Researchers have produced coherent single photon emitters, a key component for future quantum computers and communications systems. The study, which involves using a family of materials known as perovskites to make light-emitting particles called quantum dots, appears today in the journal Science. The paper is by MIT graduate student in chemistry Hendrik Utzat, professor of chemistry Moungi Bawendi, and nine others at MIT and at ETH in Zurich, Switzerland.

The ability to produce individual photons with...

Experimental drug candidate slows cancer progression in mouse model. A new study suggests that high-fat diets fuel colorectal cancer growth by upsetting the balance of bile acids in the intestine and triggering a hormonal signal that lets potentially cancerous cells thrive. The findings could explain why colorectal cancer, which can take decades to develop, is being seen in younger people growing up at a time when higher-fat diets are common.

As cancer death rates drop overall, doctors have noted a frightening anomaly: deaths fro...

Scientists discover a method to turn stubby gold nanorods into gold nanowires of impressive length. The metal wires could be valuable for sensing, diagnostic, imaging and therapeutic applications. A boost of vitamin C helped Rice University scientists turn small gold nanorods into fine gold nanowires.

Common, mild ascorbic acid is the not-so-secret sauce that helped the Rice lab of chemist Eugene Zubarev grow pure batches of nanowires from stumpy nanorods without the drawbacks of previous techniques.

“There’s n...

Astronomers call it “the moon that shouldn’t be there.” After several years of analysis, a team of planetary scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has at last come up with an explanation for a mysterious moon around Neptune that they discovered with Hubble in 2013.

The tiny moon, named Hippocamp, is unusually close to a much larger Neptunian moon called Proteus...