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Gizmorama - September 28, 2015
Good Morning,
Quantum teleportation is going the distance! Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have set a new record for the sending and receiving of quantum information. We're talking Jimmy Johns fast!
Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
Erin
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*-- Scientists break quantum teleportation distance record --*
BOULDER, Colo. - Researchers with the National Institute of Standards and Technology have set a new distance record for quantum teleportation, sending quantum data through fibers four times longer than the previous record-holder.
Scientists successfully sent and received quantum information, encoded in light photons, through 62 miles of fiber.
Other experiments have successfully teleported quantum data over longer distances through free space, but quantum communication through fibers is more difficult -- and of more significance to practical applications of the technology.
Researchers chronicled their feat in the latest issue of the journal Optica.
"What's exciting is that we were able to carry out quantum teleportation over such a long distance," study co-author Martin Stevens, a quantum optics scientist at NIST, told Live Science.
Quantum teleportation isn't instantaneous. But by encoding the fundamental physics -- or "quantum states" -- of an object onto light particles, researchers can beam information across long distances. These entangled quantum states can be detected and used to recreate the object, or encoded information, on the other end of the fibers.
Currently, quantum communication is mostly used in information security, but researchers say the technology could one day be used to create a quantum Internet. But to do so, scientist need to find strategies for long-distance, fiber-based quantum teleportation.
What made the feat possible, researchers say, is the newly designed photon detectors deployed on the far-end of the fibers.
"Only about 1 percent of photons make it all the way through 100 kilometers (60 miles) of fiber," Stevens said in a press release. "We never could have done this experiment without these new detectors, which can measure this incredibly weak signal."
* Marines send robotic dog into simulated combat *
QUANTICO, Va. - Over the last several days week, Spot, a robot dog designed by Google-owned Boston Dynamics, has been put to the test.
The four-legged robot served as a military scout in a variety of simulated combat drills at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. Spot's initial tryout received high marks from participating Marines.
"Spot is great and has exceeded the metrics that we've provided," Captain James Pineiro, head of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab at Quantico, said in a news release. "The Marines [working with Spot] have been very receptive to the new technology, embrace it and came up with new ideas we couldn't even dream up."
"We see it as a great potential for the future dismounted infantry," Pineiro added. "We want to continue to experiment with quadruped technology and find ways that this can be employed to enhance the Marine Corps war-fighting capabilities."
The dog's missions included scenarios in forests, open fields and urban environs. One situation saw Spot sent into to an examine a potentially dangerous building before Marines entered. Spot can peer around corners in search of the enemy and offer immediate feedback as to the location of potential threats.
Spot is electric-powered and hydraulically actuated. The 160-pound robot isn't entirely new, but a smaller iteration of other four-legged robots designed by Boston Dynamics and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Officials at DARPA say Spot will likely never see real combat, but is part of an ongoing effort to identify new roles for robots on the battlefield.
Earlier this year, military engineers showed off an autonomous fighting robot. The U.S. Army also hosted a competition for bomb-defusing robots. And in June, it was announced that DARPA was teaming with a British engineering company to develop hover bikes.
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