Committee to monitor neutrino project

MADURAI, January 26, 2011

Updated: January 26, 2011 00:03 IST

Shastry V. Mallady

Naba K.Mondal

The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) have formed a national level apex committee to monitor the progress of Rs.1,200-crore India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) being established in Theni district.

Only the Union Cabinet approval is pending for this major science project. The collaborators are now focussing on ‘pre-project activities' for starting the construction works at Bodi West Hills in Pottipuram panchayat in Theni district.

Naba K. Mondal, Chief Spokesperson, INO Project, told The Hindu here on Tuesday that the land transfer (26 hectares) for the underground project was “in process and there is sound support from the Tamil Nadu government.”

A meeting of collaborators was held in Madurai on January 24 and 25 with participation of researchers and scientists from 25 leading institutions including the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.

“We have already got environmental/ forest clearances for the project. After the Atomic Energy Commission meets in February on this project, the process can be speeded up. We expect to commence the works at the INO site in six months time,” he informed.

Project preparation

The status report on project preparation is being given to the DAE-DST apex committee from time to time and currently the specific tasks to be assigned to each institution are being deliberated.

According to him, there are various levels of monitoring going on for implementing the INO Project in Theni district. Different industrial houses, including those in the private sector, will be involved for assembly line production.

Also, the possibility of taking the expertise of a few international teams for the country's first ever neutrino observatory project is being explored, Dr. Mondal who represents TIFR, Mumbai, has said.

Scientists from European nations, Japan and the U.S. may be involved.

The INO Project Chief Spokesperson has exuded confidence that India would be able to successfully complete the project since “the levels of enthusiasm shown by our scientists is abundant and they are excited.”

Completion of the project is expected in five to six years from now.

Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in Chennai, Guwahati, Mumbai and Indore are also involved with each institution taking up a sphere of activity like simulation, electronics design and development.

A team from the INO Project will meet the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister and others after the process of land transfer is completed to thank them for their support in science development. The project is funded by the DAE and DST.

==========

MADURAI, August 30, 2012

Updated: August 30, 2012 11:38 IST

INO: Madurai to be nodal centre

Shastry V. Mallady

Construction of Rs. 1,300-crore underground observatory in Theni district will start next year

An action plan is ready to establish a major research laboratory in Madurai for detector development meant for the ambitious Rs.1,300-crore India-based Neutrino Observatory(INO) project coming up in Theni district.

The Research and Development lab in Madurai will be a national facility that would be the nodal centre for the underground INO project.

“For all the neutrino experiments and research activities, the Madurai laboratory would be the nerve centre. All activities for INO project which is being set up along Bodi West Hills in Theni district will be coordinated through the Madurai nodal centre,” M. V. N. Murthy, a senior faculty at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, has said.

Talking to The Hindu here on Wednesday, he said that since all statutory clearances have been obtained for the INO project, the construction works at the site will begin sometime next year.

Pre-project works on

“Pre-project works are going on and lot of scientific/simulation meetings are taking place among the collaborators. The INO will turn out to be the largest basic science project in India and it would be a giant leap for us in the field of physics,” Prof. Murthy said. Construction works and installation of a huge detector/magnet will be completed in five years.

The major funding agencies for the Rs.1,300-crore INO project are the Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Science and Technology of Government of India.

While the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is the host institution for this project, totally there are 26 leading research institutions involved in this major project. The Institute of Mathematical Sciences at Chennai too is one among the collaborators offering its theoretical expertise in the field.

Madurai centre

The nodal centre of the INO at Madurai would come up near Madurai Kamaraj University at Vadapalanji and it will be shaped up as a major centre for high energy physics to play a nodal role with collaborators, scientists and detector development.

Prof. Murthy said that 13.5 hectares of land was sought for setting up the Centre for High Energy Physics here and “we are in the process of completing the formalities to take possession of the land from the district administration.”

He was here to attend a lecture workshop on the latest discovery of God particle-Higgs boson-organised jointly by various science academies at American College.

“This discovery is a big push for us to focus on neutrinos and dark matter.

There is still so much to understand about our universe and INO is set to take Madurai into the national frontiers,” he expressed confidence.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/ino-madurai-to-be-nodal-centre/article3839187.ece?ref=relatedNews

Neutrino project up and running soon

MADURAI, April 17, 2013

Updated: April 17, 2013 15:04 IST

Mohamed Imranullah S.

It is over a decade since Indian scientists began formal work on one of the country’s biggest research projects in basic sciences: the India-based Neutrino Observatory or INO. Proposed to be set up in a cavern under a 1,300 metre tall peak in the Bodi West Hills in Theni district, the observatory has run into unexpected delays. But finally, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel with researchers deciding to begin operations from a rented building in Madurai.

Speaking to The Hindu over phone, INO spokesperson Naba K. Mondal, also a physicist with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), a nodal agency for the implementation of the project, said that it has been proposed to rent a building near Madurai Kamaraj University at Nagamalai Pudukottai until the proposed National Centre for High Energy Physics (NCHEP) here begins taking shape. “We will start operations very soon,” he said on a positive note.

Mr. Mondal said that works relating to surveying the area, clearance of jungle and erection of fencing around the INO site in Theni as well as the NCHEP site here were in the final stages. The State Highways Department had been asked to lay the approach roads. “They will start making the roads soon in order to facilitate movement of construction materials to the site,” he said. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had accorded clearance to the site in October 2010.

The project, estimated to cost around Rs.1,350 crore, was being funded jointly by the Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Science and Technology. It was originally planned to be established in the Nilgiri hills. But the MoEF refused clearance on the ground that the location might disturb the natural habitat of wild animals. It was then that the Neutrino Collaboration Group (NCG), an association of different scientific institutions, shifted the site to West Bodi Hills.

The observatory will be located in a cavern at the bottom of peak number 1589 situated in a reserve forest area. The cavern could be accessed through a 2,100 metre long and 7.5 metre wide tunnel to be dug at the bottom of the peak. About 26 hectares of revenue land have been acquired near the entrance to the proposed tunnel for the purpose of establishing surface facilities required for operating the observatory.

What are neutrinos? According to scientists involved in the project, neutrinos are elementary particles, like electrons, but not part of atoms. They are available in abundance in the universe. The human body also emits neutrinos. These particles were created in large numbers during the Big Bang that led to the creation of the universe. They also continue to get created when the cosmic rays interact with the atmosphere. Scores of neutrinos pass through the human body without causing any harm because they hardly interact with matter.

Their non-interacting nature makes them difficult to detect especially on the earth’s surface, which is overwhelmed with cosmic ray events. Therefore, it had been decided to establish the observatory under a peak to shield it from cosmic ray particles. A magnetised Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector weighing about 50,000 tonnes would be installed in the INO cavern laboratory to study the neutrinos in detail as even their mass had not yet been measured accurately by the scientific community.

Though the NCG had managed to obtain government clearances required for the project as well as able to quell most of the apprehensions of the locals through a series of meetings with them, the project was nevertheless facing criticism from environmental activists like V.T. Padmanabhan who had been claiming that the INO would have an adverse biological, geological and radiological impact. However, the NCG has denied the apprehensions raised by him.

Mr. Padmanabhan has claimed that there was a plan to beam neutrinos manufactured at Fermilab, a high energy physics laboratory in the United States to the proposed INO in Theni for the purpose of studying the changes that occur during the journey. However, the NCG has denied this claim. It says that the primary goal of the INO lab was to study naturally occurring neutrinos in the atmosphere. There was no possibility of studying neutrino beams for the next 10 to 20 years.

Even assuming that such a study of neutrino beams was carried out, it would not be harmful in any way as “a person standing in front of the beam continuously for about 100 years would find that only one neutrino had interacted with his body in a lifetime, while billions of neutrinos would have passed harmlessly every second,” the NCG has claimed.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/neutrino-project-up-and-running-soon/article4626628.ece?ref=relatedNews

An elusive detector for an elusive particle

March 31, 2014

Updated: April 1, 2014 18:37 IST

Vasudevan Mukunth

The delay of a go-ahead from the Cabinet for an indigenously designed neutrino detector is demoralising for scientists because it could turn investors away

In the late 1990s, a group of Indian physicists pitched the idea of building a neutrino observatory in the country. The product of that vision is the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) slated to come up near Theni district in Tamil Nadu, by 2020. According to the 12th Five Year Plan report released in October 2011, it will be built at a cost of Rs.1,323.77 crore, borne by the Departments of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Science & Technology (DST).

By 2012, these government agencies, with the help of 26 participating institutions, were able to obtain environmental clearance, and approvals from the Planning Commission and the Atomic Energy Commission. Any substantial flow of capital will happen only with Cabinet approval, which has still not been given after more than a year.

If this delay persists, the Indian scientific community will face greater difficulty in securing future projects involving foreign collaborators because we can’t deliver on time. Worse still, bright Indian minds that have ideas to test will prioritise foreign research labs over local facilities.

‘Big science’ is international

This month, the delay acquired greater urgency. On March 24, the Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing, announced that it was starting construction on China’s second major neutrino research laboratory — the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), to be completed at a cost of $350 million (Rs. 2,100 crore) by 2020.

Apart from the dates of completion, what Indian physicists find more troubling is that, once ready, both INO and JUNO will pursue a common goal in fundamental physics. Should China face fewer roadblocks than India does, our neighbour could even beat us to some seminal discovery. This is not a jingoistic concern for a number of reasons.

All “big science” conducted today is international in nature. The world’s largest scientific experiments involve participants from scores of institutions around the world and hundreds of scientists and engineers. In this paradigm, it is important for countries to demonstrate to potential investors that they’re capable of delivering good results on time and sustainably. The same paradigm also allows investing institutions to choose whom to support.

India is a country with prior experience in experimental neutrino physics. Neutrinos are extremely elusive fundamental particles whose many unmeasured properties hold clues about why the universe is the way it is.

In the 1960s, a neutrino observatory located at the Kolar Gold Fields in Karnataka became one of the world’s first experiments to observe neutrinos in the Earth’s atmosphere, produced as a by-product of cosmic rays colliding with its upper strata. However, the laboratory was shut in the 1990s because the mines were being closed.

However, Japanese physicist Masatoshi Koshiba and collaborators built on this observation with a larger neutrino detector in Japan, and went on to make a discovery that (jointly) won him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2002. If Indian physicists had been able to keep the Kolar mines open, by now we could have been on par with Japan, which hosts the world-renowned Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory involving more than 900 engineers.

Importance of time, credibility

In 1998, physicists from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai, were examining a mathematical parameter of neutrinos called theta-13. As far as we know, neutrinos come in three types, and spontaneously switch from one type to another (Koshiba’s discovery).

The frequency with which they engage in this process is influenced by their masses and sources, and theta-13 is an angle that determines the nature of this connection. The IMSc team calculated that it could at most measure 12°. In 2012, the Daya Bay neutrino experiment in China found that it was 8-9°, reaffirming the IMSc results and drawing attention from physicists because the value is particularly high. In fact, INO will leverage this “largeness” to investigate the masses of the three types of neutrinos relative to each other.

So, while the Indian scientific community is ready to work with an indigenously designed detector, the delay of a go-ahead from the Cabinet becomes demoralising because we automatically lose time and access to resources from potential investors.

“This is why we’re calling it an India-based observatory, not an Indian observatory, because we seek foreign collaborators in terms of investment and expertise,” says G. Rajasekaran, former joint director of IMSc, who is involved in the INO project.

On the other hand, China appears to have been both prescient and focussed on its goals. It purchased companies manufacturing the necessary components in the last five years, developed the detector technology in the last 24 months, and was confident enough to announce completion in barely six years. Thanks to its Daya Bay experiment holding it in good stead, JUNO is poised to be an international collaboration, too. Institutions from France, Germany, Italy, the U.S. and Russia have evinced interest in it.

Beyond money, there is also a question of credibility. Once Cabinet approval for INO comes through, it is estimated that digging the vast underground cavern to contain the principal neutrino detector will take five years, and the assembly of components, another year more. We ought to start now to be ready in 2020.

Because neutrinos are such elusive particles, any experiments on them will yield correspondingly “unsure” results that will necessitate corroboration by other experiments. In this context, JUNO and INO could complement each other. Similarly, if INO is delayed, JUNO is going to look for confirmation from experiments in Japan, South Korea and the U.S.

It is notable that the INO laboratory’s design permits it to also host a dark-matter decay experiment, in essence accommodating areas of research that are demanding great attention today. But if what can only be called an undue delay on the government’s part continues, we will again miss the bus.

vasudevan.m@thehindu.co.in

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/an-elusive-detector-for-an-elusive-particle/article5851884.ece

'Dead' hearts transplanted into living patients in world first

HEART

Sydney, Oct 24 (PTI) In a breakthrough, a team of doctors, including an Indian-origin surgeon, today said they have successfully performed the world's first heart transplant
in Australia using a "dead heart", a major development that could save many lives.

The procedure, using hearts that had stopped beating, has been described as a "paradigm shift" that will herald a major increase in the pool of hearts available for transplantation.

It is predicted the breakthrough will save the lives of 30 per cent more heart transplant patients.

Until now, transplant units have relied solely on still-beating donor hearts from brain-dead patients.

But the team at the lung transplant unit of St Vincent's Hospital here announced they had transplanted three heart failure patients using donor hearts that had stopped beating
for 20 minutes.

The first patient who received a heart Michelle Gribilas said she felt a decade younger and was now a "different person".

Cardiothoracic surgeon Kumud Dhital, who performed the transplants with hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD), said he "kicked the air" when the first surgery was
successful.

It was possible thanks to new technology, he said. "The incredible development of the preservation solution with this technology of being able to preserve the heart, resuscitate it and to assess the function of the heart has made this possible, he said.

Hearts are the only organ that is not used after the heart has stopped beating - known as donation after circulatory death.

Beating hearts are normally taken from brain-dead people, kept on ice for around four hours and then transplanted to patients.

The novel technique used in Sydney involved taking a heart that had stopped beating and reviving it in a machine known as a "heart-in-a-box".

The heart is kept warm, the heartbeat is restored and a nourishing fluid helps reduce damage to the heart muscle.

Gribilas, 57, who was suffering from congenital heart failure. She had the surgery more than two months ago.

"Now I'm a different person altogether," she said. "I feel like I'm 40 years old - I'm very lucky."

There have since been a further two successful operations.

Prof Peter MacDonald, head of St Vincent's heart transplant unit, said: "This breakthrough represents a major inroad to reducing the shortage of donor organs."

It is thought the heart-in-a-box, which is being tested at sites around the world, could save up to 30 per cent more lives by increasing the number of available organs.

The breakthrough has been welcomed around the world.

The British Heart Foundation described it as a "significant development". PTI

Your sugar levels are warning you

 

Nov 7, 2014, 05.22 PM IST

Prof Subhankar Chowdhury

Diabetes is often called the 'silent killer' because of its easy-to-miss signs (hence 'silent'), but ability to wreck havoc through multiple organ damage (hence a potential 'killer').

In diabetes high blood glucose acts like a poison; it is often accompanied by high blood pressure and abnormal blood lipids, forming an evil team to harm the individual.

The cells in your body rely on glucose for energy; hence glucose is essential for you to function properly. You may take some amount of glucose directly eg., in fruits; but the majority is derived from breakdown in the intestine of carbohydrates like starch present in rice, bread, potato etc. Glucose is transported to all the cells in the body through the bloodstream, which is like an elaborate road and rail network in your body.

However, in order to use the glucose, your body needs insulin. This is a hormone produced by the pancreas. Insulin is like a key that opens the 'locks' on cells to allow entry of glucose.

People with type 1 diabetes no longer make insulin to help their bodies use glucose (as if their pancreas has declared a lockout), so they have to rely on regular insulin injections.

People with type 2 diabetes may have enough insulin, at least initially, but they cannot use it well (as if the 'locks' on cells are defective, so the key cannot open them); they're insulin resistant. Many of the signs and symptoms of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are similar.

Warning Signs of Diabetes

Sometimes diabetes can develop without any warnings signs. In fact, about a third of all people who have diabetes don't know they have it; most of them have Type 2 diabetes.

That's why it's important to talk to your doctor about your risk for diabetes and determine if you should be tested, even if you have none of the warning signs.

Common warnings signs of diabetes include: Increased thirst or dry mouth
Frequent urination in large volumes

Increased hunger
Unexplained weight loss (even though you may be eating more)
Fatigue (weak, tired feeling)
Frequent infections (including fungal infections of the private parts) or cuts that take a long time to heal
Blurred vision

Because diabetes can lead to serious health complications, it's important to be aware of the signs of diabetes. If you have any of the above mentioned warnings signs of diabetes, give your doctor a call and schedule a diabetes test. With the right diabetes diet, regular exercise, and medications, if needed, you can manage diabetes and live an active, productive life.
Contributed by:
Prof Subhankar Chowdhury
DTM&H, MD, DM, MRCP (UK)
Immediate Past President, Endocrine Society of India
President, Endocrine Society of Bengal

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Life-Style/Health-Fitness/Health/Your-sugar-levels-are-warning-you/articleshow/45070456.cms

There is no Ebola vaccine 'because the virus previously only affected poor African nations', WHO chief says

 

Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO, said: 'Why are clinicians still empty handed, with no vaccines and no cure? Because Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations'

• Dr Margaret Chan, director general of WHO said there is no Ebola vaccine because it had only affected poor African nations
• Speaking at the regional committee for Africa in Benin, she criticised drugs companies for turning their backs on 'markets that cannot pay'
• Dr Chan said current outbreak had exposed two WHO arguments 'that have fallen on deaf ears for decades'
• She highlighted an 'urgent need' to strengthen African healthcare systems
• Professor Peter Piot, who helped discover Ebola in 1976, warned the current outbreak will not be brought under control under there is a vaccine
• Two promising drugs are in development are there are trials taking place in the US, UK, Mali with plans to extend them in Europe, Gabon and Kenya
• First safety and efficacy results are expected by the end of next year
• Healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea could receive the trial drugs as part of the second phase of trials in January

By Lizzie Parry for MailOnline

Published: 10:20 GMT, 4 November 2014 | Updated: 15:28 GMT, 4 November 2014

A vaccine to protect millions from the Ebola virus decades after it was first detected does not exist because the disease previously only affected poor African nations.

The head of the World Health Organisation's scathing conclusion came as nearly 5,000 people have lost their lives to the hemorrhagic fever - the majority in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. 

Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO, criticized drugs companies for turning their backs on 'markets that cannot pay'.

She said the current outbreak - the most deadly in history - has exposed two WHO arguments 'that have fallen on deaf ears for decades'. 

A vaccine to protect millions from the Ebola virus decades after it was first detected does not exist because the disease previously only affected poor African nations, the director general of the World Health Organisation has said. The first Ebola drug trial in Africa has started with three healthcare workers in Mali, pictured

Three Malian health workers have been given the experimental vaccine, as 37 more prepare to take part in the trial. It is hoped the first results of the trials will be available at the end of next year

There are also vaccination trials ongoing in the US and UK, and GlaxoSmithKline, who are working on developing the drug, are producing 10,000 doses, which, if the first phase of the trial prove successful, will be available to vaccinate front line healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea early next year

Addressing the regional committee for Africa in Benin yesterday, Dr Chan said: 'Ebola emerged nearly four decades ago. Why are clinicians still empty handed, with no vaccines and no cure?

'Because Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations.

'The R&D (research and development) incentive is virtually non-existent.

'A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay.

'WHO has been trying to make this issue visible for ages. Now people can see it for themselves.' 

She highlighted an 'urgent need to strengthen long-neglected health systems', in Africa.

'When heads of state in non-affected countries talk about Ebola, they rightly attribute the outbreak's unprecedented severity to the "failure to put basic public health infrastructures in place",' Dr Chan said. 

'Without fundamental public health infrastructures in place, no country is stable. No society is secure.

'No resilience exists to withstand the shocks that our 21st century societies are delivering with ever-greater frequency and force, whether from a changing climate or a runaway killer virus.' 

She added: 'The Ebola outbreak that is ravaging parts of West Africa is the most severe acute public health emergency seen in modern times.' 

Professor Peter Piot, one of the team who first discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic Congo, in 1976, has warned the current outbreak is unlikely to be brought under control in the absence of a vaccine.

Nurses prepare to carry the body of an Ebola victim for burial in a community on the outskirts of Monrovia

A Red Cross worker picks up the body of a suspected Ebola victim, removing it from a township in Monrovia, ready for burial

Giving a seminar at Oxford University last month, he said: 'In theory Ebola is very easy to control, but it has got completely out of hand. 

'This is no longer an epidemic, it is a humanitarian crisis. It may be we have to wait for a vaccine to stop the epidemic.

'The good news is I think this is the last Ebola outbreak where we only have isolation and quarantine to treat.

Why are clinicians still empty handed, with no vaccines and no cure? Because Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations

'Hopefully we will have a drugs and vaccines to offer in Africa.' 

Development of vaccines typically take up to 10 years, but in August WHO took the unprecedented decision to fast-track clinical trials of those drugs in development. 

The most promising vaccine is GlaxoSmithKline's ChAd3 drug.

The pharmaceutical giants are working with the US National Institues of Health to develop ChAd3, which is currently the subject of clinical trials in the USA, UK, Mali and Switzerland.

Initial results from the phase one trials are expected by the end of next year, the company said.

The UK-led trials are taking place at the Jenner Institue in Oxford, supported by a £2.8million grant from the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the Government.

Funding from the consortium supporting the vaccine is enabling GSK to begin manufacturing around 10,000 additional doses of the vaccine in preparation.

A Liberian burial team collect the body of a victim at a motor vehicle garage in Paynesville on the outskirts of Monrovia

Health workers stand in an area used for Ebola quarantine after caring for two-year-old Fanta Kone, who died at an Ebola virus center in Kayes, Mali - the first death in the country

It means if the phase one trials are a success, the next stage of the clinical trial can begin early next year, involving the vaccination of thousands of frontline healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

GSk said: 'If the vaccine candidate is able to protect these healthcare workers as we hope it will, it could significantly contribute to efforts to bring this epidemic under control.'

Another potential vaccine, VSV-EBOV, is being developed by scientists at Canada's Public Health Agency, supported by a £3.1million grant from the Wellcome Trust.

Animal studies have suggested the vaccine is 'very effective', and clinical trials began in the US last month.

Professor Peter Piot said the current outbreak will not be brought under control until there is a vaccine

The first results are expected by December, and there are plans to trial the vaccine in Europe, Gabon and Kenya.

In August the Canadian Government announced a donation of the experimental drug to the WHO.

The first shipment - which will ultimately total 800 vials of the vaccine - was sent to the WHO in Geneva in October, where partners and the health authorities from the affected nations will determine how the vaccine should be distributed and used.

Since Professor Piot and his colleagues first uncovered the deadly disease in 1976 there had been 25 outbreaks until the current epidemic.

In the virus' 37-history, there had been around 1,500 deaths, confined to central Africa, until a two-year-old child in a remote Guinean village died from Ebola in December, sparking this crisis.

Equating to around 40 deaths a year, Professor Piot said Ebola was not considered a big public health problem.

As a result there had been little interest from pharmaceutical companies and governments around the world in focusing on developing a vaccine. 

Professor Piot, said: 'We always thought it would be an accident of nature, and that now and then people would die.

'Most of these outbreaks have been in central Africa. There was one in Ivory Coast but that was a different strain from 1976.

'They have mostly been contained to the Congo, Uganda and South Sudan.

'That is why there wasn't much interest in this outbreak at the start, because it wasn't really a big issue.

'All that changed this year.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2819977/There-no-Ebola-vaccine-virus-previously-affected-poor-African-nations-chief-says.html#ixzz3I7NQCCRI
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New research brings superfast quantum computers closer

 

COMPUTERS

Melbourne, Oct 13 (PTI) Australian researchers have developed two new types of 'quantum bits' that process data with more than 99 per cent accuracy, overcoming a critical challenge that has held back the realisation of super powerful quantum computers.

Two research teams working in the same laboratories at The University of New South Wales Australia have created the quantum bits, or "qubits" - the building blocks for quantum computers - that each process quantum data with an accuracy above 99 per cent.

"For quantum computing to become a reality we need to operate the bits with very low error rates," said Professor Andrew Dzurak, who is Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility at UNSW, where the devices were made.

"We've now come up with two parallel pathways for building a quantum computer in silicon, each of which shows this super accuracy," added Associate Professor Andrea Morello from UNSW's School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications.

The UNSW teams were first in the world to demonstrate single-atom spin qubits in silicon, reported in Nature in 2012 and 2013.

Now the team led by Dzurak has discovered a way to create an "artificial atom" qubit with a device remarkably similar to the silicon transistors used in consumer electronics.

Meanwhile, Morello's team has been pushing the "natural" phosphorus atom qubit to the extremes of performance.

Dr Juha Muhonen, a post-doctoral researcher and lead author on the natural atom qubit paper, noted: "The phosphorus atom contains in fact two qubits: the electron, and the nucleus. With the nucleus in particular, we have achieved accuracy close to 99.99 per cent. That means only one error for every 10,000 quantum operations."

The high-accuracy operations for both natural and artificial atom qubits is achieved by placing each inside a thin layer of specially purified silicon, containing only the silicon-28 isotope.

This isotope is perfectly non-magnetic and, unlike those in naturally occurring silicon, does not disturb the quantum bit. The purified silicon was provided through collaboration with Professor Kohei Itoh from Keio University in Japan.

The next step for the researchers is to build pairs of highly accurate quantum bits.

Large quantum computers are expected to consist of many thousands or millions of qubits and may integrate both natural and artificial atoms.

Morello's research team also established a world-record "coherence time" for a single quantum bit held in solid state.

"Coherence time is a measure of how long you can preserve quantum information before it's lost," Morello said.

The longer the coherence time, the easier it becomes to perform long sequences of operations, and therefore more complex calculations. The team was able to store quantum information in a phosphorus nucleus for more than 30 seconds.

The two findings have been published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. PTI