Scientists have achieved a major breakthrough in quantum computing by successfully cracking the code hidden within a single atom. To build a large-scale quantum computer that works, scientists and engineers need to overcome the spontaneous errors that quantum bits, or qubits, create as they operate.

The team at the Quantum Control Laboratory at the University of Sydney Nano Institute has demonstrated a type of quantum logic gate that drastically reduces the number physical qubits needed for its operation. They built an entangling logic gate on a single atom using an error-correcting code nicknamed the ‘Rosetta stone’ of quantum computing.

This curiously named Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code has long offered a theoretical possibility for significantly reducing the physical number of qubits needed to produce a functioning ‘logical qubit.’ Albeit by trading efficiency for complexity, making the codes very difficult to control. The research published in Nature Physics demonstrates this as a physical reality.

Led by Sydney Horizon Fellow Dr Tingrei Tan at the University of Sydney Nano Institute, scientists have used their exquisite control over the harmonic motion of a trapped ion to bridge the coding complexity of GKP qubits, allowing a demonstration of their entanglement.

The team’s experiment has shown the first realization of a universal logical gate set for GKP qubits. They did this by precisely controlling the natural vibrations or harmonic oscillations of a trapped ion in such a way that they can manipulate individual GKP qubits or entangle them as a pair.

A logic gate is an information switch that allows computers – quantum and classical – to be programmable to perform logical operations. Quantum logic gates use the entanglement of qubits to produce a completely different sort of operational system to that used in classical computing, underpinning the great promise of quantum computers.

The researchers have effectively stored two error-correctable logical qubits in a single trapped ion and demonstrated entanglement between them using quantum control software developed by Q-CTRL. This result massively reduces the quantum hardware required to create these logic gates, which allow quantum machines to be programmed.

This research represents an important demonstration that quantum logic gates can be developed with a reduced physical number of qubits, increasing their efficiency. The authors declare no competing interests. Funding was received from various sources including the Australian Research Council and private funding from H. and A. Harley.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in writing and editing emails has become a common practice among professionals, with over 75% of them utilizing tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, or Claude in their daily work. While these generative AI tools can make writing easier, research reveals that relying on them too heavily can undermine trust between managers and employees.

A study conducted by researchers Anthony Coman and Peter Cardon surveyed 1,100 professionals about their perceptions of emails written with low, medium, and high levels of AI assistance. The results showed a “perception gap” in messages written by managers versus those written by employees. When evaluating their own use of AI, participants tended to rate it similarly across different levels of assistance. However, when rating others’ use, the magnitude of AI assistance became important.

The study found that low levels of AI help, such as grammar or editing, were generally acceptable. However, higher levels of assistance triggered negative perceptions, especially among employees who perceived their managers’ reliance on AI-generated content as laziness or a lack of caring. This perception gap had a substantial impact on trust: only 40% to 52% of employees viewed supervisors as sincere when they used high levels of AI, compared to 83% for low-assistance messages.

The findings suggest that managers should carefully consider message type, level of AI assistance, and relational context before using AI in their writing. While AI may be suitable for informational or routine communications, relationship-oriented messages requiring empathy, praise, congratulations, motivation, or personal feedback are better handled with minimal technological intervention.

In essence, the quiet threat to trust posed by overreliance on AI emails is a reminder that while technology can enhance productivity and efficiency, it cannot replace human touch and emotional intelligence in workplace relationships.

The use of virtual reality (VR) nature scenes has been found to relieve symptoms commonly experienced by individuals living with long-term pain, with those who felt more present during the experience showing the strongest effects. A recent study led by the University of Exeter discovered that immersive 360-degree nature films delivered via VR were almost twice as effective in reducing pain compared to 2D video images.

Long-term pain is notoriously difficult to treat and typically lasts for over three months. Researchers simulated this type of pain in healthy participants, finding that nature VR had an effect similar to that of painkillers, which endured for at least five minutes after the VR experience had ended.

Dr. Sam Hughes, Senior Lecturer in Pain Neuroscience at the University of Exeter, stated, “We’ve seen a growing body of evidence show that exposure to nature can help reduce short-term, everyday pain, but there has been less research into how this might work for people living with chronic or longer-term pain.” The study aimed to investigate the effect of prolonged exposure to a virtual reality nature scene on symptoms experienced during long-term pain sensitivity.

The study involved 29 healthy participants who were shown two types of nature scenes after experiencing electric shocks on their forearm, which simulated pain. On the first visit, they measured changes in pain over a 50-minute period following the electric shocks and showed how the healthy participants developed sensitivity to sharp pricking stimuli in the absence of any nature scenes.

On the second visit, they immersed the same participants in a 45-minute virtual reality 360-degree experience of Oregon’s waterfalls, specifically chosen to maximize therapeutic effects. The scene was compared to a 2D screen experience. Participants completed questionnaires on their experience of pain after watching the scenes and how present they felt in each experience.

On a separate visit, participants underwent MRI brain scans at the University of Exeter’s Mireille Gillings Neuroimaging Centre. Researchers administered a cold gel to illicit ongoing pain and then scanned participants to study how their brains responded.

The researchers found that the immersive VR experience significantly reduced the development and spread of feelings of pain sensitivity to pricking stimuli, and these pain-reducing effects were still present even at the end of the 45-minute experience. The more present the person felt during the VR experience, the stronger this pain-relieving effect was.

The fMRI brain scans also revealed that people with stronger connectivity in brain regions involved in modulating pain responses experienced less pain. The results suggest that nature scenes delivered using VR can help change how pain signals are transmitted in the brain and spinal cord during long-term pain conditions.

Dr. Sonia Medina, of the University of Exeter Medical School, stated, “We think VR has a particularly strong effect on reducing experience of pain because it’s so immersive. It really created that feeling of being present in nature – and we found the pain-reducing effect was greatest in people for whom that perception was strongest.” The study aims to lead to more research to investigate further how exposure to nature effects our pain responses, so we could one day see nature scenes incorporated into ways of reducing pain for people in settings like care homes or hospitals.