A physics team led by Ron Folman at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, working with researchers from Germany, the UK and the US including Roger Penrose, has built an interferometer that splits a single atom into two simultaneous paths—one falling freely and one held still—that reconverge at the same point. This setup lets them measure how free fall changes the atom's quantum phase, something theorized nearly a century ago but never directly tested due to the need for ultracold atoms and a way to compare phase differences.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-11
Physicists at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden devised a theoretical method that performs a wide range of advanced quantum operations more than a thousand times faster than current techniques. The approach targets the core problem that qubits are extremely fragile and prone to errors from noise, radiation, and heat during lengthy operations. The findings were published in Physical Review Letters.
sciencedaily.com
· 2026-09-11
Researchers led by psychologist Tobias Brosch at the University of Geneva analyzed 71 studies covering over 216,000 participants to compare climate-communication strategies. Published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, the review found that messages evoking awe, wonder or hope were more effective at motivating climate-friendly behavior than purely scientific fact-based appeals, while messages emphasizing personal responsibility often failed or backfired.
nature.com
· 2026-09-11
Franklin "Frank" Kuo, who helped build the University of Hawaii's ALOHAnet system in 1971, has died at age 91. ALOHAnet was the first public wireless packet data network and served as a direct influence on Robert Metcalfe's later creation of Ethernet.
spectrum.ieee.org
· 2026-09-10
A wave of online-first and hybrid universities—including Western Governors University, Southern New Hampshire University, University of the People, Penn State's World Campus and Arizona State's ASU Online—have grown into major providers of higher education by building programs around working adults rather than traditional campus life. A 2026 CAEL-CollegeAPP study found roughly 41.7 million U.S. adults aged 25-64 plan to pursue further education or training within two years, underscoring the size of this market.
entrepreneur.com
· 2026-09-10
The death of a 16-year-old girl in Sydney, believed to have followed consensual strangulation during sex, has renewed calls to prohibit depictions of choking in pornography. The case echoes a similar UK ban enacted months earlier, though researchers say public understanding of the practice's dangers remains limited. Adult industry figures argue that banning such content won't stop it from circulating or replace the need for better sex education.
wired.com
· 2026-09-10
Researchers at Delft University of Technology, led by Gabriel Budel, analyzed scientific literature and found The Beatles are the most frequently referenced band in paper titles and text, with over 3,000 allusions to their songs. Examples include a Long COVID paper titled 'The Lung and Winding Road' and a quantum computing study called 'Here Comes the SU(N)'. The work builds on earlier research tracking Bob Dylan and Clash lyric references in biomedical journals.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-09
A new NBER working paper by researchers including Baker examines the long-run impact of a universal child care program, focusing on outcomes for mothers rather than just children. The study draws on data analyzed through the Canadian Research Data Centre Network, using British Columbia's research infrastructure to assess how access to subsidized child care shaped mothers' economic trajectories over time.
nber.org
· 2026-09-09
IEEE Computer Society and ACM have selected Jie Ren of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Amit Samanta of University of Utah, and Xuan Wu of Oregon State University as the 2026 George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship recipients. The fellowship recognizes outstanding doctoral students working in high-performance computing.
wpcms.computer.org
· 2026-09-09
A historical piece revisits how Lotus Notes, launched in 1989, offered encryption, rich formatting, read receipts, and app-building tools years before equivalent standards like MIME or PGP existed for email. It traces the software's conceptual origins back to a 1973 University of Illinois project called PLATO Notes, built by a teenage programmer, David Woolley, to replace a chaotic open text file used for campus communication.
buttondown.com
· 2026-09-09
Researchers at Westlake University built an AI-based 'virtual cell model' trained on over 38 million protein measurements from breast cancer cell lines, most of them triple-negative. Tested on real patient biopsies, the model successfully identified which drugs would be effective against individual tumours, matching actual clinical outcomes. The findings, published in Nature, mark the first time such a virtual cell model has moved from lab experiments to clinical testing.
nature.com
· 2026-09-09
A study led by Oxford researcher Noam Angrist tested a low-cost intervention combining text-message nudges and a weekly 20-minute phone call from a teacher to support children's learning when schools shut down. The randomized trials, involving more than 16,000 households across India, Kenya, Nepal, the Philippines and Uganda during COVID-19 closures, followed an earlier pilot in Botswana and were published in Nature.
nature.com
· 2026-09-09
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