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Categories: Ecology: Invasive Species, Physics: Quantum Computing

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Researchers have created a quantum superposition state in a semiconductor nanostructure that might serve as a basis for quantum computing. The trick: two optical laser pulses that act as a single terahertz laser pulse.

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Lower parasitism and predation in urban habitats may contribute to the invasion success of brown widow spiders, according to new research.

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Scientists have discovered a new species of marine cryptofauna in the Florida Keys. Cryptofauna are the tiny, hidden, organisms that make up the majority of biodiversity in the ocean. The tiny crustaceans are the first new gnathiid isopod to be discovered from the Floridian ecoregion in 100 years and are named after singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett.

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The study takes a new approach to answer a long-standing mystery about insulator-to-metal transitions.

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An exquisitely preserved fossil forest from Japan provides missing links and helps reconstruct a whole Eurasia plant from the late Miocene epoch.

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The new carbon nanotube sensor design resembles a molecular toolbox that can be used to quickly assemble sensors for a variety of purposes -- for instance for detecting bacteria and viruses.

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Scientists have demonstrated experimentally a long-theorized relationship between electron and nuclear motion in molecules, which could lead to the design of materials for solar cells, electronic displays and other applications that can make use of this powerful quantum phenomenon.

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Researchers analyzed more than 500,000 motion-sensor camera trap images taken at a Northern California reserve in the years before and after the Mendocino Complex Fire to understand how the blaze impacted small- and medium-sized mammals. The study is one of the first to compare wildlife observations made before and after a megafire, and is also one of a limited number of studies to focus on the impacts of megafires on California's oak woodlands.

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Without intervention, the colorful but devastating Japanese beetle could make its way across the evergreen state within two decades, according to a study of their potential dispersion. The iridescent, green-and-copper beetles damage plants by 'skeletonizing' their leaves, chewing up all the soft green parts between the veins. They eat over 300 plants and pose a serious threat to Washington agriculture as some of their favorite crops include grapes, hops and cherries.  The study found that Japanese beetles would most likely thrive in the dry, agriculture-rich southeastern part of the state, where the first individuals were found three years ago. If they were to escape the quarantines in place in those areas, modeling shows they would likely spread throughout the region from Yakima to the Tri-Cities and north past Moses Lake. While the Cascades are a barrier, there are large areas of Western Washington that also have highly suitable habitat for Japanese beetles.

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Researchers have achieved a groundbreaking milestone in studying how vortices move in these quantum fluids. A new study of vortex ring motion in superfluid helium provides crucial evidence supporting a recently developed theoretical model of quantized vortices.

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Oceanic islands provide useful models for ecology, biogeography and evolutionary research. Many ground-breaking findings -- including Darwin's theory of evolution -- have emerged from the study of species on islands and their interplay with their living and non-living environment. Now, an international research team has investigated the flora of the Canary Island of Tenerife. The results were surprising: the island's plant-life exhibits a remarkable diversity of forms. But the plants differ little from mainland plants in functional terms. However, unlike the flora of the mainland, the flora of Tenerife is dominated by slow-growing, woody shrubs with a 'low-risk' life strategy.

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Many landscapes in the tropics consist of a mosaic of different types of land use. How people make use of these different ecosystems, with their particular plant communities, was unclear until now. Researchers, many of them from Madagascar, have now investigated this. When considering biodiversity, forests often get the most attention. But this research shows that rural households use a wide range of plant species and services provided by many nearby ecosystem types.

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A new theoretical study provides a framework for understanding nonlocality, a feature that quantum networks must possess to perform operations inaccessible to standard communications technology. By clarifying the concept, researchers determined the conditions necessary to create systems with strong, quantum correlations.

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Small-winged and lighter colored butterflies likely to be at greatest threat from climate change. The family, wing length and wing colour of tropical butterflies all influence their ability to withstand rising temperatures, say ecologists. The researchers believe this could help identify species whose survival is under threat from climate change.

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The future of electronics will be based on novel kinds of materials. Sometimes, however, the naturally occurring topology of atoms makes it difficult for new physical effects to be created. To tackle this problem, researchers have now successfully designed superconductors one atom at a time, creating new states of matter.

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One of the most basic assumptions of fundamental physics is that the different properties of mass -- weight, inertia and gravitation -- always remain the same in relation to each other. Although all measurements to date confirm the equivalence principle, quantum theory postulates that there should be a violation. This inconsistency between Einstein's gravitational theory and modern quantum theory is the reason why ever more precise tests of the equivalence principle are particularly important. A team has now succeeded in proving with 100 times greater accuracy that passive and active gravitational mass are always equivalent -- regardless of the particular composition of the respective masses.

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Routing signals and isolating them against noise and back-reflections are essential in many practical situations in classical communication as well as in quantum processing. In a theory-experimental collaboration, a team has achieved unidirectional transport of signals in pairs of 'one-way streets'. This research opens up new possibilities for more flexible signaling devices.

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Biological invasions are a major threat to ecosystems, biodiversity, and human well-being, resulting in ecosystem degradation and causing economic costs in the multi-trillions of euros globally. A study sheds light on the stark economic cost resulting from biological invasions in the European Union (EU).

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Nothing exists in a vacuum, but physicists often wish this weren't the case. If the systems that scientists study could be completely isolated from the outside world, things would be a lot easier. Take quantum computing. It's a field that's already drawing billions of dollars in support from tech investors and industry heavyweights including IBM, Google and Microsoft. But if the tiniest vibrations creep in from the outside world, they can cause a quantum system to lose information.

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Algorithms can predict what movies or songs you might like, but they can also predict which species a predator would most likely eat. Researchers have been using machine learning to identify species interactions, and can predict which species are most likely to go extinct, so that intervention can be planned before this happens.