Daily Archives: October 19, 2022

IBM Study Charts Future of Superconducting-based Quantum Computing – HPCwire

Posted: October 19, 2022 at 3:48 pm

Few companies have worked as long or as broadly to develop superconducting-based qubits and quantum computers as IBM. Last month IBM posted a perspective paper The Future of Quantum Computing with Superconducting Qubits on arXiv and which has also been accepted but not yet published by the Journal of Applied Physics. Not a quick read, this work presents a fairly comprehensive review of what IBM thinks is needed to advance superconducting-based quantum computing, warts and all.

There are, of course, many qubit technologies being explored (superconducting, neutral atoms, trapped ions, photonics, etc.) upon which to base quantum computing platforms. Its not yet clear which, if any, will become dominant or which may emerge as more effective for particularly applications. Among the common challenges facing all of the qubit technologies are: how to scale up quantum system size (qubit counts); development and deployment effective error correction and error mitigation; and the need for hybrid architectures leveraging both classical and quantum systems.

The IBM authors[i] note, for example, that For quantum computing to succeed in changing what it means to compute, we need to change the architecture of computing. Quantum computing is not going to replace classical computing but rather become an essential part of it. We see the future of computing being a quantum-centric supercomputer where QPUs, CPUs, and GPUs all work together to accelerate computations.

This latest perspective from IBM presents deeper dive into many specific issues facing superconducting-based quantum computing, many of which are shared by other qubit modalities. For close watchers of the unfolding quantum technology landscape, the study is well worth reading.

Capturing the key points of the paper in sufficient detail in a short article is impractical. With apologies for the length of the excerpt, here is the studys conclusion which summarizes most of the central ideas:

We have charted how we believe that quantum advantage in some scientifically relevant problems can be achieved in the next few years. This milestone will be reached through (1) focusing on problems that admit a super-polynomial quantum speedup and advancing theory to design algorithmspossibly heuristicbased on intermediate depth circuits that can out- perform state-of-the-art classical methods, (2) the use of a suite of error mitigation techniques and improvements in hardware-aware software to maximize the quality of the hardware results and extract useful data from the output of noisy quantum circuits, (3) improvements in hardware to increase the fidelity of QPUs to 99.99% or higher, and (4) modular architecture designs that allow parallelization (with classical communication) of circuit execution. Error mitigation techniques with mathematical performance guarantees, like PEC (probabilistic error correction), albeit carrying an exponential classical processing cost, provide a mean to quantify both the expected run time and the quality of processors needed for quantum advantage. This is the near-term future of quantum computing.

Progress in the quality and speed of quantum systems will improve the exponential cost of classical processing required for error mitigation schemes, and a combination of error mitigation and error correction will drive a gradual transition toward fault-tolerance. Classical and quantum computations will be tightly integrated, orchestrated, and managed through a serverless environment that allows developers to focus only on code and not infrastructure. This is the mid-term future of quantum computing.

Finally, we have seen how realizing large-scale quantum algorithms with polynomial run times to enable the full range of practical applications requires quantum error correction, and how error correction approaches like the surface code fall short of the long-term needs owing to their inefficiency in implementing non-Clifford gates and poor encoding rate. We outlined a way forward provided by the development of more efficient LDPC codes with a high error threshold, and the need for modular hard- ware with non-2D topologies to allow the investigation of these codes. This more efficient error correction is the long-term future of quantum computing.

The full paper contains a fair amount of detail on key topics and is best read in full.

Link to pre-print of IBM paper (The Future of Quantum Computing with Superconducting Qubits), https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.06841

[i] Sergey Bravyi,1 Oliver Dial,1 Jay M. Gambetta,1 Dar o Gil,1 and Zaira Nazario1 IBM Quantum, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA

See original here:

IBM Study Charts Future of Superconducting-based Quantum Computing - HPCwire

Posted in Quantum Computing | Comments Off on IBM Study Charts Future of Superconducting-based Quantum Computing – HPCwire

Strategic Partnership Agreement to Develop the Quantum Computing Market in Japan and Asia-Pacific – PR Newswire

Posted: at 3:48 pm

TOKYO, CAMBRIDGE, England and BROOMFIELD, Colo., Oct. 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mitsui & Co., Ltd ("Mitsui") and Quantinuum have signed a strategic partnership agreement to collaborate in the delivery of quantum computing in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.

Mitsui, which is committed to digital transformation, and Quantinuum, one of the world's leading quantum computing companies, integrated across hardware and software, have entered this strategic partnership to develop quantum computing use cases, which are expected to drive significant business transformation and innovation in the future.

Mitsui and Quantinuum will accelerate collaboration, cooperation, and development of new business models. They will jointly pursue quantum application development and provide value added services to organizations working across a variety of quantum computing domains, which is expected to be worth US$450B US$850B worldwide by 2040.*

Yoshio Kometani, Representative Director, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Information Officer of Mitsui & Co., Ltd. stated:"We are very pleased with the strategic partnership between Mitsui and Quantinuum. By combining Quantinuum's cutting-edge quantum computing expertise and diverse quantum talents with Mitsui's broad business platform and network, we will work together to provide new value to our customers and create new business value in a wide range of industrial fields."

Ilyas Khan, Founder and CEO of Quantinuum stated:"The alliance between Mitsui and Quantinuum demonstrates our shared commitment to accelerating quantum computing across all applications and use cases in a diverse range of sectors, including chemistry, finance, and cybersecurity. Today's announcement reinforces our belief in the global quantum leadership shown by corporations and governments in Japan, pioneered by corporate leaders like Mitsui."

Details of the Strategic Partnership

Collaboration areas and applications

Recent Achievements by Quantinuum

About Mitsui & Co., Ltd.

Location: 1-2-1 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

Established: 1947

Representative: Kenichi Hori, President and Representative Director

Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (8031: JP) is a global trading and investment company with a diversified business portfolio that spans approximately 63 countries in Asia, Europe, North, Central & South America, The Middle East, Africa and Oceania.

Mitsui has about 5,500 employees and deploys talent around the globe to identify, develop, and grow businesses in collaboration with a global network of trusted partners. Mitsui has built a strong and diverse core business portfolio covering the Mineral and Metal Resources, Energy, Machinery and Infrastructure, and Chemicals industries.

Leveraging its strengths, Mitsui has further diversified beyond its core profit pillars to create multifaceted value in new areas, including innovative Energy Solutions, Healthcare & Nutrition and through a strategic focus on high-growth Asian markets. This strategy aims to derive growth opportunities by harnessing some of the world's main mega-trends: sustainability, health & wellness, digitalization and the growing power of the consumer.

Mitsui has a long heritage in Asia, where it has established a diverse and strategic portfolio of businesses and partners that gives it a strong differentiating edge, provides exceptional access for all global partners to the world's fastest growing region and strengthens its international portfolio.

For more information on Mitsui & Co's businesses visit, https://www.mitsui.com/jp/en/index.html

About Quantinuum

Location: Cambridge, U.K., Broomfield, Colorado, U.S.A.

Established: December 2021 (through the merger of Honeywell Quantum Solutions (U.S.) and Cambridge Quantum Computing (U.K.))

Representative: Ilyas Khan, CEO; Tony Uttley, COO; Shuya Kekke, CEO & Representative Director, Japan

Quantinuum is one of the world's largest integrated quantum computing companies, formed by the combination of Honeywell Quantum Solutions' world-leading hardware and Cambridge Quantum's class-leading middleware and applications. Science-led and enterprise-driven, Quantinuum accelerates quantum computing and the development of applications across chemistry, cybersecurity, finance, and optimization. Its focus is to create scalable and commercial quantum solutions to solve the world's most pressing problems in fields such as energy, logistics, climate change, and health. The company employs over 480 individuals, including 350 scientists, at nine sites across the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Selected major customers (in Japan): Nippon Steel Corporation, JSR Corporation

http://www.quantinuum.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1923231/Quantinuum.jpgPhoto - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1923232/Quantinuum_System_Model.jpg

SOURCE Quantinuum LLC

More here:

Strategic Partnership Agreement to Develop the Quantum Computing Market in Japan and Asia-Pacific - PR Newswire

Posted in Quantum Computing | Comments Off on Strategic Partnership Agreement to Develop the Quantum Computing Market in Japan and Asia-Pacific – PR Newswire

PsiQuantum and Air Force Research Laboratory Announced $22.5M Contract to Accelerate Path to Build the World’s First Utility-Scale Quantum Computer -…

Posted: at 3:48 pm

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PsiQuantum today announced a $22.5 million contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Rome, N.Y., to formalize their partnership in quantum computing. This project enables a collaboration between PsiQuantum and AFRL on quantum photonic chips, which are used to control and process qubits based on single photons particles of light. These advanced quantum photonic chips will be co-designed by PsiQuantum and AFRL and manufactured at GlobalFoundries semiconductor fab in Malta, N.Y.

This contract further advances the photonic approach to quantum computing, a strategy that is based on the idea of leveraging existing, mature semiconductor manufacturing capabilities to accelerate the path to scale. PsiQuantum is building an error-corrected, utility-scale quantum computer, with the intention of unlocking unprecedented breakthroughs in climate, healthcare, finance, energy, agriculture, transportation, communications, and beyond.

The deep silicon photonics expertise of PsiQuantum is critical in our mission to not only accelerate the advancement and deployment of quantum information science, but in developing capabilities to meet the needs of the emerging national security landscape, said Dr. Michael Hayduk, Deputy Director at AFRL. The partnership with PsiQuantum supports both the United States Department of Defenses and AFRLs missions of pursuing long-term, broad-based research programs that ultimately lead to world-changing applications across multiple industries.

This partnership was enabled by the $25 million in federal funding announced in April by the U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer to advance the partnership between AFRL, PsiQuantum, and GlobalFoundries as part of the Fiscal Year 2022 spending package.

The future of quantum computing technology is being developed right here in Upstate New York, and PsiQuantum, GlobalFoundries, and the Rome Air Force Research Lab are leading us into the next frontier, said Senator Schumer. I was proud to deliver the federal funding to grow this partnership, that will strengthen our national security, create good-paying jobs, and further fuel Upstate New Yorks leadership in the tech economy to help the U.S. stay ahead of all rivals, including China, in technological innovation.

Photonic quantum computing has long been an underappreciated approach to delivering a quantum computer, said PsiQuantum co-founder and CEO Jeremy OBrien. Now, as the world is converging on the conclusion that useful applications will require large-scale systems involving networking and mature semiconductor manufacturing, photonics is coming to the fore in the global race for utility-scale quantum computing. We are working with the group at AFRL, who are distinguished in having long been fellow travelers in the field of quantum photonics. This is a very exciting contract, and we are delighted to have established this partnership.

PsiQuantum is the global leader in photonic quantum computing. In May 2021, PsiQuantum and strategic partner GlobalFoundries revealed a quantum computing manufacturing breakthrough: the first manufacturable single photon detector in a silicon chip. The detector is the component that is used to read out the value of the qubit, i.e. whether it is in a zero or one state. PsiQuantum is now able to manufacture large numbers of these detectors using GlobalFoundries advanced semiconductor foundry a significant step on the path to the large-scale quantum systems that are necessary for useful applications.

About PsiQuantum

Powered by breakthroughs in silicon photonics and fault-tolerant quantum architecture, PsiQuantum is building the first utility-scale quantum computer to solve some of the worlds most important challenges. PsiQuantums approach is based on photonic qubits, which have significant advantages at the scale required to deliver a fault-tolerant, general-purpose quantum computer. With quantum chips now being manufactured in a world-leading semiconductor fab, PsiQuantum is uniquely positioned to deliver quantum capabilities that will drive advances in climate, healthcare, finance, energy, agriculture, transportation, communications, and beyond. To learn more, visit http://www.psiquantum.com.

Follow PsiQuantum: LinkedIn

2022 PsiQuantum. PsiQuantum and the PsiQuantum logo are registered or pending registration trademarks of PsiQuantum, Corp., in the United States and other countries.

Original post:

PsiQuantum and Air Force Research Laboratory Announced $22.5M Contract to Accelerate Path to Build the World's First Utility-Scale Quantum Computer -...

Posted in Quantum Computing | Comments Off on PsiQuantum and Air Force Research Laboratory Announced $22.5M Contract to Accelerate Path to Build the World’s First Utility-Scale Quantum Computer -…

New laboratory to explore the quantum mysteries of nuclear materials – EurekAlert

Posted: at 3:47 pm

Replete with tunneling particles, electron wells, charmed quarks and zombie cats, quantum mechanics takes everything Sir Isaac Newton taught about physics and throws it out the window.

Every day, researchers discover new details about the laws that govern the tiniest building blocks of the universe. These details not only increase scientific understanding of quantum physics, but they also hold the potential to unlock a host of technologies, from quantum computers to lasers to next-generation solar cells.

But theres one area that remains a mystery even in this most mysterious of sciences: the quantum mechanics of nuclear fuels.

Until now, most fundamental scientific research of quantum mechanics has focused on elements such as silicon because these materials are relatively inexpensive, easy to obtain and easy to work with.

Now, Idaho National Laboratory researchers are planning to explore the frontiers of quantum mechanics with a new synthesis laboratory that can work with radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium.

An announcement about the new laboratory appears online in the journalNature Communications.

Uranium and thorium, which are part of a larger group of elements called actinides, are used as fuels in nuclear power reactors because they can undergo nuclear fission under certain conditions.

However, the unique properties of these elements, especially the arrangement of their electrons, also means they could exhibit interesting quantum mechanical properties.

In particular, the behavior of particles in special, extremely thin materials made from actinides could increase our understanding of phenomena such as quantum wells and quantum tunneling (see sidebar).

To study these properties, a team of researchers has built a laboratory around molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a process that creates ultra-thin layers of materials with a high degree of purity and control.

The MBE technique itself is not new, said Krzysztof Gofryk, a scientist at INL. Its widely used. Whats new is that were applying this method to actinide materials uranium and thorium. Right now, this capability doesnt exist anywhere else in the world that we know of.

The INL team is conducting fundamental research science for the sake of knowledge but the practical applications of these materials could make for some important technological breakthroughs.

At this point, we are not interested in building a new qubit [the basis of quantum computing], but we are thinking about which materials might be useful for that, Gofryk said. Some of these materials could be potentially interesting for new memory banks and spin-based transistors, for instance.

Memory banks and transistors are both important components of computers.

To understand how researchers make these very thin materials, imagine an empty ball pit at a fast-food restaurant. Blue and red balls are thrown in the pit one at a time until they make a single layer on the floor. But that layer isnt a random assortment of balls. Instead, they arrange themselves into a pattern.

During the MBE process, the empty ball pit is a vacuum chamber, and the balls are highly pure elements, such as nitrogen and uranium, that are heated until individual atoms can escape into the chamber.

The floor of our imaginary ball pit is, in reality, a charged substrate that attracts the individual atoms. On the substrate, atoms order themselves to create a wafer of very thin material in this case, uranium nitride.

Back in the ball pit, weve created layer of blue and red balls arranged in a pattern. Now we make another layer of green and orange balls on top of the first layer.

To study the quantum properties of these materials, Gofryk and his team will join two dissimilar wafers of material into a sandwich called a heterostructure. For instance, the thin layer of uranium nitride might be joined to a thin layer of another material such as gallium arsenide, a semiconductor. At the junction between the two different materials, interesting quantum mechanical properties can be observed.

We can make sandwiches of these materials from a variety of elements, Gofryk said. We have lots of flexibility. We are trying to think about the novel structures we can create with maybe some predicted quantum properties.

We want to look at electronic properties, structural properties, thermal properties and how electrons are transported through the layers, he continued. What will happen if you lower the temperature and apply a magnetic field? Will it cause electrons to behave in certain way?

INL is one of the few places where researchers can work with uranium and thorium for this type of science. The amounts of the radioactive materials and the consequent safety concerns will be comparable to the radioactivity found in an everyday smoke alarm.

INL is the perfect place for this research because were interested in this kind of physics and chemistry, Gofryk said.

In the end, Gofryk hopes the laboratory will result in breakthroughs that help attract attention from potential collaborators as well as recruit new employees to the laboratory.

These actinides have such special properties, he said. Were hoping we can discover some new phenomena or new physics that hasnt been found before.

In 1900, German physicist Max Planck first described how light emitted from heated objects, such as the filament in a light bulb, behaved like particles.

Since then, numerous scientists including Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr have explored and expanded upon Plancks discovery to develop the field of physics known as quantum mechanics. In short, quantum mechanics describes the behavior of atoms and subatomic particles.

Quantum mechanics is different than regular physics, in part, because subatomic particles simultaneously have characteristics of both particles and waves, and their energy and movement occur in discrete amounts called quanta.

More than 120 years later, quantum mechanics plays a key role in numerous practical applications, especially lasers and transistors a key component of modern electronic devices. Quantum mechanics also promises to serve as the basis for the next generation of computers, known as quantum computers, which will be much more powerful at solving certain types of calculations.

Uranium, thorium and the other actinides have something in common that makes them interesting for quantum mechanics: the arrangement of their electrons.

Electrons do not orbit around the nucleus the way the earth orbits the sun. Rather, they zip around somewhat randomly. But we can define areas where there is a high probability of finding electrons. These clouds of probability are called orbitals.

For the smallest atoms, these orbitals are simple spheres surrounding the nucleus. However, as the atoms get larger and contain more electrons, orbitals begin to take on strange and complex shapes.

In very large atoms like uranium and thorium (92 and 90 electrons respectively), the outermost orbitals are a complex assortment of party balloon, jelly bean, dumbbell and hula hoop shapes. The electrons in these orbitals are high energy. While scientists can guess at their quantum properties, nobody knows for sure how they will behave in the real world.

Quantum tunneling is a key part of any number of phenomena, including nuclear fusion in stars, mutations in DNA and diodes in electronic devices.

To understand quantum tunneling, imagine a toddler rolling a ball at a mountain. In this analogy, the ball is a particle. The mountain is a barrier, most likely a semiconductor material. In classical physics, theres no chance the ball has enough energy to pass over the mountain.

But in the quantum realm, subatomic particles have properties of both particles and waves. The waves peak represents the highest probability of finding the particle. Thanks to a quirk of quantum mechanics, while most of the wave bounces off the barrier, a small part of that wave travels through if the barrier is thin enough.

For a single particle, the small amplitude of this wave means there is a very small chance of the particle making it to the other side of the barrier.

However, when large numbers of waves are travelling at a barrier, the probability increases, and sometimes a particle makes it through. This is quantum tunneling.

Quantum wells are also important, especially for devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers.

Like quantum tunneling, to build quantum wells, you need alternating layers of very thin (10 nanometers) material where one layer is a barrier.

While electrons normally travel in three dimensions, quantum wells trap electrons in two dimensions within a barrier that is, for practical purposes, impossible to overcome. These electrons exist at specific energies say the precise energies needed to generate specific wavelengths of light.

About Idaho National LaboratoryBattelle Energy Alliance manages INL for the U.S. Department of Energys Office of Nuclear Energy. INL is the nations center for nuclear energy research and development,and alsoperforms research in each of DOEs strategic goal areas: energy, national security, science and the environment. For more information, visitwww.inl.gov.Follow us on social media:Twitter,Facebook,InstagramandLinkedIn.

Read the rest here:

New laboratory to explore the quantum mysteries of nuclear materials - EurekAlert

Posted in Quantum Computing | Comments Off on New laboratory to explore the quantum mysteries of nuclear materials – EurekAlert

Cerebras Chip Part of Project to Spot Post-exascale Technology – HPCwire

Posted: at 3:47 pm

Cerebras Systems has secured another U.S. government win for its wafer scale engine chip which is considered the largest chip in the world.

The companys chip technology will be part of a research project sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration to find future computing technologies to assess the nuclear weapons stockpile.

The NNSA and its partners will assess the chips capabilities as part of an initiative to research post-exascale technologies.

The NNSAs Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program is researching technologies that could be 40 times faster than the upcoming exascale system called El Capitan, which will be hosted at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

The U.S. Department of Energy has said that the El Capital supercomputer, which will be the first multi-exaflops system in the U.S., will go online in 2023 or 2024, according to a 25-year ASC accomplishments report published this month. The system is being built by HPE in collaboration with AMD, and Livermore Lab has already taken delivery of three testbed systems.

The Cerebras system could become a part of the Department of Energys program to evaluate experimental systems, which is called Advanced Architecture Prototype Systems. The first AAPS system, called Astra, was a petaflops-system based on Arm processors. A followup system, codenamed Vanguard-2, is currently being built. Development of the next AAPS system, Vanguard-3, will start in 2026, according to the ASC roadmap.

The post-exascale program is also considering quantum computing and other novel hardware, computer architecture, and software; the likely trajectory of relevant hardware and software technologies; and the ability of the U.S. industrial base to meet NNSAs needs, according to the project page.

NNSAs goal is to improve the computing capability of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which involves the assessment of the current nuclear arsenal. The annual program helps the government simulate and evaluate nuclear weapons without real-world testing. Better computing capabilities will improve the testing capabilities.

The Cerebras wafer-scale engine, which has 850,000 cores and 2.6 trillion transistors, was already being evaluated by the U.S. government. The Argonne National Laboratory, which focuses on scientific research, was assessing Cerebras chip as an alternative to GPUs for artificial intelligence applications. The NNSA and affiliate labs that include Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore are focused on nuclear stockpiles and other weapons technologies. At Livermore, Cerebrass first-generation CS-1 machine was integrated into the NNSAs unclassified Lassen supercomputer in 2020.

As a startup, its extremely difficult to win the trust and get access to the workloads, even to see if youre good at them, Andrew Feldman, CEO of Cerebras, told HPCwire.

The NNSA project allows Cerebras to collaborate with a whole new class of customer, Feldman said.

Cerebras chips have also been used by private sector companies that include GlaxoSmithKline and TotalEnergies. The WSE-2 chip is finding more acceptance in the private and public domain, and the product has matured as more applications are found and AI models mature.

In the software world, they say the first thing to do is get in customers hands. In the hardware world, it takes us years to build chips and get systems. Then we have to get them in customers hands and learn as quickly as we can, Feldman said.

Cerebras chip has made its mark in scientific and research applications, but its not yet in front of corporate customers for everyday use. Google Cloud and AWS have put up instances of their homegrown AI chips for such applications, but Cerebras chip is significantly faster, and can be integrated into high-performance computing workflows.

Were not going to be an exclusive cloud seller. Were going to continue to deliver to customers, who, for whatever reason, also want on premise solutions, Feldman said.

Cerebras would love to partner with major cloud providers, Feldman said, adding you have to earn that. That takes time.

Follow this link:

Cerebras Chip Part of Project to Spot Post-exascale Technology - HPCwire

Posted in Quantum Computing | Comments Off on Cerebras Chip Part of Project to Spot Post-exascale Technology – HPCwire

The Black Death Shaped Human Evolution, And We’re Still in Its Shadow – ScienceAlert

Posted: at 3:47 pm

An analysis of DNA extracted from medieval victims and survivors of the Black Death shows that the monumental plague that ravaged Europe in the 14th century continues to impact our biology to this day.

Not just because the pathogen responsible is still active, but because the deadly, widespread pandemic triggered adaptations in our immune system that continued to evolve for hundreds of years.

The changes are not necessarily to our long-term benefit, either. Although the genes involved seem to have conferred increased resistance to the plague, scientists have found that those same genes today may be associated with increased susceptibility to autoimmune conditions, such as Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

It's a finding that suggests pandemics may have unexpected, and sometimes deleterious, long-term effects that ripple down through the generations.

Peaking in the middle of the 1300s, the Black Death is widely regarded as one of the most devastating events in human history, claiming tens to hundreds of millions of lives across Europe, Asia, and Africa. It was caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium and transmitted to humans via fleas to give rise to a disease that can be fatal within less than a day.

Such impactful infectious diseases represent one of the strongest pressures for natural selection, particularly for humans. Take sickle cell anemia for example, a genetic disorder that happens to also provide a degree of resistance against the more deadly malaria. Since someone with sickle cell is more likely to survive malaria, they'll have an opportunity to conceive more children who will also have sickle cell anemia. Over time, the incidence of sickle cell anemia rises within populations living in malaria-prone regions.

An international team of scientists led by geneticists Jennifer Klunk of McMaster University in Canada and Tauras Vilgalys of the University of Chicago wanted to see if they could ascertain how the Black Plague had altered the human genome.

"When a pandemic of this nature killing 30 to 50 per cent of the population occurs, there is bound to be selection for protective alleles in humans, which is to say people susceptible to the circulating pathogen will succumb," explains evolutionary geneticist Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University.

"Even a slight advantage means the difference between surviving or passing. Of course, those survivors who are of breeding age will pass on their genes."

Because the Black Plague was so widespread and the dead were buried in mass graves, there are a lot of bones for today's researchers to study. The scientists focused on a 100-year window before, during, and after the Black Plague. They obtained over 500 samples from individuals who died in London and Denmark, representing three groups: those who died before the plague (retrieved from a London mass grave), those who died during, and those who survived and died sometime later.

By comparing the genomes of these individuals, the researchers were able to identify four genes that were associated with the Black Death, selected for with a speed never seen either before or since in human history. Those genes produce proteins that help protect our bodies from invading pathogens, and individuals with one or more of these gene variants seemed to have been more likely to survive the plague.

To confirm what the ancient DNA seemed to imply, the researchers created cultures of human cells representing different genetic profiles and infected them with Yersinia pestis. Their results showed that the genes identified earlier in their study again appeared in the cultures most resistant against the bacterium.

In particular, individuals with two identical copies of a gene called ERAP2 were around 40 to 50 percent more likely to survive the plague than those with the opposite copies, which seem to have instead conferred increased susceptibility.

"The selective advantage associated with the selected loci are among the strongest ever reported in humans showing how a single pathogen can have such a strong impact on the evolution of the immune system," says geneticist Luis Barreiro of the University of Chicago.

As the centuries rolled on, the plague became less and less devastating, and humanity, largely, moved on. However, there was a big catch. Some of the gene variants identified by the researchers are today associated with an increased susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. Since the plague would have been the bigger evolutionary pressure back in the 1340s like malaria and sickle cell anemia this result was probably unavoidable.

This, the researchers say, provides empirical evidence for an association between autoimmune risk and adaptation to an infectious disease that spread centuries ago.

"Understanding the dynamics that have shaped the human immune system is key to understanding how past pandemics, like the plague, contribute to our susceptibility to disease in modern times," Poinar says.

The team's research has been published in Nature.

See original here:

The Black Death Shaped Human Evolution, And We're Still in Its Shadow - ScienceAlert

Posted in Evolution | Comments Off on The Black Death Shaped Human Evolution, And We’re Still in Its Shadow – ScienceAlert

What Chernobyl’s Black Frogs Reveal About Evolution – Twisted Sifter

Posted: at 3:46 pm

There seems to be no end to the fascinating truths that continue to emerge from the distinct ecosystem that exists in post-radiation-blast Chernobyl, and its black frogs are no exception.

In 1986, a massive and historic release of radioactive material was flung into the environment around Chernobyl. The impact was seen on every last bit of the surrounding area, living beings, plant life, you name it.

Three decades later, Chernobyl is a nature preserve unlike any other in the world and is home to a diverse range of endangered species.

Radiation can damage genetic material and generate odd mutations, but we have also learned that it can spur adaptations in some species that allow them to live with it. It can be a very strong selective factor, favoring organisms with mechanisms that increase their survival in exactly these kids of scenarios.

One of those organisms seems to be the Eastern tree frog. In 2016, researchers spotted several black-tinted specimens, when their skin would normally have a bright green dorsal coloration.

A cool fact about melanin which is a pigment responsible for the dark color of many organisms is that it can reduce the negative effects of ultravioletand ionizing radiation,

Its ability to absorb, dissipate, and neutralize ionized molecules can reduce the chances of cell damage and even an early death after radiation exposure.

Between 2017 and 2019, researchers observed the dorsal skin coloration of more than 200 male frogs found in different areas of northern Ukraine, all of which had varying levels of radiation exposure.

The results of those observations show that the frogs that live closer to Chernobyl have a much darker coloration than those from control areas further away. Some are actually pitch-black, though there is a range of colors and hues.

The darkest frogs were found in or near the most contaminated areas.

Researchers concluded that the frogs in Chernobyl at the time of the accident rapidly evolved in response to their massive exposure, with the darker colored frogs being selected due to their increased melanin.

More than 10 generations of frogs have been born since the accident but we rarely get to observe a natural selection event that happens so quickly.

Thats exactly what scientists believe is happening, though, due to the disproportionate number of dark-colored frogs in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

This research will likely be used by scientists in other fields, such as nuclear waste management and even space exploration.

Continue reading here:

What Chernobyl's Black Frogs Reveal About Evolution - Twisted Sifter

Posted in Evolution | Comments Off on What Chernobyl’s Black Frogs Reveal About Evolution – Twisted Sifter

How evolution overshot the optimum bone structure in hopping rodents – University of Michigan News

Posted: at 3:46 pm

Bones that are separate in small jerboas are fully fused in large ones, but the bone structures that are best at dissipating the stresses of jumping are only partially fusedA bipedal jerboa, one of the rodent species included in a study of unpredictability in animal movements. Image credit: Talia Moore and Kim Cooper

Foot bones that are separate in small hopping rodents are fused in their larger cousins, and a team of researchers at the University of Michigan and University of California, San Diego, wanted to know why.

It appears that once evolution set jerboa bones on the path toward fusing together, they overshot the optimum amount of fusingthe structure that best dissipated stresses from jumping and landingto become fully bonded.

Study: Metatarsal fusion resisted bending as jerboas (Dipodidae) transitioned from quadrupedal to bipedal (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.1322)

This finding could inform the design of future robotic legs capable of withstanding the higher forces associated with rapid bursts of agile locomotion.

Jerboas are desert rodents that hop erratically on two legs to avoid predators. Across the jerboa family tree, these two legs can look a lot different: there are species that weigh just three grams to those that weigh 400 grams, with heavier species sporting vastly different bones of the feet, or metatarsals. Lighter jerboas are like most other mammals, including humans: their metatarsal foot bones are separate from each other.

We wanted to explore why we are seeing these fused bones in only larger jerboas, said Carla Nathaly Villacs Nez, U-M doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering and first author of the study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

We found that the fused bones showed lower stresses than unfused bones, thereby reinforcing against higher loads, she said. But we also discovered the partially fused bones had even lower stresses than the fully fused bones. One hypothesis is that fully fused jerboas have evolutionary overshoot.

To study the bone performance across species, the researchers performed micro-CT scans of museum specimens and built 3D models of the jerboa metatarsals in software, then scaled them to equal sizes and stress tested them as they hit, flexed and hopped off of a surface.

The smaller jerboas have three separate metatarsal bones, which are capable of supporting the rodents small stature even if used for high-impact jumping. The more recent, larger jerboa species have completely fused these three bones into one. The intermediate weight species have something in-between: a metatarsal with interior remnants of bone where it has partially fused together, like a bundle of sticks.

Our interdisciplinary team applied state-of-the-art engineering techniques to unravel an evolutionary puzzle, said Talia Moore, U-M assistant professor of robotics and senior author of the study.

Evolution hit an advantageous point of partially fused geometry, but then evolutionary momentum may have continued to completely fuse the metatarsals. Because the fully fused bones are still sufficient to keep from breaking, there was likely no evolutionary pressure to stop fusing.

The research team notes that similar analyses could help uncover other ways in which the skeleton changed shape to compensate as species evolved from quadrupedal, or walking on four feet, to bipedal locomotion.

While kangaroos, primates and other rodents converged on bipedalism, the dynamics of their locomotion and the anatomical changes associated with that shift are quite different in each case, said Andrew Ray, an undergraduate student studying materials science and engineering in Moores lab.

Through similar analysis, we could simulate how the foot bones of extinct human ancestors might have experienced stresses during walking, running or other locomotion.

An additional author is Kimberly Cooper, professor of developmental biology at the University of California, San Diego, who formulated the idea for the project with Moore during a separate study tracing the evolution and development of metatarsal fusion in jerboas. Coopers expertise was key to understanding the evolutionary implications of the findings.

The research was supported in part by a Harvard Chapman Memorial Fellowship, a David Rockefeller Center for Latin America Studies Collaborative Research grant, and the U-M Mechanical Engineering Research, Innovation, Service and Entrepreneurship program.

Read the original:

How evolution overshot the optimum bone structure in hopping rodents - University of Michigan News

Posted in Evolution | Comments Off on How evolution overshot the optimum bone structure in hopping rodents – University of Michigan News

The Evolution Of Braids Goes Beyond Hair – The Zoe Report

Posted: at 3:46 pm

Although hair braiding is a hairstyle found throughout cultures, the practice holds a revered place in the Black community. As Black people have voluntarily and involuntarily moved throughout the world, the specific culture of hair braiding has transformed to reflect the impact of history and communal change. What began as an extension of ancestral customs has evolved into tools of survival, functionality, community and even artistic expression. Here, we look back on and celebrate the history of hair braiding as well as its future.

Beautification practices in Africa vary in meaning across countries, cultures, and tribes. In many cases, hair braiding was and continues to be used to express information about the wearer including marital status, age, spiritual connections, or tribe.

The nomadic Himba tribe in northern Namibia are known for their grooming practice of covering their skin and hair in a red, aromatic paste called Otjize that has cleansing, UV protective, and spiritual properties. The accompanying braiding traditions are nuanced, differing between clans and indicating highly specific information. Long, individual braids covered and sculpted by Otjize and topped with a headdress are common amongst women to mark fertility and marital status. Simpler braids are worn by children and become more elaborate with age.

Many braiding traditions, like those of the Himba tribe, thrive today while others have waned with time. Particularly, modern-day hair braiding in the United States is largely led by zeitgeist rather than cultural messaging. Still, braids have earned additional purpose throughout Black history maintaining a larger impact alongside a function of beauty.

Stories of enslaved Africans hiding rice, grain and other items within braids during the Middle Passage and when escaping demonstrate how braids became part of survival. Many oral history accounts claim certain braided styles served as wordless communication of who was ready to escape or mapped routes to safety. [Braids] signify our intergenerational ties. They signify the African-ness in us that would not die in the process of coming to this country, says interdisciplinary artist Shani Crowe who often uses large-scale, intricate hair braiding in her work to celebrate Black beauty. Braids have been used to preserve even the agricultural parts of our culture.

The power to facilitate connection is a characteristic of hair braiding thats held throughout Black history. Hair braiding has always been a social activity entrusted to family or skilled community members and ultimately deepened relationships. In my personal experience, I was definitely sitting on the floor, between somebodys knees getting my hair braided on the porch or in the kitchen, Crowe recalls. You spend a lot of time with someone when you braid hair so you develop relationships with people. The communal aspect of doing hair offered opportunities for Black people to build lives in America and resist oppression. Madame CJ Walker and other Black hair entrepreneurs created spaces where a lot of Black revolutionaries and leaders were able to gather, says Crowe. They got that space from the money they made beautifying other women.

Today, African hair braiding shops, particularly in New Yorks Brooklyn and Harlem boroughs, similarly sit at the intersection of community and beauty service. Theres just something about the salon atmosphere that makes you feel at home, says celebrity hair braider Helena Koudou whos worked alongside her family at Alima African Hair Braiding Salon in Brooklyn since she was 15. [My aunts salon] has been in the neighborhood for more than 20 years. She has known people from when they were young. She used to throw cookouts and would invite people to eat. So she made it a home for who comes in and out. I try to do the same with my clients.

Although racist policies and social norms placed premiums on straight hairstyles, natural hair returned en vogue during the 1960s and 70s. The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements encouraged natural hairstyling as a political statement braids included. Most notably, actor Cicely Tyson is regarded as the first Black celebrity to sport natural hair for mainstream television and cinema. Tyson wore a braided style reminiscent of the now popular Fulani braids on the March 1973 cover of Jet Magazine and again for various movie promotions and portraits. She received both praise and backlash but continued to subvert beauty expectations by regularly wearing her natural hair throughout her career.

Braids of choice during the 1980s reflected the high-impact vibrancy of the decade. Braided bobs replete with bangs and braids packed with colorful beads or other ornaments were popularized by musicians like Patrice Rushen and Rick James.

Black celebrities, musicians and iconic pop culture moments would continue to set off new braid trends. Janet Jacksons influential role in the 1990s drama Poetic Justice breathed new life into long, box braids and inadvertently renamed them. I remember people kept coming in and asking for Janet Jackson braids and my mom and aunt would look at me and be like, What is that?, says Koudou. These styles have always been around. They just have a new name.

The early 2000s saw the rise of various microbraid trends. The extremely skinny, individual braids are beloved for their versatility and resembling the look of naturally flowing hair. Actor and singer Brandy was known for wearing microbraids in her popular roles as Moesha and Cinderella. The characters deeply resonated with young Black viewers at a time when Black hairstyles were not widely accepted. Seeing [Brandy] in Cinderella with braids I wanted my hair just like that, says Danielle Washington, beauty brand consultant and former co-founder and chief marketing officer at plant-based hair extension brand Rebundle. Seeing braids in the media around that time, for me, was important.

Crowe, Koudou, and Washington agree that knotless braids are currently the most popular style. The specific braiding technique uniquely eliminates the need to secure extensions at the root with a visible knot. [Knotless] looks more natural, says Koudou. The styles went from oh she has extensions in her hair to I cant tell if thats her hair or not. Knotless braids seamless finish transformed braids from a functional decision for vacations or to protect damaged hair into a fashion-forward look. In my childhood, braids were often pitted against straight hair, says Washington. [Braids] definitely served that functional need but with the knotless aspect we remembered that, wow, this is sexy.

Recent shifts in societal perceptions of Black hair have made room to further embrace braided hairstyles. The passing of the Crown Act in 2020 officially made discrimination based on hair texture illegal, a move that largely protects Black people from workplace disenfranchisement. The type of braiding I was doing when I created the show BRAIDS I had to take all that stuff down after, says Crowe of her viral 2016 exhibition featuring avant-garde braided sculptures that caught the eye of Solange. The models had to go to work after. Now, braiders are noticing clients taking more risks with their hair. I have a few clients, not a lot, but a few clients who love to experiment with different hairstyles, says Koudou. One of these hairstyles takes inspiration from Cicely Tysons iconic braided crown pinning braids in circles at the forehead to resemble curled bangs with a tall, tight topknot. When [people] see somebody do that theyre like oh, thats fine. I want to do that too.

Similar to changing tides amidst braid trends, the braiding hair used to create these styles is experiencing an overhaul. Hair extensions have a reputation for harmful production methods. Synthetic hair is typically coated in skin-irritating, health-concerning chemicals while human hair harvesting can be exploitative of vulnerable donors. Personal care products marketed to Black and brown consumers are already more likely to contain potentially harmful ingredients, revealing blind spots in the beauty industry's growing clean initiative. The systemic nature of the hair extension industry is taught and passed down, says Washington. It does not start with Black people but it definitely ends with it.

The hair extensions industry is growing quickly and is expected to reach almost $5 billion by 2032, making manufacturers resistant to profit-threatening innovation. However, disruptive brands like Rebundle are forcing a change of guard. Rebundle is the first-ever producer of plant-based, recyclable hair extensions that are safe for both the wearers and the environment. They also offer a recycling program for consumers to mail back competitor extensions, placing additional pressure on the industry to catch up. Rebundle recently raised $1.3 million in growth funding, demonstrating a community and industry hunger for something better for Black beauty consumers.

Throughout history, braids have played a constantly evolving yet always critical role in the lives of Black people. The practice has preserved culture, built community, helped resist oppression and served as a medium of self-love. As the full breadth of braids becomes increasingly venerated, we can expect creativity to continue blossoming.

(Stay Up To Date)

Become A Style Insider

Join The Zoe Reports exclusive email list for the latest trends, shopping guides, celebrity style, and more.

Read more:

The Evolution Of Braids Goes Beyond Hair - The Zoe Report

Posted in Evolution | Comments Off on The Evolution Of Braids Goes Beyond Hair – The Zoe Report

How bumblebees can help us understand the evolution of human memories – The Conversation Indonesia

Posted: at 3:46 pm

Researching the way other animals minds work can deepen our understanding of the human mind, especially when there are differences. For example, our new study has shown that bumblebees can forget basic information within minutes, though they can still make complicated decisions. But to understand how bees memories differ from ours, lets first talk about ice cream.

The other week, I visited a new ice cream shop and the sight of two flavours made my belly rumble: pistachio and chocolate brownie. Ive had both, but never side by side. It was a tough decision. To make this choice I had to access separate memories of the two flavours. Did I recall how rich the brownies had been? Or did I remember just that I liked pistachio more than the lemon flavour I had on that spring day earlier this year?

Whether it be two ice creams or two flowers, humans and bumblebees face similar decisions. Many people think of animals as creatures which run only on instinct. But my ice cream dilemma is an example of the decisions animals of all kinds make. My PhD project explores how bumblebees make decisions and if their tiny brains come up with similar solutions to problems as we do.

Humans use a combination of memories to solve problems. Some memories for absolute information (say, how sweet an ice cream is), and others for comparative knowledge (such as whether it was better or worse than another option).

We arent the only animals who do this. A study showed that starlings remember and use both absolute (how long it took to obtain a worm) and comparative insights (whether the waiting time was shorter or longer) when deciding between new combinations of food options. But our study showed this isnt the case for bumblebees.

Im fascinated by how bumblebees can solve complex tasks, like cross-modal recognition (learning an object using only touch or vision and then discriminating between objects using other sensory information) and negative patterning (learning that two stimuli are rewarding but a combination of the two is not).

My colleagues and I designed a series of experiments to see what bees remembered about flowers. We trained bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) to forage from flowers in the lab. By flowers, I mean little coloured plastic chips propped up on vials, on which we placed little droplets of sugar water.

In the first training session, bumblebees foraged on two different coloured flowers which offered nectar of two different sugar concentrations. They quickly learned the green flower was sweeter than the yellow flower.

They then went through a second training phase with two new flowers, orange and blue. It didnt take long for them to realise orange flowers were sweeter than blue flowers.

Finally, each bumblebee explored two flowers they hadnt experienced together, yellow and orange, and both without nectar. This time they had to rely on two separate memories. We watched which flower type the bees landed on the most to see which they thought was better.

After just a few minutes, the bees we studied lost all memory of absolute information. They couldnt remember anything about how sweet any of the flowers were. All they could remember is whether a flower had been better or worse.

Bees have minuscule brains with less than one million neurons, (similar in size and weight to a sesame seed) compared to our 1.3-kilogram brain with around 85 billion neurons. However, research shows tiny brained invertebrates and large brained animals arent that different in their brain structure. It might sound like bees have poor memories. But the way their brains evolved to store information is simply different to ours.

Diet offers one explanation. Just like humans, starlings eat a varied diet with many types of foods including fruits, worms and seeds. But adult bumblebees, like all bees, live on sugar water (and a bit of pollen) from flowers.

Perhaps the early ancestors of humans and birds, long after breaking away from the evolutionary branch bumblebees followed around 500 million years ago, needed to retain memories for absolute information to compare the varied foods they ate. But to succeed in their nectar world, bumblebees dont need to remember anything more than which flower was sweeter.

In the wild, bumblebees tend to forage only a short distance from their nest and search for the sweetest flowers around. We know bees quickly learn where to find food, which flowers are rewarding, and how to extract nectar and pollen from them. They remember these things for the rest of their lives.

Bumblebees tend to find one good flower source and stick to it. Think about it: if you planned to only live off a diet of salted caramel ice cream you wouldnt need comparative memories of food.

Investigating these questions in other animal species may help us learn about how important food is for memory development. For example, we could gain valuable insight if we looked at how the honey possum (a small cute mammal which drinks almost entirely nectar), and the paper wasp (a pollinating insect like bumblebees, but with a much more varied diet), remember options.

But for now, if you are ever in a predicament involving choices of ice cream flavours, my advice is: get both.

Read more here:

How bumblebees can help us understand the evolution of human memories - The Conversation Indonesia

Posted in Evolution | Comments Off on How bumblebees can help us understand the evolution of human memories – The Conversation Indonesia