Category: 7. Science

A groundbreaking quantum study from Stevens Institute of Technology has created a formula that precisely quantifies the “wave-ness” and “particle-ness” of quantum objects, enabling innovative quantum imaging with undetected photons

For a century, quantum mechanics has unveiled a universe stranger than fiction, where particles can simultaneously behave as waves and alter their state simply by being observed. Now, a groundbreaking study from Stevens Institute of Technology has not only deepened our understanding of this fundamental concept – wave-particle duality – but has also leveraged it to power a novel imaging technique.

This peer-reviewed research, published in Physical Review Research, introduces a precise mathematical framework that quantifies the intricate relationship between a quantum object’s “wave-ness” and “particle-ness,” opening new avenues for quantum information and computing.

Quantifying the elusive dance of wave and particle

The concept of wave-particle duality is a cornerstone of quantum mechanics, describing how subatomic entities exhibit characteristics of both waves (like interference patterns) and particles (like a defined position or path). For decades, researchers have strived to quantify these dual behaviours.

Previous models expressed this relationship as an inequality, suggesting that the sum of an object’s wave-like and particle-like behaviours was less than or equal to one. While insightful, this formulation had a critical flaw: it could permit scenarios where both wave-like and particle-like behaviours simultaneously increased, contradicting their inherently exclusive nature.

Dr. Xiaofeng Qian, Assistant Professor of Physics at Stevens and lead author of the paper, explains, “Researchers have been working to quantify wave-particle duality for half a century, but this is the first complete framework to fully quantify wave-like and particle-like behaviors with optimum quantitative measures that are relevant at the quantum level.”

The Stevens team’s breakthrough lies in introducing a crucial new variable: the coherence of the quantum object. “Coherence is a tricky concept, but it’s essentially a hidden description of the potential for wave-like interference,” Qian clarifies. By incorporating and compensating for coherence alongside conventional measures of wave-ness and particle-ness, the researchers discovered a precise, closed mathematical relationship. “When we quantify and compensate for coherence… we find they add up to exactly one,” states Qian.

This elegant formula allows for the calculation of both wave-ness and particle-ness with unprecedented precision, moving beyond mere inequalities to exact values. Graphically, this relationship can be beautifully depicted as a perfect quarter-circle for a perfectly coherent system, transforming into a flatter ellipse as coherence diminishes.

From theory to application: Powering quantum imaging

Beyond its profound implications for foundational physics, this new understanding of wave-particle duality has significant practical applications, particularly in quantum information and quantum computing. To demonstrate this, Qian’s team applied their theory to a technique known as quantum imaging with undetected photons (QIUP).

In QIUP, an object is scanned using one photon from an entangled pair. If this “scanning” photon passes unimpeded through an aperture, its coherence remains high. However, if it collides with the aperture’s walls, its coherence sharply decreases. By then measuring the wave-ness and particle-ness of its entangled partner-photon, Qian’s team could deduce the coherence of the scanning photon and, in turn, map the shape of the aperture. “This shows that the wave-ness and particle-ness of a quantum object can be used as a resource in quantum imaging, and potentially many other quantum information or computational tasks,” Qian affirms.

Remarkably, the team found that imaging remained possible even when external factors like temperature or vibrations degraded the overall coherence within the quantum system. Since such factors equally affect both high and low coherence situations, the crucial difference in coherence between the two scenarios remains detectable. “The ellipse gets squeezed, but we’re still able to extract the information of the object we need,” Qian explains, highlighting the robustness of their approach.

While this study represents a significant leap forward, further research is needed, particularly to explore how wave-particle duality manifests in more complex multipath quantum scenarios. As Qian concludes, “The mathematics make it look simple, but we’re a long way from exhausting the weirdness of quantum mechanics. There are still plenty of frontiers left for us to explore.”

This pioneering work by the Stevens team not only enriches our fundamental understanding of the quantum world but also lays the groundwork for transformative advancements in quantum technologies.

11 July, 2025 News stories

A team of scientists, including those from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), have uncovered the hidden remains of a vast ancient coastal plain  beneath East Antarctica—an important discovery that could refine forecasts of future global sea level rise.

The international study, led by Durham University and published in the journal Nature Geoscience, used radar data to reveal previously unmapped, remarkably flat surfaces buried beneath a 3,500km stretch of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, between Princess Elizabeth Land and George V Land.

These surfaces, some of which are believed to have formed over 80 million years ago when East Antarctica and Australia were still joined, are thought to have been smoothed by large rivers before the continent was engulfed by ice around 34 million years ago. Remarkably, these landscapes have remained largely intact, preserved beneath the ice sheet for over 30 million years.

Dr Guy Paxman, lead author and Royal Society University Research Fellow at Durham University, explains:

“The landscape hidden beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the most mysterious not just on Earth, but on any terrestrial planet in the solar system.

“These flat surfaces we’ve found are likely the remnants of ancient river beds that have survived beneath the ice. Their shape and position now appear to slow down the movement of ice above them, acting almost like a brake on fast-flowing glaciers.”

While ice loss from Antarctica is accelerating due to climate change, these ancient fluvial surfaces may be playing a stabilising role – regulating how quickly ice can flow to the ocean through narrow troughs that separate the plateaus.

Co-author Professor Stewart Jamieson, also from Durham, said that factoring these hidden landscapes into computer models could significantly enhance projections of how Antarctica will respond to warming temperatures.

BAS played a key role in collecting and interpreting radar data that helped map the subglacial topography.

Dr Tom Jordan, a BAS geophysicist and co-author, explains:

“These findings show just how much of Antarctica’s past remains locked beneath the ice. Understanding the ancient landscapes that influence present-day ice flow is crucial if we’re to predict how this huge ice sheet will behave in the future.”

The discovery could help scientists improve long-term predictions of sea level rise. If East Antarctica’s ice were to melt completely, it holds enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by up to 52 metres. The researchers stress that further exploration is needed to determine how these flat surfaces influenced ice movement in past warm periods. Drilling to obtain rock samples from beneath the ice could confirm when these regions were last ice-free—vital data for improving climate models.

The study was supported by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Leverhulme Trust, the European Research Council, and international partners including the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and the Polar Research Institute of China.

Extensive fluvial surfaces at the East Antarctic margin have modulated ice-sheet evolution, by Paxman, G.J.G, et al, is published in Nature Geoscience, DOI 10.1038/s41561-025-01734-z.

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In a world-first pilot study, researchers from the University of South Australia (UniSA) have used video footage of insects to extract their heart rates without touching or disturbing them.

The innovation, published in the Archives of Insect Biochemistry and Physiology, could transform how scientists monitor the health and stress levels of arthropods, that account for more than 80% of animal species.

Taking footage from smartphones, social media videos and digital cameras, the researchers used sophisticated signal processing methods to monitor the heart activity of ants, bees, caterpillars, spiders, grasshoppers and stick insects.

Unlike mammals, arthropods have an open circulatory system in which blood fills the body cavity, bathing the internal organs and tissues. Their heart is located on the top (dorsal) side of their body in the abdomen.

Led by UniSA PhD candidate Danyi Wang and her supervisor Professor Javaan Chahl, the study demonstrates that subtle body movements captured on standard digital or smartphone cameras can be analyzed to reveal accurate and detailed cardiac activity in a range of insect species.

Unlike traditional methods that require physical contact or immobilization, this technique allows insects to remain free, without disrupting their natural behavior.

“Insects are vital to our ecosystems, and understanding their physiological responses to environmental change is essential,” Wang says.

“Existing methods to measure insect’ vital signs are invasive, however. Our method preserves their natural behavior while providing accurate insights into their heart activity.”

The extracted heart rates closely matched the physiological ranges recorded via traditional techniques, validating the system’s accuracy.

Senior author Prof Javaan Chahl says the system successfully captured heart rates across multiple insect species, detecting physiological differences influenced by factors such as wing morphology and temperature.

“What’s exciting is that this was all achieved without attaching sensors or disturbing the insects in any way.”

One of the most impressive validations came from caterpillar recordings, where the team compared their video-derived cardiac signals to data from infrared contact sensors in previous studies. The shapes and frequencies were almost identical.

The study also revealed interesting inter-species variations. For example, spider heart rates varied significantly, reflecting differences between species rather than activity levels, since all subjects were at rest during filming.

Advanced image processing techniques, including motion tracking algorithms and magnification, were applied to detect tiny movements associated with heartbeats. These signals were analyzed using spectral filtering and transformed into frequency data to isolate the heart rate.

According to Prof Chahl, the study marks an important step forward in insect research.

“Non-invasive cardiac monitoring offers tremendous potential; not just for studying insect health, but also for understanding environmental stressors, pesticide effects, or even the wellbeing of social insects like ants and bees, where heart signals can provide insights into colony health and behavior.”

His team has previously used a similar technique with digital cameras to remotely extract cardiac signals in humans and wildlife.

The researchers hope to test the system in the field and refine it by using machine learning to improve the accuracy across different body types and light conditions.

“With more refinement, this could become a cost effective and valuable tool in the ecological research toolkit,” says Wang. “It gives us the ability to listen to the hearts of the smallest creatures without harming them.”

Reference: Wang D, Chahl J. Extracting cardiac activity for arthropods using digital cameras: Insights from a pilot study. Insect Biochem Physio. 2025. Doi: 10.1002/arch.70076

 

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The recently discovered interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS may be one of the oldest comets ever seen by humanity.

The object was already exciting to astronomers as only the third space object seen entering the solar system from beyond its limits, the other two being 1I/’Oumuamua seen in 2017 and 2I/Borisov detected in 2019.

A mystery interstellar object spotted last week by astronomers could be the oldest comet ever seen, according to scientists.

Named 3I/Atlas, it may be three billion years older than our own solar system, suggests the team from Oxford university.

It is only the third time we have detected an object that has come from beyond our solar system.

The preliminary findings were presented on Friday at the national meeting of the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society in Durham.

“We’re all very excited by 3I/Atlas,” University of Oxford astronomer Matthew Hopkins told BBC News. He had just finished his PhD studies when the object was discovered.

He says it could be more than seven billion years old, and it may be the most remarkable interstellar visitor yet.

3I/Atlas was first spotted on 1 July 2025 by the ATLAS survey telescope in Chile, when it was about 670 million km from the Sun.

Since then astronomers around the world have been racing to identify its path and discover more details about it.

Mr Hopkins believes it originated in the Milky Way’s ‘thick disk’. This is a group of ancient stars that orbit above and below the area where the Sun and most stars are located.

The team believe that because 3I/ATLAS probably formed around an old star, it is made up of a lot of water ice.

That means that as it approaches the Sun later this year, the energy from the Sun will heat the object’s surface, leading to blazes of vapour and dust.

That could create a glowing tail.

The researchers made their findings using a model developed by Mr Hopkins.

“This is an object from a part of the galaxy we’ve never seen up close before,” said Professor Chris Lintott, co-author of the study.

“We think there’s a two-thirds chance this comet is older than the solar system, and that it’s been drifting through interstellar space ever since.”

Later this year, 3I/ATLAS should be visible from Earth using amateur telescopes.

Before 3I/Atlas soared into view, just two others had been seen. One was called 1I/’Oumuamua, found in 2017 and another called 2I/Borisov, discovered in 2019.

Astronomers globally are currently gearing up to start using a new, very powerful telescope in Chile, called the Vera C Rubin.

When it starts fully surveying the southern night sky later this year, scientists expect that it could discover between 5 and 50 new interstellar objects.

In 2022, NASA rammed a spacecraft into an asteroid to see if it could alter its orbital period around its parent asteroid. The mission, dubbed the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), aimed to determine whether humanity could theoretically save itself from a catastrophic asteroid impact.

DART collided with Dimorphos, a small moonlet orbiting a larger asteroid called Didymos, on September 26, 2022. The results of the impact blew NASA’s expectations out of the water, shortening Dimorphos’s orbital period by 32 minutes. Such a change would be more than enough to deflect a dangerous asteroid away from Earth, indicating that this strategy—the kinetic impactor technique—could save us if necessary. New research, however, complicates this success story. An investigation into the debris DART left behind suggests this technique, when applied to planetary defense, isn’t as straightforward as scientists initially thought.

“We succeeded in deflecting an asteroid, moving it from its orbit,” said study lead author Tony Farnham, a research astronomer at the University of Maryland, in a statement. “Our research shows that while the direct impact of the DART spacecraft caused this change, the boulders ejected gave an additional kick that was almost as big. That additional factor changes the physics we need to consider when planning these types of missions.” Farnham and his colleagues published their findings in The Planetary Science Journal on July 4.

Dimorphos is a “rubble pile” asteroid, a loose conglomeration of material such as rocks, pebbles, and boulders held together by gravity. This study only applies to this type of asteroid. Had DART collided with a more coherent, solid body, the impact wouldn’t have produced these bizarre effects. Still, there are plenty of other rubble pile asteroids in the galaxy, so understanding how they respond to the kinetic impactor technique is important.

The researchers analyzed images taken by LICIACube, an Italian Space Agency satellite that was mounted on the DART spacecraft. About two weeks before the impact, LICIACube separated and began following about three minutes behind the spacecraft, allowing the satellite to beam images of the collision and its effects back to Earth. In addition to observing the crater DART punched into the surface of Dimorphos, LICIACube captured the ejecta plume, or the cloud of debris ejected from the asteroid when DART hit it.

These images allowed Farnham and his colleagues to track 104 boulders ranging from 1.3 to 23.6 feet (0.4 to 7.2 meters) wide. The rocks shot away from the asteroid at speeds up to 116 miles per hour (187 kilometers per hour). Strangely, the distribution of this ejected debris was not random, defying the researchers’ expectations.

“We saw that the boulders weren’t scattered randomly in space,” Farnham said. “Instead, they were clustered in two pretty distinct groups, with an absence of material elsewhere, which means that something unknown is at work here.”

The larger of the two clusters, which contained 70% of the debris, shot southward away from the asteroid at high speeds and shallow angles. The researchers believe these objects came from a specific source on Dimorphos—perhaps two large boulders called Atabaque and Bodhran that shattered when DART’s solar panels slammed into them moments before the main body of the spacecraft hit.

When the team compared this outcome to that of NASA’s Deep Impact (EPOXI) mission, which punched a probe into a comet to study its interior structure, the distribution of the debris made more sense. Whereas Deep Impact hit a surface made up of very small, uniform particles, DART hit a rocky surface packed with large boulders. This “resulted in chaotic and filamentary structures in its ejecta patterns,” coauthor Jessica Sunshine, a professor of astronomy and geology at the University of Maryland who served as principal investigator for Deep Impact, explained in the statement.

“Comparing these two missions side-by-side gives us this insight into how different types of celestial bodies respond to impacts, which is crucial to ensuring that a planetary defense mission is successful,” she said.

The 104 ejected boulders carried a total kinetic energy equal to 1.4% of the energy of the DART spacecraft, and 96% of that energy was directed to the south, representing “significant momentum contributions that were not accounted for in the orbital period measurements,” the researchers state in their report. The force of debris exploding away from Dimorphos upon DART’s impact could have tilted the asteroid’s orbital plane by up to one degree, potentially causing it to tumble erratically in space.

“Thus, a full accounting of the momentum in all directions and understanding the role played by surface boulders will provide better knowledge of how the specifics of the impact could alter—either reducing or enhancing—the effects of a kinetic impactor,” the researchers write.

Astronomers have catalogued roughly 2,500 potentially hazardous asteroids in our corner of the galaxy. These are space rocks that can come alarmingly close to Earth and are large enough to cause significant damage upon impact. While there is currently no known risk of one of these asteroids hitting our planet within the next century, developing strategies to prevent such a catastrophe could someday prove lifesaving. The success of the DART mission suggests that NASA is on the right track, but this new study shows we still have much to learn about the effects of the kinetic impactor technique.

A series of compounds featuring fused six-membered silicon rings represents a step up in complexity for the class of structures known as ‘ladder molecules’. The team that created them states that the molecules ‘rank among the most complex organosilanes yet synthesised’ due to their multiple rings and stereogenic centres.

Ladder molecules are so-called because they feature parallel chains of atoms, linked by a series of bonds resembling steps. They generally comprise of two or more consecutively fused rings of atoms. Organic examples include ladderanes, which feature in natural products such as lipids. However, silicon-based equivalents are rarer, with the first examples emerging in the late 1980s. Previous examples included polysilanes made by fusing four-membered silicon rings together.

Now, researchers in the US have synthesised a series of compounds that fuse six- membered silicon rings. These were made by reacting a silicon dianion with a tetrasubstituted cyclohexasilane ring. The team, led by organic chemist Rebekka Klausen from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, could obtain products with different stereochemical configurations by varying the reaction time.

Ladder molecules in which the silicon rings were fused in a trans-configuration were shown to absorb light at longer wavelengths than those in which the rings were mainly fused in a cis-configuration. The researchers attribute this effect to enhanced electron delocalisation through the extended silicon network.

By providing insight into how thermodynamics influence the formation of different ladder molecules, Klausen’s team notes that the research will inform future stereoselective syntheses of silicon-based chromophores.

A researcher who lost an arm when her laboratory experiment exploded in March 2016, has reached a settlement of £5 million with the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, more than eight years after filing the lawsuit.

Thea Ekins-Coward, who was 29 years old at the time, was a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and was carrying out a common procedure, which involved transferring hydrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide gases into a small, low-pressure cylinder to make a growth medium for cells, when the incident occurred.

The blast resulted in the amputation of Ekins-Coward’s right arm, as well as corneal abrasions, burns to her face and a loss of high-frequency hearing. She has subsequently struggled with phantom pain, chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Various investigations revealed equipment design and safety failures, as well as serious lab safety deficiencies at the university. In September 2016, the Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health (Hiosh) agency found that the university failed to provide a safe workplace for employees, citing 15 separate safety failures that contributed to the accident. Although, under an agreement reached the following month between the university and Hiosh, the penalties were dropped from 15 to nine.

In 2017, Ekins-Coward filed a lawsuit against the university, her supervisor Jian Yu and Richard Rocheleau, director of the institute, arguing that she was provided with materials and equipment that were inappropriate and unsafe for the research she’d be asked to carry out and was not designed for flammable gases or grounded to prevent static discharges. Such a discharge was the likely cause of the explosion, according to analysis by the Honolulu Fire Department.

She also alleged that she had requested safety training on compressed gases and on the specific hazards of these gases, but that her supervisor did not provide it.

Following the incident, the university denied liability, saying Ekins-Coward was an employee covered by limited workers’ compensation. In the US, workers’ compensation statutes generally establish a no-fault system where employers are responsible for the costs associated with work-related injuries and illnesses, regardless of fault.

According to a recent statement from her US counsel, Danko Meredith, the university then went on to blame Ekins-Coward for using inappropriate and unsafe equipment. ‘But we showed that the university approved the equipment, and that the university should have better trained our client on safety measures that should be taken when working with explosive gases,’ the statement went on.

‘The settlement we achieved was calculated to take care of our client’s needs going forward. And as a result of the investigation, universities across the country changed their laboratory safety practices so that other researchers would not suffer similar injuries.’

Ekins-Coward was also advised by Scott Rigby, an international injury partner from the UK law firm, Stewarts. In a statement released by Stewarts, the firm said that, ‘after a lengthy battle, we obtained a ruling that Dr Ekins-Coward was not the university’s employee’. They went on to explain that although the university had paid her a stipend and provided her with certain benefits she was required to sign documents confirming she was not an employee.

‘It has taken such a long time to conclude Thea’s claim, but the battle was certainly worth it,’ said Rigby, from Stewarts. ‘I am delighted for her and her family, who can hopefully now move on and rebuild their lives from the devastating consequences of the accident.’

Ekins-Coward said the past nine years had been ‘gruelling’ but that she was ‘extremely grateful’ for the support of Rigby. ‘He provided a harbour in the midst of the storm,’ she said. ‘We are of course also grateful to Mike Danko from Danko Meredith. This was an extremely complex international case that would not have been possible without the collaboration between Stewarts and Danko Meredith. After nearly a decade I look forward to moving forward and focusing on my family.’