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How myelin plays a role in long-range processing of disparate inputs remains elusive. Here, the authors show that myelin loss within the neocortex reduces the reliability to propagate cortical bursts across axons, causing an impaired temporal sharpening to compute sensory and cortical signals within the thalamus.

It has been proposed that phonons propagating through a material can be used for quantum computing, in a similar manner to photons. Now, several of the quantum gates and measurements needed for this approach have been demonstrated.

Hole spin qubits in germanium have seen significant advancements, though improving control and noise resilience remains a key challenge. Here, the authors realize a dressed singlet-triplet qubit in germanium, achieving frequency-modulated high-fidelity control and a tenfold increase in coherence time.

Mechanical computing based on the logic devices that utilize mechanical energy can be an alternative to conventional electronic computing. Here, Song et al. show a micromechanical logic gate, fabricated using multi-stable buckling flexures, which is capable of realizing all digital logic operations.

Quantum gates in 2D ion crystals are more challenging than in 1D. Here, the authors use their 2D ion trap platform and acousto-optical deflectors to demonstrate a 2-qubit gate that can stand the ion micromotion in such configuration.

A family of multi-qubit Rydberg quantum gates is developed and used to generate Schrödinger cat states in an optical clock, allowing improvement in frequency measurement precision by taking advantage of entanglement.

Parallel operation of two exchange-only qubits consisting of six quantum dots arranged linearly is shown to be achievable and maintains qubit control quality compared with sequential operation, with potential for use in scaled quantum computing.

Parvalbumin-positive interneurons in the hippocampal CA3 substantially reduce firing on approach to and at goal locations while food-deprived mice learn to find food.

Reconfigurable arrays of up to 448 neutral atoms are used to implement and combine the key elements of a universal, fault-tolerant quantum processing architecture and experimentally explore their underlying working mechanisms.

It has been conjectured that not only states but also quantum operations can be placed in a superposition of causal order. Here, the authors use a qubit superpose the order in which two photonic gates are applied, which is shown to enable a more efficient detection of their commutation relations.

For solid-state qubits, the material environment hosts sources of errors that vary in time and space. This systematic analysis of errors affecting high-fidelity two-qubit gates in silicon can inform the design of large-scale quantum computers.

Here, the authors devise an exact protocol that simultaneously entangles arbitrary pairs of qubits on a trapped-ion quantum computer. The protocol requires classical computational resources polynomial in the system size, and very little overhead in the quantum control compared to a single-pair case.

Molecular electron spins are promising qubit candidates, however physical implementation of quantum gates is challenging. Little et al. explore the implementation of two-qubit entangling gates between nitroxide spin centres by pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance, building on NMR quantum computing protocols.

Global control of a qubits using a single microwave field is a promising strategy for scalable quantum computing. Here the authors demonstrate individual addressability vial local electrodes and two-qubit gates in an array of Si quantum dot spin qubits dressed by a global microwave field and driven on-resonance.

Quantum simulations of the phase diagram of quantum chromodynamics faces hard challenges, such as having to prepare mixed states and enforcing the non-Abelian gauge symmetry constraints. Here, the authors show how to solve the two above problems in a trapped-ion device using motional ancillae and charge-singlet measurements.

The leakiness of commonly used genetic components can make the construction of complex synthetic circuits difficult. Here the authors construct NOR gate architecture, using dCas9 fused to the chromatin remodeller Mxi1, that can be wired together into complex circuits.

Visual and auditory systems influence each other during development. Here, the authors show that the onset of eyelid opening regulates critical points during which the auditory cortex is sensitive to hearing loss or the restoration of hearing

Glutamate transporters conduct chloride ions through an aqueous channel with hydrophobic gates that forms during the glutamate transport cycle.

Schmidpeter and colleagues showed that anionic lipids bind to pacemaker ion channels and increase their activity by acting like keys that unlock salt bridges at the channel gates.

An algorithm that combines deep learning, Bayesian optimization and computer vision techniques can be used to autonomously tune a semiconductor spin qubit from a grounded device to Rabi oscillations.

How and where somatosensory information is encoded in the cortex is unclear and important for developing new pain therapies. Here the authors show a crucial role for the secondary somatosensory cortex (S2) in accurate perception of sensory stimuli.

The central amygdala relies on inhibitory circuitry to encode fear memories, but how this information is acquired and expressed in these connections is unknown. Two new papers use a combination of cutting-edge technologies to reveal two distinct microcircuits within the central amygdala, one required for fear acquisition and the other critical for conditioned fear responses. Understanding this architecture provides a strong link between activity in a specific circuit and particular behavioural consequences.

EGFR is a receptor that is upregulated in many cancers, but the mechanisms that control EGFR function are incompletely understood. Here the authors used single particle tracking to identify a role for tetraspanin CD81 in EGFR ligand binding, mobility, and signaling.

Quantum computation requires quantum logic gates that use the interaction within pairs of quantum bits (qubits) to perform conditional operations. Superconducting qubits may offer an attractive route towards scalable quantum computing. This paper demonstrates a complete set of controlled-NOT quantum logic gates using a single pair of coupled flux qubits. These gates are now sufficiently characterized to be used in quantum algorithms.

Biological digital sensors require the fabrication of modular genetic logic gates. Using thePseudomonas syringae hrpsystem, Wang and colleagues generate AND, NOT and NAND gates, demonstrating the ability to engineer a modular system from biological elements.

Using a gate decomposition strategy that requires the calibration of a single pulse, a family of XY entangling gates can be implemented in a superconducting qubit architecture and used to reduce circuit depth for generic quantum algorithms.

Scaling Si spin qubits relies on the uniform control of qubit-host interactions. This work finds correlations in qubit energy levels across a manufactured device arising from placement of Ge in the quantum well, consistent with atomistic modeling.

The manipulation of spins in a solid-state system — nitrogen–vacancy defects in diamond — allows the experimental realization of a universal set of geometric quantum gates using holonomies, that is, non-Abelian generalizations of the Berry phase, and offers a scalable platform with the potential for room-temperature quantum computing.

Hole spin semiconductor qubits suffer from charge noise, but now it has been demonstrated that placing them in an appropriately oriented magnetic field can suppress this noise and improve qubit performance.

Hole spin qubits in germanium are well suited for fast, electrically driven gates with high fidelity, but scaling to large qubit arrays remains challenging. Here the authors demonstrate a 10-spin qubit array with gate fidelities exceeding 99%, revealing mechanisms for uniform and scalable qubit control.

Researchers describe a mechanism capable of compressing fast and intense X-ray pulses through the rapid loss of crystalline periodicity. It is hoped that this concept, combined with X-ray free-electron laser technology, will allow scientists to obtain structural information at atomic resolutions.

Seamless integration of decoherence protection into quantum logic gates has enabled high-fidelity execution of a quantum algorithm with individual spins in a hybrid quantum system.

An 11-qubit atom processor comprising two precision-placed nuclear spin registers of phosphorus in silicon is shown to achieve state-of-the-art Bell-state fidelities of up to 99.5%.

The growing complexity of quantum computing devices makes presents challenges for benchmarking their performance as previous, exhaustive approaches become infeasible. Here the authors characterise the quality of their 11-qubit device by successfully computing two quantum algorithms.

Microwave stimulation of a superconducting artificial three-level atom is used to demonstrate high-fidelity, non-Abelian geometric transformations, the results of which depend on the order in which they are performed.

Grover’s algorithm provides a quantum speedup when searching through an unsorted database. Here, the authors perform it on 3 qubits using trapped ions, demonstrating two methods for marking the correct result in the algorithm’s oracle and providing data for searches yielding 1 or 2 solutions.

Although ABC-F proteins represent a ubiquitously distributed type of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) family member across phyla, their biological functions remain poorly characterized. A new study now shows that the bacterial ABC-F protein YjjK (EttA) gates ribosome entry into the translational cycle in an energy-dependent manner.

Several transmission-blocking vaccine candidates based on Pfs230 and Pfs48/45 are in clinical development, but it remains unclear whether they will demonstrate high efficacy. Here, the authors develop a stabilized chimeric antigen presenting potent epitopes from Pfs230 and Pfs48/45 in a single construct and demonstrate induction of transmission-reducing antibodies when female mice are immunized with the antigen in a self-assembling protein nanoparticle formulation.

The PCRCR complex of Plasmodium spp. binds basigin on the erythrocyte surface. While Rh5 of the complex is restricted to P. falciparum, PTRAMP, CSS and Ripr orthologs are present across the genus, for which the authors report common features.

Rice paddies contribute to atmospheric methane (CH₄) levels. Here the authors show that increasing levels of the rice plant hormone PSY can reduce CH₄ emissions by over 50% via alteration of microbial H₂ cycling in the rhizosphere.

In this work, the authors present their Chloroalkane Azide Membrane Permeability (CHAMP) assay that measures cytosolic accumulation of small molecules in Escherichia coli, enabling rapid profiling of compounds, with the goal to simplify and accelerate antimicrobial drug discovery.