/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A major breakthrough in quantum technology was achieved in October 2024: the first-ever quantum satellite communication link between China and South Africa. The connection spanned a remarkable 12,900 km: the longest intercontinental quantum communication link established to date. The longest before this was 7,600 km and within the northern hemisphere only. /news/2025-08-south-africa-china-quantum-communication.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 11 Aug 2025 14:05:51 EDT news674139948 By adding a sound-mediated way to control light to the toolkit of light-based chips, University of Twente researchers have pushed the boundaries of the technology. This opens up the possibility of making atomic clocks small enough to fit in satellites and drones, helping them navigate without GPS. /news/2025-05-paves-gps-free.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 01 May 2025 11:20:01 EDT news665315726 Researchers from the UAB demonstrate that the way sardines eat, altered due to the reduction in size of plankton, undermines the efficiency of their feeding and increases the likelihood of consuming more plastic fibers. Although no direct negative effects of this ingestion were identified, environmental changes may have a greater impact than previously thought on how pelagic fish interact with plastic pollutants. /news/2025-03-poor-habits-due-climate-sardines.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 18 Mar 2025 13:05:04 EDT news661521901 Optical fibers are fundamental components in modern science and technology due to their inherent advantages, providing an efficient and secure medium for applications such as internet communication and big data transmission. Compared with single-mode fibers (SMFs), multimode fibers (MMFs) can support a much larger number of guided modes (~103 to ~104), offering the attractive advantage of high-capacity information and image transportation within the diameter of a hair. This capability has positioned MMFs as a critical tool in fields such as quantum information and micro-endoscopy. /news/2025-02-fiber-image-transmission-technology-minimally.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 07 Feb 2025 11:44:04 EST news658151041 The rapid development of technologies such as the internet, mobile communications, and artificial intelligence has dramatically increased the demand for high-capacity communication systems. Among various solutions, mode-division multiplexing (MDM) has emerged as a crucial technique, utilizing spatial modes like orbital angular momentum (OAM) to enhance communication capacity. /news/2024-08-advanced-orbital-angular-momentum-mode.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 21 Aug 2024 17:06:03 EDT news643478762 Optical fiber, as the basic carrier of modern high-speed and high-capacity communication, is the key to the interconnection of the world. With the rapid development of the communications industry in recent decades, ordinary single-mode optical fiber can no longer meet the special needs of various industrial applications, so a series of optical fibers with complex internal structures, such as polarization-maintaining fibers, multi-core fibers and photonic crystal fibers, and other specialty optical fibers came into being in the civil and military fields are indispensable. /news/2024-01-bessel-based-side-view-core.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 29 Jan 2024 16:15:03 EST news625767301 Moisture levels in the soil can impact the effects that microplastic pollution has on soil fungi, according to new research published in Environmental Microbiology. /news/2024-01-microplastics-affect-soil-fungi-drought.html Ecology Cell & Microbiology Wed, 10 Jan 2024 14:29:02 EST news624119341 The more than 1.2 million km of fiber-optic cables that crisscross the planet carry the world's phone calls, internet signals and data. But this summer, researchers published the eerie sounds of blue and fin whales detected by a fiber-optic cable on the west coast of Svalbard—a first. /news/2023-01-fiber-optic-cable-networks-low-cost-real-time.html Earth Sciences Environment Thu, 12 Jan 2023 15:30:05 EST news592759801 As nations meet in Uruguay to negotiate a new Global Plastics Treaty, marine and forensic scientists publish new results this week that reveal the discovery of synthetic plastic fibers in air, seawater, sediment and sea ice sampled in the Antarctic Weddell Sea. The field research was undertaken during an expedition to discover Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance. The results are published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. /news/2022-11-synthetic-fibers-antarctic-air-seawater.html Earth Sciences Environment Wed, 23 Nov 2022 16:14:03 EST news588442441 Multimode optical fibers (MMFs) are hair-thin strands of glass that are ubiquitous in light-guiding applications. Their development has gone hand-in-hand with the huge growth in rapid transmission of information across the world. /news/2022-11-optical-inversion-strategy-unscrambling-propagation.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 18 Nov 2022 13:26:03 EST news588000361 The world has experienced massive disruption to supply chains in recent years as a result of the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine. This has restricted the availability of a wide array of goods, including essential items such as food, medicines and fuels. /news/2022-10-reviving-uk-textile-industry-fast.html Environment Fri, 21 Oct 2022 11:13:02 EDT news585569574 Three scientists jointly won this year's Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for proving that tiny particles could retain a connection with each other even when separated, a phenomenon once doubted but now being explored for potential real-world applications such as encrypting information. /news/2022-10-scientists-nobel-prize-physics-quantum.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 04 Oct 2022 05:56:48 EDT news584081796 Integrating plasmonic metasurfaces on optical fiber tips forming so-called metafibers enriches the functionalities of an ordinary optical fiber, yielding a variety of advanced applications such as planar waveshaping, super-resolution imaging, and ultracompact sensing. However, to date, plasmonic metafibers have predominantly explored separate bare fibers, and little attention has been paid to their practical applications in nonlinear plasmonic regimes. /news/2022-09-plug-and-play-plasmonic-metafibers-ultrafast-fiber.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 02 Sep 2022 11:33:03 EDT news581337182 Space-division multiplexing (SDM) technology has a promising role in overcoming the so-called "capacity crunch" of existing single mode fiber (SMF). Now, researchers in China experimentally demonstrated an orbital-angular-momentum (OAM) mode based SDM transmission system with a total capacity over 1-Pb/s. The result has significant potential for further up-scaling communication capacity by exploiting the OAM modes in optical fibers while keeping multi-input multi-output (MIMO) processing to an ultra-low level of complexity. /news/2022-08-pbps-orbital-angular-momentum-fiber-optic.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 26 Aug 2022 11:06:04 EDT news580730761 New research highlights the increasing threat of microplastics to global farming and food production. /news/2022-08-plastic-pollution-inland.html Environment Wed, 17 Aug 2022 13:34:04 EDT news579962042 Quantum computing technology could have notable advantages over classical computing technology, including a faster speed and the ability to tackle more complex problems. In recent years, some researchers have also been exploring the possible establishment of a "quantum internet," a network that would allow quantum devices to exchange information, just like classical computing devices exchange information today. /news/2022-08-entanglement-quantum-memory-km.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 16 Aug 2022 07:00:01 EDT news579776349 A network in which data transmission is perfectly secure against hacking? If physicists have their way, this will become reality one day with the help of the quantum mechanical phenomenon known as entanglement. For entangled particles, the rule is: If you measure the state of one of the particles, then you automatically know the state of the other. It makes no difference how far away the entangled particles are from each other. This is an ideal state of affairs for transmitting information over long distances in a way that renders eavesdropping impossible. /news/2022-07-entanglement-quantum-memories.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 07 Jul 2022 10:10:01 EDT news576407005 If things don't change fast, the fashion industry could use a quarter of the world's remaining global carbon budget to keep warming under 2℃ by 2050, and use 35% more land to produce fibres by 2030. /news/2022-04-consumers-by75-wardrobes-sustainable.html Environment Wed, 13 Apr 2022 10:20:01 EDT news569060767 A remote oasis in Tunisia's desert was exhausted by decades of wasteful water use for agriculture—but now pioneers around an eco-lodge are reviving the spot with innovative projects. /news/2022-03-tunisian-eco-pioneers-sahara-oasis-life.html Environment Sun, 20 Mar 2022 12:14:39 EDT news566997276 By using quantum key distribution (QKD), quantum cryptographers can share information via theoretic secure keys between remote peers through physics-based protocols. The laws of quantum physics dictate that photons carrying signals cannot be amplified or relayed through classical optical methods to maintain quantum security. The resulting transmission loss of the channel can limit its achievable distance to form a huge barrier to build large-scale quantum secure networks. In a new report now published in Nature Photonics, Shuang Wang and a research team in quantum information, cryptology and quantum physics in China developed an experimental QKD system to tolerate a channel loss beyond 140 dB across a secure distance of 833.8 km to set a new record for fiber-based quantum key distribution. Using the optimized four-phase twin-field protocol and high quality setup, they achieved secure key rates that were more than two orders of magnitude greater than previous records across similar distances. The results form a breakthrough to build reliable and terrestrial quantum networks across a scale of 1000 km. /news/2022-01-twin-field-quantum-key-qkd-km.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 24 Jan 2022 10:40:01 EST news562240601 Scientists from DTU have shown that a Fano laser, a new type of microscopic laser, has fundamental advantages compared to other types of lasers. The discovery can be important for many future applications, such as integrated photonics, interfacing of electronics and photonics, and optical sensors. /news/2021-08-physics-highest-coherence-microscopic-lasers.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 27 Aug 2021 11:53:45 EDT news549284019 Many kids dream of growing up to be astronauts; but the downside of spending extended amounts of time in low gravity is that astronauts' muscles tend to shrink and weaken through disuse. Now, researchers from Japan have identified a protein that affects how muscles respond to space flight. /news/2021-07-antioxidative-stress-muscle-tissue-space.html Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 08 Jul 2021 13:25:11 EDT news544969496 A team of physicists, led by Dr. David Phillips from the University of Exeter, have pioneered a new way in which to control light that has been scrambled by passage through a single hair-thin strand of optical fiber. These ultra-thin fibers hold much promise for the next generation of medical endoscopes—enabling high-resolution imaging deep inside the body at the tip of a needle. /news/2021-06-imaging-needle.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Optics & Photonics Fri, 18 Jun 2021 10:11:31 EDT news543229888 The Cambridge Research Laboratory of Toshiba Europe today announced the first demonstration of quantum communication over optical fibers exceeding 600 km in length. The breakthrough will enable long-distance, quantum-secured information transfer between metropolitan areas, and is a major advance towards building the future quantum internet. /news/2021-06-quantum-optical-fibers-exceeding-km.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 08 Jun 2021 10:15:04 EDT news542366099 An international group of researchers has developed a new technique that could be used to make more efficient low-cost light-emitting materials which are flexible and can be printed using ink-jet techniques. /news/2021-06-atom-swapping-ultra-bright-flexible.html Nanomaterials Mon, 07 Jun 2021 16:35:12 EDT news542302506 The world is one step closer to ultimately secure conference calls, thanks to a collaboration between Quantum Communications Hub researchers and their German colleagues, enabling a quantum-secure conversation to take place between four parties simultaneously. /news/2021-06-quantum-key-conference.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 04 Jun 2021 14:00:02 EDT news542020340 Bone tools found in a well-known Kimberley cave site are more than 35,000 years old and among the oldest discovered in Australia, according to new research. /news/2021-04-bone-tools-kimberley-region-oldest.html Archaeology Wed, 07 Apr 2021 07:45:05 EDT news537000302 Bloch oscillations (BOs) were initially predicted for electrons in a solid lattice as a static electric field is applied. Scientists in China created a synthetic frequency lattice in a fiber loop under detuned phase modulation and directly observed the frequency BOs in real time. The frequency spectrum in telecommunication band can be shifted as large as hundreds of GHz. The study may find applications in frequency manipulations in optical fiber communication systems. /news/2021-03-real-time-frequency-bloch-oscillations-fibre.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 11 Mar 2021 12:33:53 EST news534688430 The Ganges River—with the combined flows of the Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers—could be responsible for up to 3 billion microplastic particles entering the Bay of Bengal every day, according to new research. /news/2021-01-combined-river-billion-microplastics-day.html Environment Fri, 22 Jan 2021 04:19:45 EST news530511540 Households in Europe and North America are flooding the oceans with plastic pollution simply by washing their clothes, scientists said Tuesday after research found the majority of microplastics in Arctic seawater were polyester fibres. /news/2021-01-arctic-microplastic-pollution.html Environment Tue, 12 Jan 2021 12:02:00 EST news529675311