraft spotted something unusual: Over and over again, tiny bits of material, some just the size of marbles, seemed to pop off the asteroid and into space. In many cases, those particles circled Bennu before falling back down to the surface. Members of the mission's radio science team at JPL were able to witness how the body's gravity worked first-hand--a bit like the apocryphal story of Isaac Newton inferring the existence of gravity after observing an apple falling on his head.

"It was a little like someone was on the surface of the asteroid and throwing these marbles up so they could be tracked," Scheeres said. "Our colleagues could infer the gravity field in the trajectories those particles took."

Squishy center

In the new study, Scheeres and his colleagues combined those records of Bennu's gravity at work with data from OSIRIS-REx itself--precise measurements of how the asteroid tugged on the spacecraft over a period of months. They discovered something surprising: Before the mission began, many scientists had assumed that Bennu would have a homogenous interior. As Scheeres put it, "a pile of rocks is a pile of rocks."

But the gravity field measurements suggested something different. To explain those patterns, certain chunks of Bennu's interior would likely need to be more tightly packed together than others. And some of the least dense spots in the asteroid seemed to lie around the distinct bulge at its equator and at its very core.

"It's as if there is a void at its center, within which you could fit a couple of football fields," Scheeres said.

The asteroid's spin may be responsible for that void. Scientists know that the asteroid is spinning faster and faster over time. That building momentum could, Scheeres said, be slowly pushing material away from the asteroid's center and toward its surface. Bennu, in other words, may be in the process of spinning itself into pieces.

"If its core has a low density, it's going to be easier to pull the entire asteroid apart," Scheeres said.

For the scientist, the new findings are bittersweet: After measuring Bennu's gravity field, Scheeres and his team have mostly wrapped up their work on the OSIRIS-REx mission.

Their results have contributed to the mission's sample analysis plan, which is currently in development. The returned sample will be analyzed to determine the cohesion between grains--a key physical property that affects the mass distribution observed in the team's study.

"We were hoping to find out what happened to this asteroid over time, which can give us better insight into how all of these small asteroids are changing over millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of years," Scheeres said. "Our findings exceeded our expectations."

HERSHEY, Pa. -- A large, international study of COVID-19 patients confirmed that cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease, stroke and cancer can increase a patient's risk of dying from the virus. Penn State College of Medicine researchers say their findings may help public health officials improve patient care and develop interventions that can target these high-risk populations.

The researchers found that cardiovascular disease may double a patient's risk of dying from COVID-19. They also discovered that other pre-existing conditions may increase a COVID-19 patient's risk of death by one-and-a-half to three times. The results were recently published in PLOS ONE.

"This study suggests that these chronic conditions are not just common in patients with COVID-19, but their presence is a warning sign to a higher risk of death," said Dr. Paddy Ssentongo, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the College of Medicine and research assistant professor in Penn State's Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics. "There is a high prevalence of cardiovascular disease and hypertension around the world and in particular, the U.S. With the persistence of COVID-19 in the U.S., this connection becomes crucially important."

The research team conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies published from December 2019 through early July 2020, to determine which chronic conditions put hospitalized patients at risk of dying from COVID-19. They explored 11 co-existing conditions that pose a risk of severe disease and death among COVID-19 patients, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, asthma, chronic liver disease and HIV/AIDS.

Ssentongo and colleagues analyzed data from more than 65,000 patients from 25 studies worldwide. Patients in the selected studies had an average age of 61 years. They found that certain pre-existing health conditions affected survival rates more than others. When compared to hospitalized COVID-19 patients without pre-existing conditions, researchers determined that patients with diabetes and cancer are 1.5 times more likely to die, patients with cardiovascular disease, hypertension and congestive heart failure are twice as likely to die, and patients with chronic kidney disease are three times more likely to die.

"Although the health care community has circulated anecdotal information about the impact of these risk factors in COVID-19 mortality, our systematic review and meta-analysis is the most comprehensive to date that attempts to quantify the risk," said Vernon Chinchilli, distinguished professor and chair of public health sciences, and senior author of this research. "As the COVID-19 pandemic continues through 2020 and likely into 2021, we expect that other researchers will build on our work."

The researchers said that prior studies exploring the association of pre-existing chronic conditions and COVID-19 mortality had limitations in the number of countries included, the number of studies included and the number of conditions explored. They also said these studies had unaddressed sources of bias that limited the conclusions that can be drawn from them.

"We took an all-inclusive, global approach for this study by examining 11 chronic conditions and including patients from four continents: Asia, Europe, North America and Africa," Ssentongo adds. "Research suggests that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may become seasonal and require annual vaccination. Once an approved and effective vaccine is available, high-risk individuals with these pre-existing conditions should receive vaccination priority to prevent high mortality rates."

Even though additional research is needed to fully understand health risks and implications, particularly in understanding the effects of race and ethnicity on COVID-19 survival rates, Ssentongo said these findings can help inform global prevention and treatment strategies.

For seven years now, the University of California system has been working hard to reduce its carbon emissions as part of its Carbon Neutrality Initiative. Each campus has been charged with finding ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions through a variety of measures -- such as increased energy efficiency and replacement of fossil fuel sources with renewable energy -- to meet milestones on the road to carbon neutrality.

While the campuses focus on mitigating the initiative's Scope 1 direct emissions from gas combustion, campus vehicles and fugitive emissions, as well as Scope 2 indirect emissions from purchased electricity, two UC researchers are looking ahead to Scope 3 -- indirect emissions from products and services the campuses sell. David Cleveland, a UC Santa Barbara professor of environmental studies, and UCLA's Jennifer Ayla Jay, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, have campus food systems squarely in their sights. This is significant, according to the researchers, given that these types of indirect emissions can be some of the institutions' largest sources of greenhouse gases.

"Food is a huge part of our climate impact," said Cleveland, who with Jay co-authored a paper that appears in the journal Climate Policy. Few climate change mitigation policies incorporate food system greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), he added, despite the fact that the food system contributes about 30% of anthropogenic GHGE, mostly from animal-source foods.

"It's low-hanging fruit," Cleveland said of the opportunity to reduce indirect GHGE by shifting UC campus food systems toward more plant-based items and away from animal sources, and reducing food waste. "It doesn't involve changing our energy grid or converting from natural gas, which are huge infrastructure investments. Changing the food system is relatively quite inexpensive."

The key to understanding food's carbon emissions, he explained, lies in examining the amount of energy and resources that go into producing it, and the greenhouse gases that are emitted as a result of those practices.

"The fundamental thing is that animals eat plants," Cleveland said, noting that in doing so the plants are converted to become part of the animal and the nutrition it provides when the animal is eaten.

"However, there are a lot of nutrients and energy spent just keeping the animal alive and doing that conversion," he explained. In the case of beef, for example, large quantities of water, grain and soil nutrients are needed to produce a single pound of meat, in addition to the energy required to process and transport it.

"It's much more efficient and less impactful to eat plants directly," he said.

For their study, the researchers used the 10-campus, 280,000 student UC system as a case study and, according to the paper "created scenarios using studies of U.S. dietary changes and existing, planned and potential UC food system changes."

By changing the food system, including moving away from animal source foods, the researchers found that food emissions could be reduced "by 42-55%, equivalent to 8-9% of UC's targeted energy GHGE reduction, and 19-22% of the carbon offsets the UC system would have to buy to meet its target."

"We don't have to go vegetarian or vegan," Cleveland said, "but we could be moving toward diets that are more climate friendly." Red meat (lamb and beef) has the largest carbon footprint. By switching to other types of meat such as chicken, UC food systems can cut down on their emissions. The closer they get to plant-based protein sources, the smaller the footprint becomes. Choices like these, in addition to measures such as reducing food waste, can put UC on its way to the Scope 3 emission reductions that the system wants to achieve by 2050 while also cutting down on offsets.

There's no better time to start reimagining the UC system's campus food services in a way that can cut down on carbon emissions, said Cleveland, adding that relatively small changes -- replacing a fraction of red meat with plant-based alternatives, or making the vegetarian selection the default item on the menu -- can steer choices to foods that are not only lower impact on the environment but also healthier and often lower cost.

"We can do it right now on our campuses," he said. "And we can have all these co-benefits because it's very easy to have climate-friendly food that is also healthier, delicious and more socially equitable than more climate-damaging food."

While older age is widely recognized as a risk factor for increased morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19, younger patients have received less attention as a population vulnerable to adverse clinical outcomes. Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital analyzed records from 419 hospitals using the Premier Healthcare Database to study the clinical trajectories of 3,222 hospitalized COVID-19 patients aged 18-34. Findings were published as a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers found that over one-fifth of the patients (21 percent) required intensive care, 10 percent required mechanical ventilation and 2.7 percent died. For comparison, the team wrote, the death rate of those in the same age group hospitalized with heart attacks is approximately half of that figure.

"There was a significant rate of adverse outcomes," said Jonathan Cunningham, MD, a Cardiovascular Medicine fellow at the Brigham and first author on the letter. "Even though a 2.7 percent death rate is lower than for older patients, it's high for young people who typically do well even when hospitalized for other conditions."

Another striking observation for the researchers was that 57 percent of the young people hospitalized for COVID-19 were Black or Hispanic, a finding consistent with other reports about the disproportionate burden the disease has had on these demographics.

Individuals with cardiovascular risk factors were also over-represented among the young people hospitalized: 36.8 percent and 24.5 percent of patients had obesity and morbid obesity, respectively; 18.2 percent of patients had diabetes and 16.1 percent had hypertension. The researchers found that patients who presented these comorbidities were also more likely to experience adverse outcomes. Patients with morbid obesity, for example, comprised 41 percent of the hospitalized young adults who died or required mechanical ventilation. For individuals with more than one of these conditions, risks for adverse outcomes were comparable to the risks faced by middle-aged adults, aged 35-64, who had none of these conditions, as observed in a study of 8,862 members of this population.

The researchers stress that the dataset, which relies on hospital administrative claims, only lends insight into the adverse outcomes of hospitalized young people.

"We know nothing about the total denominator of patients who got an infection," said corresponding author Scott Solomon, MD, director of noninvasive cardiology in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Brigham. "We think the vast majority of people in this age range have self-limited disease and don't require hospitalization. But if you do, the risks are really substantial."

There was no funding organization for this study. Cunningham reported grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (T32HL094301) during the conduct of the study. Solomon reported grants from industry outside of the submitted work. A full list of disclosures are available in the paper.

Whether someone wears a mask, practices physical distancing or performs other behaviors to prevent COVID-19 infection may be linked to what media outlets they trust.

In 2020, individuals' behavior in response to the pandemic has closely correlated with the kinds of mass media outlets they trust, according to a study authored by USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology PhD students Erfei Zhao and Qiao Wu. The article was co-authored by University Professor Eileen Crimmins, holder of the AARP Chair in Gerontology, and Associate Professor of Gerontology and Sociology Jennifer Ailshire and appeared online in the journal BMJ Global Health on October 8, 2020.

Zhao, Wu and colleagues analyzed response data from the Understanding America Study's COVID-19 panel on how often more than 4800 participants performed five virus-mitigating behaviors during the coronavirus pandemic: (1) wearing a face mask, (2) washing hands with soap or using hand sanitizer several times per day, (3) canceling or postponing personal or social activities, (4) avoiding eating at restaurants, (5) and avoiding public spaces, gatherings or crowds. In addition, the team also looked at risky health behaviors, including going out to a bar, club or other place where people gather; going to another person's residence; having outside visitors such as friends, neighbors or relatives at one's home; attending a gathering with more than 10 people, such as a party, concert or religious service; or having close contact (within six feet) with someone who doesn't live with the respondent.

Using CNN as an example of a left-leaning news source and Fox News as a news source on the right side of the political spectrum, the study identified the relative amount of trust participants reported in either news source with the risky or positive behaviors they engaged in. Around 29% of respondents said they trusted CNN more than Fox News; roughly half (52%) expressed no preference between the two, and one in five (20%) said they trusted Fox more than CNN.

Risky behaviors were highest among participants who reported more trust in Fox News with an average of 1.25 risky acts in a 7-day period, followed closely by those who reported trusting neither outlet, while CNN viewers reported an average of .94 risky behaviors during the same time period. Positive behaviors were more frequently reported among those who trusted CNN (an average of 3.85 preventive actions in a 7-day window) more than those who trusted Fox News (3.41 positive behaviors on average).

The results imply that behavior sharply differs along media bias lines, indicating that partisan narratives are likely getting in the way of solid health messaging that encourages healthy behavior change.

"In such a highly partisan environment, false information can be easily disseminated. Health messaging, which is one of the few effective ways to slow down the spread of the virus in the absence of a vaccine, is being damaged by politically biased and economically focused narratives," said Zhao and Wu.

Researchers have made a breakthrough genetic discovery into the cause of a spectrum of severe neurological conditions.

A research study, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and gracing the cover of and published in the October edition of Human Mutation, found two new mutations in the KIF1A gene cause rare nerve disorders.

MCRI researcher Dr Simranpreet Kaur said mutations in the KIF1A gene caused 'traffic jams' in brain cells, called neurons, triggering a devastating range of progressive brain disorders. KIF1A-Associated Neurological Disorders (KAND) affects about 300 children worldwide.

"KAND symptoms often appear at birth or early childhood, have varying severity and can result in death within five years of life. Because clinical features overlap with other neurological disorders, children can be misdiagnosed or remain undiagnosed for a long period of time," she said.

"Our study will lead to more diagnoses by expanding the mutation pool further, finding new KIF1A gene mistakes that cause KAND and related disorders."

The study looked at a genetically undiagnosed girl with Rett syndrome, a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that predominantly affects females and causes developmental delay, speech problems and loss of hand skills and three others with a severe neurodevelopmental disorder who showed few Rett syndrome-like features and carried defects in the KIF1A gene.

Dr Kaur said using advanced genetic techniques, the research team identified that the girl with Rett syndrome, a disorder previously not associated with KAND, also had a previously undiscovered mutation in the KIF1A gene.

She said this ended an arduous diagnostic journey of 15 years for the girl.

"We used a range of testing methods to show that the girl had a mutation which disrupted her KIF1A gene that subsequently affected the function of KIF1A in the brain," she said. "The three other study participants, who had clinical features overlapping with Rett syndrome, all had mutations that reduced KIF1A function. This suggests that KIF1A defects contributed towards the development of features overlapping with Rett syndrome."

MCRI Professor John Christodoulou said the study had opened up opportunities to explore personalised therapies for those with KAND that could potentially have a critical impact on affected children and their families.

Professor Christodoulou said he also recommended genetic testing of the KIF1A gene be standard for genetically undiagnosed Rett syndrome individuals.

"Due to the considerable overlap of clinical symptoms of Rett syndrome patients with other neurodevelopmental disorders, it can be challenging to establish a precise genetic diagnosis," he said.

"However, recent advances in next?generation sequencing have allowed us to identify new mutations in a growing list of genes known to cause intellectual disability, severe epilepsy and/or autistic behaviors where individuals have similarities to Rett syndrome, therefore providing a definitive genetic diagnosis for patients and closure for affected families."

SAN DIEGO and WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With Election Day less than a month away, a new West Health-Gallup national survey finds more Americans trust former Vice President Joe Biden than President Donald Trump to efficiently lead the U.S. healthcare system through the COVID-19 pandemic. A 52% majority say they trust Biden while 39% say they trust Trump.

The gap is even larger among younger adults age 18 to 29. Sixty-two percent of them place their faith in Biden compared to only 25% who support Trump's leadership of the healthcare system. Biden's lead falls to within two percentage points among adults 65 and older (48% vs. 46%).

The findings are based on a large, nationally representative sample of more than 1,500 U.S. adults in the two days immediately following the Sept. 29 presidential debate. The sample consisted primarily of debate viewers as well as some non-viewers.

While managing the COVID-19 pandemic remains a top issue at the ballot box for most voters (67%) heading into the presidential election, about the same proportion of Americans (66%) say lowering the cost of healthcare is important to earn their vote, according to the survey. Another 45% say a candidate's ability to lower drug costs specifically, is most or among the most important to them.

"Americans need to trust their leaders to do the right thing when it comes to managing the U.S. healthcare system both during and after a pandemic," said Tim Lash, chief strategy officer of West Health. "Unfortunately, at least when it comes to lowering the cost of healthcare, Americans have been burned in the past with empty promises from politicians and sky-high medical bills from hospitals, insurers and pharmacy counters."

Beyond the pandemic and healthcare costs, a 54% majority of Americans say they trust Biden more to ensure racial equality in terms of access to quality healthcare compared to 38% for Trump. White adults were evenly split (46% to 45%) on the candidates, Black adults were nearly 10-times more likely to trust Biden over Trump (84% to 9%) and Hispanic adults were twice as likely (60% to 31%).

"Joe Biden has a clear advantage as the candidate Americans prefer to lead healthcare and create a more racially equitable healthcare system in the United States during this global pandemic," said Dan Witters, Gallup senior researcher. "While some groups were more split, U.S. adults are generally aligned in Biden's favor by wide margins. It will be interesting to see how this plays out at the ballot box in November."

Other Survey Findings

Trust in each candidate to lead the healthcare system during the pandemic splits along party lines. Ninety-five percent of Democrats believe in Biden's abilities while 88% of Republicans trust Trump. Independents give a slight edge to Biden - 47% trust the former vice president over Trump.

Women are significantly more likely than men to trust in Biden's leadership of the healthcare system amid COVID-19 (58% vs. 46%), while men are more likely to trust in Trump (48% vs. 32%).

Democrats are considerably more inclined than Republicans to place high importance on addressing the pandemic (94% to 41%) and reducing healthcare costs (81% to 52%) when casting their vote for president.

88% of Black respondents place a particularly high importance on managing the pandemic in their vote choice compared to 71% of Hispanic respondents and 62% of White respondents.

There is less of a partisan divide when it comes to lowering the cost of prescription drugs - 49% of Democrats cite it as the most important or among the most important issues compared with 41% of Republicans and 44% of Independents.

To read the full results and methodology statement, please visit here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/321716/majority-trust-biden-lead-healthcare-system-amid-covid.aspx.

Quantum mechanics arose in the 1920s - and since then scientists have disagreed on how best to interpret it. Many interpretations, including the Copenhagen interpretation presented by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and in particular von Neumann-Wigner interpretation, state that the consciousness of the person conducting the test affects its result. On the other hand, Karl Popper and Albert Einstein thought that an objective reality exists. Erwin Schrödinger put forward the famous thought experiment involving the fate of an unfortunate cat that aimed to describe the imperfections of quantum mechanics.

In their most recent article, Finnish civil servants Jussi Lindgren and Jukka Liukkonen, who study quantum mechanics in their free time, take a look at the uncertainty principle that was developed by Heisenberg in 1927. According to the traditional interpretation of the principle, location and momentum cannot be determined simultaneously to an arbitrary degree of precision ,as the person conducting the measurement always affects the values.

However, in their study Lindgren and Liukkonen concluded that the correlation between a location and momentum, i.e. their relationship, is fixed. In other words, reality is an object that does not depend on the person measuring it. Lindgren and Liukkonen utilized stochastic dynamic optimization in their study. In their theory's frame of reference, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a manifestation of thermodynamic equilibrium, in which correlations of random variables do not vanish.

"The results suggest that there is no logical reason for the results to be dependent on the person conducting the measurement. According to our study, there is nothing that suggests that the consciousness of the person would disturb the results or create a certain result or reality", says Jussi Lindgren.

This interpretation supports such interpretations of quantum mechanics that support classical scientific principles.

"The interpretation is objective and realistic, and at the same time as simple as possible. We like clarity and prefer to remove all mysticism," says Liukkonen.

The researchers published their last article in December 2019, which also utilized mathematical analysis as a tool to explain quantum mechanics. The method they used was stochastic optimal control theory, which has been used to solve such challenges as how to send a rocket from the Earth to the Moon.

Following Occam's razor, the law of parsimony named after William of Ockham, the researchers have now chosen the simplest explanation from those that fit.

"We study quantum mechanics as a statistical theory. Themathematical tool is clear, but some might think it is a boring one. But is an explanation really an explanation, if it's a vague one?" asks Lindgren.

In addition to the study of quantum mechanics, Lindgren and Liukkonen have many other things in common: they were both members of the same maths club at Kuopio Lyceum High School, they both have done post-graduate research, and both have careers ascivil servants. Liukkonen has already finished his PhD dissertation on endoscopic ultrasound on joints and now works as an inspector at Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority.

"Physics is a great hobby for a civil servant. Together we have agonised over how the interpretations of quantum mechanics make no sense," says Liukkonen.

Lindgren's dissertation currently consists of various mathematical articles trying to explain quantum mechanics. He works full-time as a ministerial adviser at Prime Minister's Office where he has been negotiating such issues as the EU's recovery plan. A decade ago, he also participated in negotiations on Greece's loan guarantees, as a junior official.

Lindgren and Liukkonen's idea of a paradise is a festival conference which would combine short films with lectures on quantum physics.

"Physicists and artists could find new ways to work together - after all, both areas are manifestations of creativity," says Lindgren.

The risk of suicide is clearly elevated in the category of older women with untreated depression who were born outside the Nordic region, compared with corresponding Swedish-born women. This is shown by a study from the University of Gothenburg. Sweden.

"Our results indicate the need for innovative public health measures to meet needs among older foreign-born adults, especially women," says Khedidja Hedna, a researcher at AgeCap, the Centre for Ageing and Health at the University of Gothenburg, and lead author of the article now published in European Journal of Public Health.

Despite the high proportion of suicide in the 75+ age group, there has been very little research on the reasons why this is so. Since medication for depression is regarded as an important strategy for suicide prevention, a research team conducted a major national population study to investigate factors related to raised suicide risk among older adults, with and without antidepressant therapy.

The research was done by merging large national population registers to obtain a group of more than 1.4 million inhabitants of Sweden aged 75 and over, who were monitored for up to eight years. During the period, 1,305 people died by suicide: 907 men and 398 women.

Of the women who took their own lives, 164 had untreated depression; and 42 of the total number of female suicides (398) were of women born outside the Nordic region. Suicide risk was elevated among older immigrant women, and the risk was particularly high among those who did not receive medication for depression.

Among women who took antidepressants, the raised suicide risk was associated with high-status employment before retirement. In men, an elevated risk was found in those who were not treated for depression and who had manual jobs.

Another gender difference was the protective effect of being married, which was seen only in men. Raised suicide rates were observed among unmarried men both with and without antidepressant therapy.

The study was led by Margda Waern, Professor of Psychiatry specializing in suicidology at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg.

"Our results highlight the need for outreach services in healthcare, especially for older women born outside the Nordic region, and also for older men, who may also need measures to reduce their social isolation. The study indicates gender differences in factors related to suicide among people aged 75 and over, and these results may be helpful for personalized, gender-specific strategies for suicide prevention in psychiatric care, primary care and the social services," Waern says.

Osaka, Japan - How do you test, in early-stage research, whether a potential pharmaceutical effectively targets a human tumor, organ, or some other part of the body? How do you grow a new hand or some other body part? Researchers are in the early stages of using 3D cell printing technology to make developments like these happen. A standard way—currently unavailable—to fix the cells in place after printing would help researchers avoid having to 'reinvent the wheel' in every new investigation.

In a study recently published in Materials Today Bio, researchers from Osaka University have used silk nanofibers obtained by mechanical disintegration to enhance the printing process without damaging the cells or cell assemblies. An attractive point of silk for this application is that silk is believed to be a safe material for humans. This development will help bring 3D cell printing research out of the laboratory and into real-world biomedical use.

To obtain the fibers, the researchers started with virgin silk, then removed the protein sericin from it because this protein causes inflammation in patients. Next, the researchers ground the remaining biocompatible material into nanofibers. The fibers can be sterilized—without damaging them—for medical use, with common laboratory equipment.

"Our silk fibers are excellent additives to bioink cell printing media," says lead author Shinji Sakai. "They are compatible with many media, such as those containing gelatin, chitosan, or hyaluronic acid, giving them a broad range of potential applications."

The main purpose of the fibers was to ensure that the cells in the bioink retained their 3D positioning after printing without damaging the cells. The fibers fulfill this purpose by enhancing the integrity of the bioink and minimizing the damaging high mechanical stresses often placed on cells during printing.

"Various mechanical experiments say the same thing: the nanofibers enhanced the properties of the printing media," explains Professor Sakai. "For example, Young's modulus—a measure of stiffness—increased several-fold and remained enhanced for over a month."

The fibers help printed configurations retain their structural integrity after printing. For example, a nose-shaped configuration retained its shape only when printed with bioink containing the silk fibers. Over 85% of the cells in the bioink remained alive after a week in the printed bioink with or without the added fibers, indicating that adding the fibers did not damage the cells.

Current cell printing technology often heavily damages cells or does not retain the intended shape for long. The research here helps overcome these limitations in a way that will help advance drug discovery, regenerative medicine, and many other ongoing high-impact biomedical research fields, and has the potential added economic benefit of reinvigorating the silk industry.

Terahertz light pulses change gene expression in stem cells, report researchers from Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) and Tokai University in Japan in the journal Optics Letters. The findings come thanks to a new tool, with implications for stem cell research and regenerative therapy development.

Terahertz waves fall in the far infrared/microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum and can be produced by powerful lasers. Scientists have used terahertz pulses to control the properties of solid-state materials. They also have potential for manipulating living cells, as they don't damage them the way that ultraviolet or infrared light does. Research so far has led to contradictory findings about their effects on cells, possibly because of the way the experiments have been conducted.

iCeMS microengineer Ken-ichiro Kamei and physicist Hideki Hirori worked with colleagues to develop a better tool for investigating what happens when terahertz pulses are shone on human cells. The apparatus overcomes issues with previous techniques by placing cells in tiny microwells that have the same area as the terahertz light.

The team used the apparatus to explore the effects of terahertz radiation on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These are cells that have been taken from skin or blood and changed into stem cells. Scientists are seeking to turn them into other types of cells and tissues to help treat diseases like muscular dystrophy.

"Terahertz pulses can generate a strong electric field without touching or damaging cells," says Hirori. "We tested their effect on iPSCs and discovered that the activity of some gene networks changes as a result of terahertz light exposure."

For example, they found the pulses activated genes involved in motor neuron survival and mitochondrial function. They also deactivated genes involved in cell differentiation, the process in which stem cells change into specialized body cells.

Further investigation found that these genes were influenced by zinc-dependent transcription factors. The scientists believe the terahertz pulses generate an electric field that causes zinc ions to move inside cells, impacting the function of transcription factors, which in turn activate or deactivate the genes they are responsible for.

Hirori says the findings could aid efforts to develop a technology that can manipulate iPSC differentiation into specific cells by turning off specific genes while keeping others on, paving the way for regenerative therapies for a wide range of diseases.

DALLAS -- More than half (56%) of LGBTQ adults and 70% of those who are transgender or gender non-conforming report experiencing some form of discrimination, including the use of harsh or abusive language, from a health care professional. A new American Heart Association Scientific Statement, "Assessing and Addressing Cardiovascular Health in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (or Questioning) Adults," published today in the Association's flagship journal Circulation, suggests improving the cardiovascular health of the LGBTQ population will require a multi-faceted approach that includes researchers, clinicians and public health experts.

In terms of health, LGBTQ orientation is considered a "sexual minority," and transgender or gender non-conforming is considered a "gender minority."

The statement examines existing research about LGBTQ-specific links to cardiovascular health disparities, identifies gaps in the body of knowledge and provides suggestions for improving cardiovascular research and care of LGBTQ people.

"This is particularly important now, at a time when there is increased awareness of health inequities related to unequal treatment and discrimination in the U.S.," says Billy A. Caceres, Ph.D., R.N., FAHA, chair of the writing group for the statement and an assistant professor at the Columbia University School of Nursing in New York City. "LGBTQ individuals are delaying primary care and preventative visits because there is a great fear of being treated differently. Being treated differently often means receiving inadequate or inferior care because of sexual orientation or gender identity."

LGBTQ populations face unique stressors, such as family rejection and anxiety over concealment of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Multi-level minority stressors and general stressors often interact in complicated ways to impair LGBTQ health. In addition, LBGTQ adults in historically underrepresented racial or ethnic groups experience higher poverty levels, insecure housing and fewer health care options compared to their white LGBTQ peers.

The writing group noted trust toward health care professionals is still lacking among many members of the LGBTQ community, and health care professionals need more education on how to provide appropriate care for LGBTQ patients. Caceres says, "It is paramount to include content about LGBTQ health in clinical training and licensure requirements in order to address these cardiovascular health disparities."

Accrediting bodies and organizations responsible for health care professional curricula have not specifically required LGBTQ-related content, thus very little exists in health professional education training. A 2018 online survey of students at 10 medical schools found approximately 80% of students did not feel competent to provide care for transgender patients. Another study of more than 800 physician residents across 120 internal medicine residencies in the U.S. found no difference in knowledge between the baseline and post-graduate years when it came to LGBTQ-specific health topics. The statement notes that the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant began requiring LGBTQ curricular content in September 2020.

The writing committee suggests assessment and documentation of sexual orientation and gender identity information in electronic health records could provide an opportunity to address specific health concerns for LGBTQ patients, and to strengthen our ability to examine cardiovascular health of LGBTQ adults more broadly. They also note basic understanding of the terminology of LGBTQ identities is important. The statement includes a glossary to detail and clarify the various key words and terms used to describe members of the LGBTQ community such as bisexual, transgender, gay, gender nonbinary, etc.

"Health care systems need to play a significant role - to enact policies to encourage and support researchers and health care professionals to ask these questions in a respectful manner and to implement structures that emphasize the clinical importance of understanding the many layers related to caring for people with a minority sexual orientation or gender identity," said Caceres.

The statement also notes that while there's limited information on the cardiovascular health of LGBTQ people, a few risk factors stand out from existing data. They identify areas that require specific cardiovascular health efforts focused on the LGBTQ population:

LGBTQ adults are more likely to report tobacco use than their cisgender heterosexual peers.

Transgender adults had lower physical activity levels than their cisgender counterparts, according to a systematic review. The statement suggests gender-affirming care might play a role in promoting physical activity among transgender people.

Transgender women may be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease due to behavioral and clinical factors (such as the use of gender-affirming hormones like estrogen).

Transgender women and non-binary persons are more likely to binge drink.

Lesbian and bisexual women have a higher prevalence of obesity than heterosexual women.

Future research is needed across the entire spectrum of the LGBTQ community to better understand the complex and multiple levels of psychological and social stressors that can impact the cardiovascular health of LGBTQ people and to develop and implement appropriate interventions that support improved cardiovascular health and overall well-being.

In addition, data is also lacking about differences in risk for cardiovascular disease by race and ethnicity and by socioeconomic level for persons who are members of the LGBTQ community. This is because most previous studies have relied heavily on samples from white, educated LGBTQ adults.

"There is much work to be done to understand and improve the cardiovascular health of LGBTQ adults," Caceres said. "We need more robust research that allows us to draw stronger conclusions, as well as initiatives to increase clinicians' knowledge, thereby improving care and health outcomes for LGBTQ adults."

Black holes are one the most fascinating objects in the Universe. At their surface, known as the 'event horizon', gravity is so strong that not even light can escape from them. Usually, black holes are quiet, silent creatures that swallow anything getting too close to them; however, when two black holes collide and merge together, they produce one of the most catastrophic events in Universe: in a fraction of a second, a highly-deformed black hole is born and releases tremendous amounts of energy as it settles to its final form. This phenomenon gives astronomers a unique chance to observe rapidly changing black holes and explore gravity in its most extreme form.

Although colliding black holes do not produce light, astronomers can observe the detected gravitational waves--ripples in the fabric of space and time--that bounce off them. Scientists speculate that, after a collision, the behaviour of the remnant black hole is key to understanding gravity and should be encoded in the emitted gravitational waves.

In the article published in Communications Physics (Nature), a team of scientists led by OzGrav alumnus Prof. Juan Calderón Bustillo--now 'La Caixa Junior Leader - Marie Curie Fellow' at the Galician Institute for High Energy Physics (Santiago de Compostela, Spain)--has revealed how gravitational waves encode the shape of merging black holes as they settle to their final form.

Graduate student and co-author Christopher Evans from the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) says: 'We performed simulations of black-hole collisions using supercomputers and then compared the rapidly changing shape of the remnant black hole to the gravitational waves it emits. We discovered that these signals are far more rich and complex than commonly thought, allowing us to learn more about the vastly changing shape of the final black hole'.

The gravitational waves from colliding black holes are very simple signals known as 'chirps'. As the two black holes approach each other, they emit a signal of increasing frequency and amplitude that indicates the speed and radius of the orbit. According to Prof. Calderón Bustillo, 'the pitch and amplitude of the signal increases as the two black holes approach faster and faster. After the collision, the final remnant black hole emits a signal with a constant pitch and decaying amplitude--like the sound of a bell being struck'. This principle is consistent with all gravitational-wave observations so far, when studying the collision from the top.

However, the study found something completely different happens if the collision is observed from the 'equator' of the final black hole. 'When we observed black holes from their equator, we found that the final black hole emits a more complex signal, with a pitch that goes up and down a few times before it dies,' explains Prof. Calderón Bustillo. 'In other words, the black hole actually chirps several times.'

The team discovered that this is related to the shape of the final black hole, which acts like a kind of gravitational-wave lighthouse: 'When the two original, 'parent' black holes are of different sizes, the final black hole initially looks like a chestnut, with a cusp on one side and a wider, smoother back on the other,' says Bustillo. 'It turns out that the black hole emits more intense gravitational waves through its most curved regions, which are those surrounding its cusp. This is because the remnant black hole is also spinning and its cusp and back repeatedly point to all observers, producing multiple chirps.'

Co-author Prof. Pablo Laguna, former chair of the School of Physics at Georgia Tech and now Professor at University of Texas at Austin, pointed out 'while a relation between the gravitational waves and the behaviour of the final black hole has been long conjectured, our study provides the first explicit example of this kind of relation'.

Vaccines currently being developed for Covid-19 should not be affected by recent mutations in the virus, according to a new study involving a University of York virologist.

Most vaccines under development worldwide have been modelled on the original 'D-strain' of the virus, which were more common amongst sequences published early in the pandemic.

Since then, the virus has evolved to the globally dominant 'G-strain', which now accounts for about 85 per cent of published SARS-CoV-2 genomes.

There had been fears the G-strain, within the main protein on the surface of the virus, would negatively impact on vaccines under development. But the research by Australia's national science agency the

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), found no evidence the change would adversely impact the efficacy of vaccine candidates.

The study tested blood samples from ferrets given a candidate vaccine against virus strains that either possessed or lacked this mutation (known as 'D614G').

Professor Seshadri Vasan, who holds an honorary chair in Health Sciences at the University of York, is leading the Dangerous Pathogens Team at CSIRO and is senior author of the paper.

Professor Vasan said: "This is good news for the hundreds of vaccines in development around the world, with the majority targeting the spike protein as this binds to the ACE2 receptors in our lungs and airways, which are the entry point to infect cells.

"Despite this D614G mutation to the spike protein, we confirmed through experiments and modelling that vaccine candidates are still effective.

"We've also found the G-strain is unlikely to require frequent 'vaccine matching' where new vaccines need to be developed seasonally to combat the virus strains in circulation, as is the case with influenza."

CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall said the research was critically important in the race to develop a vaccine.

Dr Marshall said: "This brings the world one step closer to a safe and effective vaccine to protect people and save lives.

"Research like this, at speed, is only possible through collaboration with partners in Australia and globally. We are tackling these challenges head on and delivering solutions through world-leading science."