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Quantum Errors, Electric Fungi, Social Media Myths, and Cold Fusion
This week’s science bits from SWTG
Sabine Hossenfelder
January 22, 2025
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All You Ever Wanted to Know About Quantum Error Correction
In a brief yet thorough summary that appeared last week on the pre-print server, a group of quantum computing experts discussed the challenges on the way to commercially relevant quantum computers. Among other things, they confirm that speedups from quantum computers can reliably be expected for certain problems but that quantum error correction still has a long way to go to scale with platform size. Paper here.
This episode of Science News explores a new development in cold fusion. You see, normal nuclear fusion reactors require massive amounts of heat and pressure to re-create conditions similar to those at the center of the Sun. But cold fusion (sometimes called “Low Energy Nuclear Reactions”) is the idea that we could make nuclear fusion work instead at much lower energy within certain materials, typically palladium. This research area has been plagued by fraud, hype, and just bad science. But now, a group of physicists say they've figured out the theory for how it works. This video comes with a quiz, which you can take here.
You can now create and share your own quizzes on QuizWithIt – for free! Just set up an account and creator profile and you are good to go. Create quizzes to go with websites, videos, blogposts, podcasts, or as standalone. Your audience can support you by subscribing to your content, which allows them to collect points by taking your quizzes. Each quiz has a unique URL, can be embedded into websites or newsletter, and be shared on X, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Plus, we are constantly fixing bugs to improve the user experience. Happy quizzing!
A Battery Made from Fungi
The Fungi-batteri. Image: EMPA
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) have built a tiny battery by combining two types of fungi that act as the anode and cathode, respectively. They mixed the fungi with cellulose and 3D printed them in a grid on a hydrogel that also acts as food for the fungi. The natural biochemical processes of the fungi then generate a small electrical current of the order of 500 milliVolt. Press release here, paper here.
In a recent paper, psychologist Jeffrey Hall from the University of Kansas thoroughly debunks misinformation about the psychological effects of social media that unfortunately continues to circulate on said social media. Among other things, Hall addresses the myths that social media is the main cause of mental health problems facing teens or that social media is the reason people don’t spend time together. Paper here. I’ve talked about this several times in my videos, most recently here.
