The health benefits of fermented food and drink have long been touted, but firm evidence in favour of kombucha, sauerkraut and kefir is surprisingly elusive

The Biden administration will support a United Nations treaty this week that will create a new cybercrime convention, including China and Russia, which has not sat well with some lawmakers and critics.

The Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump transition, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content.

While many states focused on issues like abortion and immigration throughout this election cycle, voters in California and Colorado approved tougher crime laws.

Wonder Brands Inc. is recalling various brands of bread and buns because of pieces of metal in the products. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the recalled products were distributed in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and Quebec, Canada. The brands listed in the recall include Country Harvest, D’Italiano,... Continue Reading

An in-depth analysis in the United States, covering 2002 to 2023, reveals that biological contamination and allergens are the leading causes of food recalls. The study, recently published in the Journal of Food Protection, examined more than 35,000 food and beverage recalls overseen by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration... Continue Reading

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that some dairy farm employees showed signs of infection, even when they didn’t report feeling sick. The CDC concluded that more bird flu testing of dairy farm employees is required. According to Dr. Nirav Shah, the CDC’s principal... Continue Reading

CIBUS Fresh of Noblesville, IN, is recalling CIBUS Fresh products containing Glenview Farms Spreadable Brie, 2/3lb because of a supplier notification of possible Listeria monocytogenes (products are listed below).  More information regarding the recent Brie recall can be found here. The product was distributed under the following labels: CIBUS Fresh,... Continue Reading

Yu Shang Food, Inc., a Spartanburg, SC, business, over the weekend recalled 4,589 pounds of ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry products, which may have been adulterated with Listeria monocytogenes, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). The ready-to-eat meat and poultry items were produced from... Continue Reading

The appointment of a political outsider like Musk could help Trump cut regulations and rein in government bureaucracy, even if the moves are unpopular

Stocks have soared since Donald Trump was elected, but some say the run-up has more to do with bubbles than policy

Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos discusses what a second Trump term could mean for U.S. education on "The Story with Martha MacCallum."

Georgia's loss to Ole Miss Saturday brought a wild shakeup to the college football rankings, and the Bulldogs find themselves out of the playoff picture.

Country music star Darius Rucker paid the East Tennessee State University's NIL fund $10 for every minute he was on the field Saturday after what he called an "awkward" appearance.

Quantum computing is a devilishly complex technology, with many technical hurdles impacting its development. Of these challenges two critical issues stand out: miniaturization and qubit quality.

IBM has adopted the superconducting qubit road map of reaching a 1,121-qubit processor by 2023, leading to the expectation that 1,000 qubits with today’s qubit form factor is feasible. However, current approaches will require very large chips (50 millimeters on a side, or larger) at the scale of small wafers, or the use of chiplets on multichip modules. While this approach will work, the aim is to attain a better path toward scalability.

Now researchers at MIT have been able to both reduce the size of the qubits and done so in a way that reduces the interference that occurs between neighboring qubits. The MIT researchers have increased the number of superconducting qubits that can be added onto a device by a factor of 100.

“We are addressing both qubit miniaturization and quality,” said William Oliver, the director for the Center for Quantum Engineering at MIT. “Unlike conventional transistor scaling, where only the number really matters, for qubits, large numbers are not sufficient, they must also be high-performance. Sacrificing performance for qubit number is not a useful trade in quantum computing. They must go hand in hand.”

The key to this big increase in qubit density and reduction of interference comes down to the use of two-dimensional materials, in particular the 2D insulator hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). The MIT researchers demonstrated that a few atomic monolayers of hBN can be stacked to form the insulator in the capacitors of a superconducting qubit.

Just like other capacitors, the capacitors in these superconducting circuits take the form of a sandwich in which an insulator material is sandwiched between two metal plates. The big difference for these capacitors is that the superconducting circuits can operate only at extremely low temperatures—less than 0.02 degrees above absolute zero (-273.15 °C).

Superconducting qubits are measured at temperatures as low as 20 millikelvin in a dilution refrigerator.Nathan Fiske/MIT

In that environment, insulating materials that are available for the job, such as PE-CVD silicon oxide or silicon nitride, have quite a few defects that are too lossy for quantum computing applications. To get around these material shortcomings, most superconducting circuits use what are called coplanar capacitors. In these capacitors, the plates are positioned laterally to one another, rather than on top of one another.

As a result, the intrinsic silicon substrate below the plates and to a smaller degree the vacuum above the plates serve as the capacitor dielectric. Intrinsic silicon is chemically pure and therefore has few defects, and the large size dilutes the electric field at the plate interfaces, all of which leads to a low-loss capacitor. The lateral size of each plate in this open-face design ends up being quite large (typically 100 by 100 micrometers) in order to achieve the required capacitance.

In an effort to move away from the large lateral configuration, the MIT researchers embarked on a search for an insulator that has very few defects and is compatible with superconducting capacitor plates.

“We chose to study hBN because it is the most widely used insulator in 2D material research due to its cleanliness and chemical inertness,” said colead author Joel Wang, a research scientist in the Engineering Quantum Systems group of the MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics.

On either side of the hBN, the MIT researchers used the 2D superconducting material, niobium diselenide. One of the trickiest aspects of fabricating the capacitors was working with the niobium diselenide, which oxidizes in seconds when exposed to air, according to Wang. This necessitates that the assembly of the capacitor occur in a glove box filled with argon gas.

While this would seemingly complicate the scaling up of the production of these capacitors, Wang doesn’t regard this as a limiting factor.

“What determines the quality factor of the capacitor are the two interfaces between the two materials,” said Wang. “Once the sandwich is made, the two interfaces are “sealed” and we don’t see any noticeable degradation over time when exposed to the atmosphere.”

This lack of degradation is because around 90 percent of the electric field is contained within the sandwich structure, so the oxidation of the outer surface of the niobium diselenide does not play a significant role anymore. This ultimately makes the capacitor footprint much smaller, and it accounts for the reduction in cross talk between the neighboring qubits.

“The main challenge for scaling up the fabrication will be the wafer-scale growth of hBN and 2D superconductors like [niobium diselenide], and how one can do wafer-scale stacking of these films,” added Wang.

Wang believes that this research has shown 2D hBN to be a good insulator candidate for superconducting qubits. He says that the groundwork the MIT team has done will serve as a road map for using other hybrid 2D materials to build superconducting circuits.

Home users can opt in for a single year of updates at $30 per PC—not 3 years.

Microsoft works to make Recall "secure and trusted" after security complaints.

Humane first reported overheating problems with the portable charger in June.

Latex balloons designed to collect high-altitude data can become a threat after they burst

From the busy cities to ocean waters, our need to illuminate the world has had some strange and tragic consequences

Soderlund died from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.

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We spoke to Dr Ian Paul, who is a reverend and member of General Synod and the Archbishops’ Council.

The fight between environmental campaigners and fossil fuel moved to the Scottish courts today.

As clinicians see more TikTok challenge injuries, explaining them is often hard.

It has just the right mix of spreadability, stickiness, and friction to give pitchers a better grip on the ball.

Last year, FDA advisers unanimously voted that oral phenylephrine is ineffective.

Saddle up, space cowboys. It may get bumpy for a while.

They pose no risk to human health, and they're living their best lives.

"You’ve taken this idea way too far," a mentor told Prof. Fei-Fei Li.

The three 1980s staples are new National Toy Hall of Fame inductees. Hess Toy Trucks, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, the trampoline, and balloons were among the finalists.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) weighed in on reports regarding President-elect Donald Trump's choice for secretary of state.

The post Fetterman Calls Rubio ‘Strong Choice’ as Trump Reportedly Considers Him for Secretary of State appeared first on Breitbart.

A now nine-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a priest last year in Little Grand Rapids First Nation told court on Tuesday she remembers feeling scared as the priest allegedly walked her to his bedroom inside the church that day.

A Kenora, Ont., resident says she wants to see more resources for people who encounter sick or injured animals after seeing a deer in her yard with a tomato cage stuck on its head. Here's how the community has responded to the incident, and what we know about the deer's status.

1. RG Kar rape case: Bengal governor seeks report from CM after Sanjay Roy made big allegation against ex-Kolkata top cop  Hindustan Times
2. RG Kar rape case: Bengal Guv seeks report from Mamata govt after accused Sanjay Roy claims ‘Vineet Goel is threatening…’  Mint
3. Video | RG Kar Case News | Kolkata Horror: Prime Accused Sanjay Roy's 'Shocking Revelation' On Camera  NDTV
4. RG Kar rape-murder victim’s dad deposes on day 1 of trial  The Times of India
5. RG Kar case: CM Mamata asked to submit report on prime accused's claim  CNBCTV18

FPGA-powered hardware will capture CRT glow with "bespoke, purpose-built upscaler"

Now is the time to check out this free total conversion of Fallout 4.

Credit the franchise's popularity, sure—but also its ludicrous file sizes.

The pedigree of the producers and writers involved is cause for concern, though.

The show stars Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Kyle MacLachlan, and Walton Goggins, among others, and quickly gained popularity with a massive 65 million views within 16 days of its Season 1 release in April

The announcement was made in a video unveiled at Disney’s D23 event in Brazil, featuring the returning stars in a reveal

Directed by Sukumar and produced by Mythri Movie Makers, the sequel features Allu Arjun, Rashmika Mandanna, and Fahadh Faasil, and is scheduled for a grand release worldwide on December 5, 2024

The inaugural show of Gallery DTALE ARCHIST, a new art space in the city, will be on till November 15

The launch event will see the YouTubers partnering with Ajey Nagar, known as CarryMinati, for a special fan interaction in Mumbai

Fazal, who has built a steady presence in international cinema, expressed his excitement about joining forces with Waller-Bridge in the film that explores themes of resilience and defiance set against the backdrop of Afghanistan

Directed by Sukumar and produced by Mythri Movie Makers, the sequel features Allu Arjun, Rashmika Mandanna, and Fahadh Faasil, and is scheduled for a grand release worldwide on December 5, 2024

Together, Melinda Watpool and Lucas Bahdi add a heavy dose of Canadian content to the undercard of next Friday's megawatt showdown between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, which could become the most-viewed boxing event in history.

Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Wander Franco was charged with illegally carrying a gun in his vehicle during the altercation in a parking lot that led to his arrest in the Dominican Republic over the weekend, prosecutors said Tuesday.