Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have created a holographic wormhole using Google’s Sycamore quantum computer, reports Sarah Wells for Vice. “The researchers created an entangled state (a quantum mechanical phenomena where distant particles can still communicate with each other) between two halves of a quantum computer and sent a message in between,” writes Wells. “This message was scrambled as it entered the system and, through entanglement, unscrambled on the other side.”
CNN’s Ashley Strickland highlights a study by MIT researchers finding that a mysterious flash of light was caused by a black hole jet pointing directly at Earth. The researchers determined that the flash of light was “100 times more powerful than the most powerful gamma-ray burst afterglow,” explains research scientist Dheeraj “DJ” Pasham.
A team of researchers, including scientists from MIT, “simulated a pair of black holes in a quantum computer and sent a message between them through a shortcut in space-time called a wormhole,” reports Dennis Overbye for The New York Times. The development is another “step in the effort to understand the relation between gravity, which shapes the universe, and quantum mechanics, which governs the subatomic realm of particles,” writes Overbye.
Astronomers from MIT and other institutions have found that the source of a big flash of light observed in February 2021 was a black hole jet pointing directly towards Earth, reports Will Dunham for Reuters. "At its peak, the source appeared brighter than 1,000 trillion suns," explains research scientist Dheeraj “DJ” Pasham.
Boston Globe reporter Travis Andersen writes that researchers from MIT and other institutions have found that a huge bright flash in the sky initially observed earlier this year was a black hole jet pointing straight towards Earth. “Researchers believe the jet is a product of a black hole that suddenly began consuming a nearby star, releasing a large amount of energy in the process,” writes Andersen. “The flash was detected at some 8.5 billion lights years away, or more than halfway across the universe.”
New Scientist reporter Philip Ball spotlights Prof. Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and his team for their work in superconductivity. “We should expect some surprises,” writes Ball. “Jarillo-Herrero’s initial discovery of superconductivity in these systems came completely out of the blue. And despite the progress made in the years since, he insists that ‘we have barely scratched the surface of the many hundreds of possible more systems we can build, with very different constituents, geometries and complexity.’”
A mysterious bright light detected in February has been identified as a black hole consuming a nearby star by researchers at MIT and elsewhere, reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo. “This particular event was 100 times more powerful than the most powerful gamma-ray burst afterglow,” says research scientist Dheeraj “DJ” Pasham. “It was something extraordinary.”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have found that the source of a mysterious flash of light was a black hole jet pointed at Earth, reports Aristos Georgiou for Newsweek. “The study suggests that the jet was produced when this distant black hole began devouring a nearby star that had strayed too close,” writes Georgiou. “As the black hole fed on the material of the star, it ejected a stream of particles traveling at close to the speed of light in the form of a jet, which appears to be pointed directly at our planet.”
Postdoc Rohan Naidu speaks with CNN reporter Ashley Strickland about the significance of the James Webb Space Telescope. “With Webb, we were amazed to find the most distant starlight that anyone had ever seen, just days after Webb released its first data,” says Naidu.
CNN reporter Isabelle Gerretsen spotlights Lisa Dyson PhD ’04 and her startup Air Protein, which is developing a new technique to make protein “using just microbes, water, renewable energy and elements found in the air.” Air Protein has created “a new type of agriculture and a new way of growing food that doesn’t require arable land,” Dyson says.
Prof. Kerstin M. Perez writes for Inside Higher Ed about the challenges posed by balancing inclusive teaching with personal and professional endeavors. “I quickly realized that some tenets of inclusive and antiracist teaching advice can undercut the career trajectories, classroom respect and mental health of instructors who are minoritized in their fields—whether due to race, gender or some other nondominant cultural identity—if those tenets are not thoughtfully adapted to our distinct positions in the academy,” writes Perez.
QuEra Computing, a cloud-based quantum computer service co-founded by faculty from MIT and Harvard, has “teamed up with Amazon’s AWS cloud service to sell online access to the device,” reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. The device “can be used by universities and corporate researchers worldwide for a variety of advanced tasks, like simulating the behavior of subatomic particles or developing new chemical compounds,” writes Bray.
QuEra, co-founded by faculty from MIT and Harvard, is a quantum computing startup that uses “neutral atoms in a vacuum chamber and use lasers to cool and control them,” reports Jane Lanhee Lee for Reuters. The startup has announced its “computer is now accessible to the public through Amazon.com cloud’s quantum compute service Braket,” writes Lee.
Prof. Peter Shor has been named one of the winners of the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, reports Nature. “Shor’s most renowned contribution is the development of quantum algorithms for prime number factorization,” writes Nature.
Researchers at MIT and Stanford have developed a new tool that can better map the inside of an asteroid that risks crashing into earth, writes Pranshu Verma for The Washington Post. “Understanding the interior," said Prof. Julian De Witt, "helps us understand the extent to which close encounters could be of concern, and how to deal with them.”