Aurelia Butler

Although Mars has an extremely thin atmosphere, it still experiences powerful winds that play a major role in shaping the planet’s climate and in distributing its ever-present dust. These winds stir up dust into swirling columns called dust devils—rotating plumes of air and fine particles that sweep across the Martian surface. While the winds themselves are invisible, the dust devils they lift can be seen clearly in spacecraft images. Because they trace the flow of moving air, scientists use them as natural markers to study wind behavior that would otherwise remain unseen.A new study led by Dr. Valentin Bickel from the Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern reveals that both dust devils and the winds driving them are much faster than scientists previously believed. These stronger winds may be responsible for much of the dust lofted into the Martian atmosphere, which has a major impact on the planet’s weather and long-term climate. The research, conducted in collaboration with the University of Bern’s Department of Space Research and Planetology, the Open University in the UK, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), was recently published in Science Advances.
Movement of dust devils studied with the help of deep learning
“Using a state-of-the-art deep learning approach, we were able to identify dust devils in over 50,000 satellite images,” explains first author Valentin Bickel. The team used images from the Bern-based Mars camera CaSSIS (Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System) and the stereo camera HRSC (High Resolution Stereo Camera). CaSSIS is on board the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, while the HRSC camera is on board the ESA orbiter Mars Express. “Our study is therefore based exclusively on data from European Mars exploration,” Bickel continues.
Next, the team studied stereo images of about 300 of these dust devils to determine their movement and speed. Co-author Nicolas Thomas, who led the development of the CaSSIS camera system at the University of Bern and whose work is funded by SERI’s Swiss Space Office through ESA’s PRODEX program, explains: “Stereo images are images of the same spot on the surface of Mars, but taken a few seconds apart. These images can therefore be used to measure the movement of dust devils.”
Bickel emphasizes: “If you put the stereo images together in a sequence, you can observe how dynamically the dust devils move across the surface.” (see the images on the website of the University of Bern)
Winds on Mars stronger than previously assumed
The results show that the dust devils and the winds surrounding them on Mars can reach speeds of up to 44 m/s, i.e. around 160 km/h, across the entire planet, which is much faster than previously assumed (previous measurements on the surface had shown that winds mostly remain below 50 km/h and – in rare cases – can reach a maximum of 100 km/h).

The high wind speed in turn influences the dust cycle on the Red Planet: “These strong, straight-line winds are very likely to bring a considerable amount of dust into the Martian atmosphere – much more than previously assumed,” says Bickel. He continues: “Our data show where and when the winds on Mars seem to be strong enough to lift dust from the surface. This is the first time that such findings are available on a global scale for a period of around two decades.”
Future Mars missions can benefit from the research results
The results obtained are also particularly important for future Mars missions. “A better understanding of the wind conditions on Mars is crucial for the planning and execution of future landed missions,” explains Daniela Tirsch from the Institute of Space Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and co-author of the study. “With the help of the new findings on wind dynamics, we can model the Martian atmosphere and the associated surface processes more precisely,” Tirsch continues. These models are essential to better assess risks for future missions and adapt technical systems accordingly. The new study thus provides important findings for a number of research areas on Mars, such as research into the formation of dunes and slope streaks, as well as the creation of weather and climate models of Mars.
The researchers plan to further intensify the observations of dust devils and supplement the data obtained with targeted and coordinated observations of dust devils using CaSSIS and HRSC. “In the long term, our research should help to make the planning of Mars missions more efficient,” concludes Bickel. More

Skoltech scientists have devised a mathematical model of memory. By analyzing its new model, the team came to surprising conclusions that could prove useful for robot design, artificial intelligence, and for better understanding of human memory. Published in Scientific Reports, the study suggests there may be an optimal number of senses — if so, those of us with five senses could use a couple more!
“Our conclusion is of course highly speculative in application to human senses, although you never know: It could be that humans of the future would evolve a sense of radiation or magnetic field. But in any case, our findings may be of practical importance for robotics and the theory of artificial intelligence,” said study co-author Professor Nikolay Brilliantov of Skoltech AI. “It appears that when each concept retained in memory is characterized in terms of seven features — as opposed to, say, five or eight — the number of distinct objects held in memory is maximized.”
In line with a well-established approach, which originated in the early 20th century, the team models the fundamental building blocks of memory: the memory “engrams.” An engram can be viewed as a sparse ensemble of neurons across multiple regions in the brain that fire together. The conceptual content of an engram is an ideal abstract object characterized with regard to multiple features. In the context of human memory, the features correspond to sensory inputs, so that the notion of a banana would match up with a visual image, a smell, the taste of a banana, and so on. This results in a five-dimensional object that exists and evolves in a five-dimensional space populated by all the other concepts retained in memory.
The evolution of engrams refers to concepts becoming more focused or blurred with time, depending on how often the engrams get activated by a stimulus acting from the outer world via the senses, triggering the memory of the respective object. This models learning and forgetting as a result of interaction with the environment.
“We have mathematically demonstrated that the engrams in the conceptual space tend to evolve toward a steady state, which means that after some transient period, a ‘mature’ distribution of engrams emerges, which then persists in time,” Brilliantov commented. “As we consider the ultimate capacity of a conceptual space of a given number of dimensions, we somewhat surprisingly find that the number of distinct engrams stored in memory in the steady state is the greatest for a concept space of seven dimensions. Hence the seven senses claim.”
In other words, let the objects that exist out there in the world be described by a finite number of features corresponding to the dimensions of some conceptual space. Suppose that we want to maximize the capacity of the conceptual space expressed as the number of distinct concepts associated with these objects. The greater the capacity of the conceptual space, the deeper the overall understanding of the world. It turns out that the maximum is attained when the dimension of the conceptual space is seven. From this the researchers conclude that seven is the optimal number of senses.
According to the researchers, this number does not depend on the details of the model — the properties of the conceptual space and the stimuli providing the sense impressions. The number seven appears to be a robust and persistent feature of memory engrams as such. One caveat is that multiple engrams of differing sizes existing around a common center are deemed to represent similar concepts and are therefore treated as one when calculating memory capacity.
The memory of humans and other living beings is an enigmatic phenomenon tied to the property of consciousness, among other things. Advancing the theoretical models of memory will be instrumental to gaining new insights into the human mind and recreating humanlike memory in AI agents. More

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Humboldt University in Berlin have developed a way to capture nearly all the light emitted from tiny diamond defects known as color centers. By placing nanodiamonds into specially designed hybrid nanoantennas with extreme precision, the team achieved record photon collection at room temperature — a necessary step for quantum technologies such as quantum sensors, and quantum-secured communications. The article was selected as a Featured Article in APL Quantum.
Diamonds have long been prized for their sparkle, but researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in collaboration with colleagues from the Humboldt University in Berlin are showing they achieve an almost optimal “sparkling,” a key requirement for using diamonds also for quantum technology. The team has approached an almost perfect collection of the faintest light signals, single photons, from tiny diamond defects, known as nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers, which are vital for developing next-generation quantum computers, sensors, and communication networks.
NV centers are microscopic imperfections in the diamond structure that can act like quantum “light switches.” They emit single particles of light (photons) that carry quantum information. The problem, until now, has been that much of this light is lost in all directions, making it hard to capture and use.
The Hebrew University team, together with their research partners from Berlin, solved this challenge by embedding nanodiamonds containing NV centers into specially designed hybrid nanoantennas. These antennas, built from layers of metal and dielectric materials in a precise bullseye pattern, guide the light in a well-defined direction instead of letting it scatter. Using ultra-precise positioning, the researchers placed the nanodiamonds exactly at the antenna center — within a few billionths of a meter.
Featured in APL Quantum, the results are significant: the new system can collect up to 80% of the emitted photons at room temperature. This is a dramatic improvement compared to previous attempts, where only a small fraction of the light was usable.
Prof. Rapaport explained, “Our approach brings us much closer to practical quantum devices. By making photon collection more efficient, we’re opening the door to technologies such as secure quantum communication and ultra-sensitive sensors.”
Dr. Lubotzky added, “What excites us is that this works in a simple, chip-based design and at room temperature. That means it can be integrated into real-world systems much more easily than before.”
The research demonstrates not just clever engineering, but also the potential of diamonds beyond jewelry. With quantum technologies racing toward real-world applications, this advance could help pave the way for faster, more reliable quantum networks. More

Quantum metals are metals where quantum effects — behaviors that normally only matter at atomic scales — become powerful enough to control the metal’s macroscopic electrical properties.
Researchers in Japan have explained how electricity behaves in a special group of quantum metals called kagome metals. The study is the first to show how weak magnetic fields reverse tiny loop electrical currents inside these metals. This switching changes the material’s macroscopic electrical properties and reverses which direction has easier electrical flow, a property known as the diode effect, where current flows more easily in one direction than the other.
Notably, the research team found that quantum geometric effects amplify this switching by about 100 times. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides the theoretical foundation that could eventually lead to new electronic devices controlled by simple magnets.
Scientists had observed this strange magnetic switching behavior in experiments since around 2020 but could not explain why it happened and why the effect was so strong. This study provides the first theoretical framework explaining both.
When frustrated electrons cannot settle
The name “kagome metal” comes from the Japanese word “kagome,” meaning “basket eyes” or “basket pattern,” which refers to a traditional bamboo weaving technique that creates interlocking triangular designs.
These metals are special because their atoms are arranged in this unique basket-weave pattern that creates what scientists call “geometric frustration” — electrons cannot settle into simple, organized patterns and are forced into more complex quantum states that include the loop currents.

When the loop currents inside these metals change direction, the electrical behavior of the metal changes. The research team showed that loop currents and wave-like electron patterns (charge density waves) work together to break fundamental symmetries in the electronic structure. They also discovered that quantum geometric effects — unique behaviors that only occur at the smallest scales of matter — significantly enhance the switching effect.
“Every time we saw the magnetic switching, we knew something extraordinary was happening, but we couldn’t explain why,” Hiroshi Kontani, senior author and professor from the Graduate School of Science at Nagoya University, recalled.
“Kagome metals have built-in amplifiers that make the quantum effects much stronger than they would be in ordinary metals. The combination of their crystal structure and electronic behavior allows them to break certain core rules of physics simultaneously, a phenomenon known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. This is extremely rare in nature and explains why the effect is so powerful.”
The research method involved cooling the metals to extremely low temperatures of about -190°C. At this temperature, the kagome metal naturally develops quantum states where electrons form circulating currents and create wave-like patterns throughout the material. When scientists apply weak magnetic fields, they reverse the direction these currents spin, and as a result, the preferred direction of current flow in the metal changes.
New materials meet new theory
This breakthrough in quantum physics was not possible until recently because kagome metals were only discovered around 2020. While scientists quickly observed the mysterious electrical switching effect in experiments, they could not explain how it worked.
The quantum interactions involved are very complex and require advanced understanding of how loop currents, quantum geometry, and magnetic fields work together — knowledge that has only developed in recent years. These effects are also very sensitive to impurities, strain, and external conditions, which makes them difficult to study.
“This discovery happened because three things came together at just the right time: we finally had the new materials, the advanced theories to understand them, and the high-tech equipment to study them properly. None of these existed together until very recently, which is why no one could solve this puzzle before now,” Professor Kontani added.
“The magnetic control of electrical properties in these metals could potentially enable new types of magnetic memory devices or ultra-sensitive sensors. Our study provides the fundamental understanding needed to begin developing the next generation of quantum-controlled technology,” he said. More

Can you prove whether a large quantum system truly behaves according to the weird and wonderful rules of quantum mechanics — or if it just looks like it does? In a groundbreaking study, physicists from Leiden, Beijing en Hangzhou found the answer to this question.
You could call it a ‘quantum lie detector’: Bell’s test designed by famous physicist John Bell. This test shows whether a machine, like a quantum computer, is truly using quantum effects or just mimics them.
As quantum technologies become more mature, ever more stringent tests of quantumness become necessary. In this new study, the researchers took things to the next level, testing Bell correlations in systems with up to 73 qubits — the basic building blocks of a quantum computer.
The study involved a global team: theoretical physicists Jordi Tura, Patrick Emonts, PhD candidate Mengyao Hu from Leiden University, together with colleagues from Tsinghua University (Beijing) and experimental physicists from Zhejiang University (Hangzhou).The world of quantum physics
Quantum mechanics is the science that explains how the tiniest particles in the universe — like atoms and electrons — behave. It’s a world full of strange and counterintuitive ideas.
One of those is quantum nonlocality, where particles appear to instantly affect each other, even when far apart. Although it sounds strange, it’s a real effect, and it won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022. This research is focused on proving the occurrence of nonlocal correlation, also known as Bell correlations.

Clever experimenting
It was an extremely ambitious plan, but the team’s well-optimized strategy made all the difference. Instead of trying to directly measure the complex Bell correlations, they focused on something quantum devices are already good at: minimizing energy.
And it paid off. The team created a special quantum state using 73 qubits in a superconducting quantum processor and measured energies far below what would be possible in a classical system. The difference was striking — 48 standard deviations — making it almost impossible that the result was due to chance.
But the team didn’t stop there. They went on to certify a rare and more demanding type of nonlocality – known as genuine multipartite Bell correlations. In this kind of quantum correlation, all qubits in the system must be involved, making it much harder to generate — and even harder to verify. Remarkably, the researchers succeeded in preparing a whole series of low-energy states that passed this test up to 24 qubits, confirming these special correlations efficiently.
This result shows that quantum computers are not just getting bigger — they are also becoming better at displaying and proving truly quantum behaviour.
Why this matters
This study proves that it’s possible to certify deep quantum behaviour in large, complex systems — something never done at this scale before. It’s a big step toward making sure quantum computers are truly quantum.
These insights are more than just theoretical. Understanding and controlling Bell correlations could improve quantum communication, make cryptography more secure, and help develop new quantum algorithms. More

A few years ago, researchers in Michal Lipson’s lab noticed something remarkable.
They were working on a project to improve LiDAR, a technology that uses lightwaves to measure distance. The lab was designing high-power chips that could produce brighter beams of light.
“As we sent more and more power through the chip, we noticed that it was creating what we call a frequency comb,” says Andres Gil-Molina, a former postdoctoral researcher in Lipson’s lab.
A frequency comb is a special type of light that contains many colors lined up next to each other in an orderly pattern, kind of like a rainbow. Dozens of colors — or frequencies of light — shine brightly, while the gaps between them remain dark. When you look at a frequency comb on a spectrogram, these bright frequencies appear as spikes, or teeth on a comb. This offers the tremendous opportunity of sending dozens of streams of data simultaneously. Because the different colors of light don’t interfere with each other, each tooth acts as its own channel.
Today, creating a powerful frequency comb requires large and expensive lasers and amplifiers. In their new paper in Nature Photonics, Lipson, Eugene Higgins Professor of Electrical Engineering and professor of Applied Physics, and her collaborators show how to do the same thing on a single chip.
“Data centers have created tremendous demand for powerful and efficient sources of light that contain many wavelengths,” says Gil-Molina, who is now a principal engineer at Xscape Photonics. “The technology we’ve developed takes a very powerful laser and turns it into dozens of clean, high-power channels on a chip. That means you can replace racks of individual lasers with one compact device, cutting cost, saving space, and opening the door to much faster, more energy-efficient systems.”
“This research marks another milestone in our mission to advance silicon photonics,” Lipson said. “As this technology becomes increasingly central to critical infrastructure and our daily lives, this type of progress is essential to ensuring that data centers are as efficient as possible.”
Cleaning up messy light

The breakthrough started with a simple question: What’s the most powerful laser we can put on a chip?
The team chose a type called a multimode laser diode, which is used widely in applications like medical devices and laser cutting tools. These lasers can produce enormous amounts of light, but the beam is “messy,” which makes it hard to use for precise applications.
Integrating such a laser into a silicon photonics chip, where the light pathways are just a few microns — even hundreds of nanometers — wide, required careful engineering.
“We used something called a locking mechanism to purify this powerful but very noisy source of light,” Gil-Molina says. The method relies on silicon photonics to reshape and clean up the laser’s output, producing a much cleaner, more stable beam, a property scientists call high coherence.
Once the light is purified, the chip’s nonlinear optical properties take over, splitting that single powerful beam into dozens of evenly spaced colors, a defining feature of a frequency comb. The result is a compact, high-efficiency light source that combines the raw power of an industrial laser with the precision and stability needed for advanced communications and sensing.
Why it matters now
The timing for this breakthrough is no accident. With the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, the infrastructure inside data centers is straining to move information fast enough, for example, between processors and memory. State-of-the-art data centers are already using fiber optic links to transport data, but most of these still rely on single-wavelength lasers.

Frequency combs change that. Instead of one beam carrying one data stream, dozens of beams can run in parallel through the same fiber. That’s the principle behind wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), the technology that turned the internet into a global high-speed network in the late 1990s.
By making high-power, multi-wavelength combs small enough to fit directly on a chip, Lipson’s team has made it possible to bring this capability into the most compact, cost-sensitive parts of modern computing systems. Beyond data centers, the same chips could enable portable spectrometers, ultra-precise optical clocks, compact quantum devices, and even advanced LiDAR systems.
“This is about bringing lab-grade light sources into real-world devices,” says Gil-Molina. “If you can make them powerful, efficient, and small enough, you can put them almost anywhere.” More