Lowering body temperature as when animals hibernate may help slow ageing, scientists say
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And entering a hibernation-like state could work better than anti-ageing creams and sweat-inducing workouts for older people who want to stay looking young for longer, the scientists who conducted the research believe.
The research was carried out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Whitehead Institute and Harvard Medical School – both in the US state of Massachusetts.
Published in the journal Nature Aging, the MIT-led team's research suggests that we may be able to slow down 'changes that accompany ageing' by simulating a prolonged state of torpor – a shorter alternative to hibernation, which is common in animals and in which body temperature and energy use drops.
Ageing is a complex phenomenon that we're just starting to unravel
Sinisa Hrvatin, researcher at MIT
'Although the full relationship between torpor and ageing remains unclear, our findings point to decreased body temperature as the central driver of this anti-ageing effect,' said MIT's Sinisa Hrvatin.
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South China Morning Post
25-07-2025
- South China Morning Post
US House looks to revive China Initiative to ‘maintain America's competitive edge'
The US House is poised to advance a key spending bill that could revive the controversial ' China Initiative ' – a programme that unfairly targeted Chinese-American researchers, derailed careers and devastated lives long after it was ended in 2022. The Fiscal Year 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations bill does not name the programme directly, but language in the accompanying report calls for its re-establishment to 'maintain America's competitive edge' and 'counter China's malign ambitions to steal American research'. A scheduled committee meeting to debate the bill was cancelled on Wednesday, but experts said the provision was likely to remain as the legislation moved towards the Senate. 04:26 Chinese-American scientists fear US racial profiling Chinese-American scientists fear US racial profiling Originally launched in 2018 to combat alleged economic espionage, the China Initiative was widely criticised as racially biased and ineffective. The Department of Justice officially shut it down following a series of failed prosecutions and mounting backlash from the scientific community. 'As a victim of the past China Initiative, I am disheartened by ongoing efforts in Congress to reinstate the misguided programme,' said Gang Chen , a mechanical engineer at MIT who was arrested in 2021 before all charges were dropped. 'It is not only discriminatory, but also harms America's ability to attract top global talent – ultimately weakening, not strengthening, our national security,' he said in a statement released by the Asian American Scholar Forum, a US-based non-profit organisation that advocates for academic belonging and equity in Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities. Chen is among more than 1,000 US researchers and university staff led by Stanford physicists Steven Kivelson and Peter Michelson in signing a letter that urged lawmakers to remove the provision. The letter, dated July 22, warned that reviving the initiative would deter talent, damage innovation and inadvertently advance China's own recruitment efforts.
AllAfrica
22-07-2025
- AllAfrica
With China, European Space Agency leaves politics to governments
The European Space Agency (ESA) has a comprehensive internal system in place to ensure that its collaboration with China will not raise security concerns or be affected by geopolitical changes, according to a senior director interviewed by Asia Times. After the ESA said in January 2023 that it would not send astronauts to China's Tiangong space station, it continued to work with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on two scientific research programs. One of the two programs is the Einstein Probe (EP), a China-led X-ray space telescope mission. China launched the EP satellite to low Earth orbit (600 kilometers above the Earth) from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre on January 9 last year. Another mission is the Solar-wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), a 50-50 mission between the ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The SMILE satellite is scheduled to be launched from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, located in northeastern South America, in 2026. It will operate in a highly elliptical orbit similar to a Molniya orbit (40,000 kilometers above the Earth). With SMILE, scientists can understand the Sun–Earth connection by measuring the solar wind and its dynamic interaction with Earth's magnetosphere. Carole Mundell, Director of Science at the European Space Agency (ESA), stated that there is no immediate risk to the ESA-China programs. 'I don't believe there's an immediate risk of that, in the sense that ESA is governed by its member states, and those 23 countries guide me as director of science on how to run the program,' Mundell told Asia Times in an interview on the sidelines of the UK Space Conference in Manchester on July 17. The X-ray telescope of the Einstein Probe Photo: ESA 'I have permission from our member states to collaborate with China, and that's how we've worked on Einstein Probe,' she said. ' It's how we've worked on SMILE.' 'We have robust security processes, and apply them to each national country's government. If components are coming, say from the UK or Belgium, we go through their normal export license control processes, and that is how we satisfy the international regulations.' She said any political challenges between the United States and China are between their governments, which are not ESA member states. She said when collaborating with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the ESA also follows its processes and US rules and regulations. 'We are a technical agency and an international civil service. We are not political, and we don't make decisions on policy,' she said. Mundell took up her current position at the ESA in March 2023. She gained her PhD in astrophysics from the University of Manchester and postdoctoral research fellowships at Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK, and the University of Maryland in the US, specialising in the physics of accreting supermassive black holes and their role in galaxy evolution. She became the first woman Chief Scientific Adviser at the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2018 and first Chief International Science Envoy in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office until 2021. She was elected President of the UK Science Council in 2021. In March 2019, representing the UK government, she spent two weeks visiting scientific institutions and technology firms in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing, as well as the China National Space Agency (CNSA) and the National Space Science Center (NSSC). At that time, Wang Chi, the Director General of NSSC, briefly introduced the SMILE mission to her. China and the ESA targeted launching the mission in 2023. However, the launch date was postponed to 2026 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past six years, the world's geopolitical environment has faced drastic changes, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the trade and chip wars between China and the US, and rising political tensions between China and the European Union (EU). On July 18, the EU approved the 18th round of sanctions against Russia, which targeted Russian energy and military firms, as well as two Chinese Banks. Beijing slammed the EU for its sanctions. Carole Mundell, Director of Science at the European Space Agency (ESA) Photo: Asia Times, Jeff Pao Mundell said the ESA can avoid falling foul of international politics due to its independent organizational structure. 'Twenty-three countries are contributing their funding to us this year. Their ministers will all come together and set our budgets in November,' she said. 'We're a membership organization in the same way that CERN is.' (CERN stands for Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, or the European Organization for Nuclear Research in English.) While the ESA and the EU are separate organisations, they work closely together in many programs, including: the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite (Iris2) to promote digital autonomy and provide a strategic asset for the EU; the EU's Galileo system, with a 28-satellite constellation and global ground stations to provide a global positioning service; the EU's Copernicus Earth observation satellites to mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security. Under the Financial Framework Partnership Agreement signed in 2021, the EU will provide the ESA with about €9 billion (US$10.52 billion) of funding from 2021 to 2027. Last year, the ESA's full-year budget was €7.79 billion. China has not officially announced its investment in space exploration. According to China's government expenditure on space programs totaled $19.89 billion in 2024, compared to the United States' $79.68 billion and the EU's $3.71 billion. Mundell said that, as a scientist, she would not mind if other places invested more in climate monitoring than the ESA. 'During the pandemic, sometimes political leaders asked me, 'Who's got the best vaccine?' My answer was always: The competition is not about my vaccine being better than yours. It's about the best vaccine to prevent death and illness,' she said. 'For climate monitoring, the Earth is a complex system. We all have limited budgets. If you want to compete to get the best data on Earth observation, it's not a bad competition. That's fine. Go for it,' she said. 'It's better than being blind to the changes on our planet.' She hopes that other organizations will share their data and contribute to climate monitoring, following the example set by the ESA's Copernicus program. The EU and the ESA sent Copernicus Earth observation satellites to mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security. Photo: ESA 'The Copernicus program has set a gold standard for Earth observation,' she said. 'In terms of data transparency, we share our data. We also add value by helping people who might not know what to do with them to get extra information out of them.' 'When I was in the UK Government, it was very interesting visiting one of the NSSC's climate institutes, because there was some local data which was then fed back into some of the UK models, which then helped build the global climate models,' she said, highlighting the importance of boosting international collaboration. The Paris-based ESA, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year since its establishment on May 30, 1975, continues to explore new collaborations with Asian counterparts. In March this year, the ESA signed a letter of intent with Singapore's Office for Space Technology & Industry (OSTIn) to promote deeper collaboration. In May, the ESA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) signed a joint statement of intent on cooperation for human space exploration, focusing on low Earth orbit, and in a secondary stage on the Moon. In July, the ESA announced that it would sign a framework agreement to strengthen cooperation with South Korea's newly established Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA). Read: China's patience wears thin with EU over medical device row
AllAfrica
17-07-2025
- AllAfrica
US-China in a defining race for quantum supremacy
Quantum computing is becoming the defining battleground of the 21st-century technological rivalry between the United States and China. The stakes go beyond computational speed: at issue is who will build the technological infrastructure of the future, from intelligent supply chains and personalized medicine to quantum-secure communication and AI-enhanced robotics. Quantum computing is not only a hardware battle; it is a battle for the infrastructure of the 21st century. Fig. 1. Quantum computing combines analog and digital paradigms. Quantum computing combines the principles of computing with those of quantum mechanics. In 1981, American quantum physicist Richard Feynman noted that classical computers, whether analog or digital, struggle to simulate quantum phenomena efficiently. He argued that only a quantum system could simulate another quantum system by using the peculiar behaviors of subatomic particles as computational resources. Feynman asked: 'Could we build a computer that works like the universe itself?' That vision began to take concrete form in 1985, when British physicist David Deutsch published a landmark paper titled 'Quantum Theory, the Church-Turing Principle, and the Universal Quantum Computer .' Deutsch proposed a theoretical framework for a universal quantum computer, introducing the concept of quantum gates and circuits, the building blocks of quantum algorithms. Deutsch laid the foundational architecture for the entire field of quantum computing. At the core of quantum computers is the qubit, or quantum bit. Unlike regular bits in digital (binary) computers, which are either 0 or 1, a qubit can be both 0 and 1 at the same time, thanks to a special quantum mechanical property called superposition. This enables quantum computers to solve specific problems, such as modeling molecules, optimizing systems, or securing data, significantly faster than conventional computers. Qubits can be created in various ways, such as utilizing the spin of tiny particles like electrons or the properties of light, depending on the specific task. A qubit is typically visualized as a sphere, known as the Bloch sphere, which can be thought of as a 3D compass. The discrete structure (the polarities 0 and 1) provides the computational scaffolding: gates, circuits, and algorithms. Whether they are 0 or 1 may depend on context. Computational processes within the Bloch sphere are analog. Quantum algorithms rely on this interplay to achieve exponential speedups in solving specific problems. Fig. 2. The 'fixed' classical binary bit and the 'quantum' bits of the qubit. Analog calculations are executed within the so-called Bloch sphere. The first experimental quantum computers arrived in the late 1990s. In 1998, researchers at Oxford and MIT constructed a basic two-qubit quantum computer utilizing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques. Though limited in function, it served as a proof of concept. From the 2000s onward, quantum computing became a global technological race, involving academia, governments, tech giants, and startups. In 2006, China entered the quantum computing race when the government announced its 2020 Science and Technology Roadmap, identifying 'quantum control' as a key area of basic research . In 2021, its 14th Five-Year Plan, quantum information ranked second among cutting-edge science and technology fields, just behind artificial intelligence (AI). In March of this year, China launched a 1 trillion yuan (~US$138 billion) national venture fund, explicitly targeting quantum computing and related technologies. China's advances in quantum computing have been spectacular. In 2020, scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) unveiled Jiuzhang, a photonic quantum computer that performed a task in 200 seconds that would have taken a classical supercomputer over 2.5 billion years. Later versions, such as Jiuzhang 2.0, further improved performance. In 2021, researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) unveiled Zuchongzhi 2.1, a 66-qubit superconducting quantum processor that demonstrated a significant quantum advantage over classical supercomputers. In 2023, the same team announced Zuchongzhi 3.0, a 105-qubit processor that further advanced performance benchmarks, reportedly outperforming previous benchmarks, including Google's 2019 Sycamore experiment, by a factor of up to a million in specific sampling tasks. These achievements underscore China's rapid progress in hardware scaling and system optimization. Fig. 3. Quantum computing developments in the U.S. and China. China has also taken a major leap forward in building a global quantum communication network by successfully establishing an ultra-secure quantum key distribution (QKD) link between Beijing and South Africa. The breakthrough marks the latest milestone in China's ambitious Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) program, which is centered around the satellite Micius (also known as Mozi), launched in 2016. Micius has enabled several landmark achievements in quantum communication, including a 2017 quantum-encrypted video call between China and Austria, covering 7,600 kilometers, and secure communication experiments with Russia. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a method of transmitting encryption keys using quantum particles, such as photons. If intercepted, these quantum keys collapse, alerting users to a breach, thus ensuring a level of security unachievable by classical methods. The latest demonstration used China's low-cost quantum micro- and nano-satellites in tandem with mobile ground stations, signaling a shift from experimental setups to deployable systems. According to Yin Juan, a leading scientist behind Micius, this demonstration is part of China's plan to launch a global quantum communication service by 2027, targeting BRICS countries and other strategic partners. While China's quantum computing efforts are centrally coordinated and state-led, the United States thrives on a model of decentralized, grassroots innovation driven by its world-leading tech industry, academic institutions and venture capital ecosystem. Major players, including Google, IBM, Microsoft and Rigetti, are advancing diverse quantum hardware architectures, such as superconducting qubits, and hybrid platforms that integrate quantum processors with classical computing backends. One of the most notable milestones occurred in 2019, when Google's Sycamore processor achieved quantum supremacy, completing a computational task in 200 seconds that would have taken a classical supercomputer an estimated 10,000 years. (Quantum supremacy is defined as demonstrating a quantum computer's superiority over classical systems in a specific task.) Building on this success, Google unveiled its Willow processor in 2024, demonstrating progress toward fault-tolerant quantum computing through the implementation of error-corrected logical qubits—a critical step toward scalable quantum applications. Although the US has some national coordination (the National Quantum Initiative Act (2018) and government funding), its strength lies in a vibrant ecosystem characterized by diversity of approaches, interdisciplinary collaboration and a culture of high-risk, high-reward experimentation. Silicon Valley's innovation model encourages rapid prototyping, iterative design and aggressive commercialization timelines. Quantum startups receive significant backing from both public and private investors, enabling parallel experimentation across different technologies and use cases. Moreover, the United States continues to lead in foundational theoretical research. It remains at the forefront of quantum error correction, quantum algorithm development and hybrid quantum–classical integration strategies, all of which are essential for transforming quantum computing from a lab-bound curiosity into a transformative industrial technology. The link between academic research, corporate R&D and entrepreneurial dynamism positions the US as a formidable and resilient force in the quantum era. Quantum computing will transform how humans interact with machines. By fusing the strengths of both analog and digital computation, it promises to reshape human-machine interfaces (HMIs) and accelerate the convergence of AI, robotics, and advanced sensing technologies. This hybrid capability opens the door to more intuitive, responsive and adaptive machines that can engage with the world in ways closer to how humans think and feel. Traditional binary computing relies on discrete bits, symbolic logic and rule-based processing. In contrast, human experience is inherently analog: we sense the world in smooth, continuous flows of perception, motion, emotion and intention. This fundamental mismatch limits current machines' ability to interpret complex human states such as mood, focus, or intention. Quantum computing bridges this gap. As a hybrid system, it combines the fluidity of analog systems with the structure of digital logic, offering a powerful new platform for building machines that can both process continuous sensory input and make discrete, context-sensitive decisions. Fig. 4. Key features of the analog and digital principles. In the field of robotics, the tension between analog and digital systems is particularly pronounced. Human-like movement involves solving continuous motion trajectories while simultaneously making discrete decisions, such as when to stop, turn or grasp an object. This blend of fluid dynamics and symbolic logic is difficult for classical computers to manage efficiently. A similar challenge arises in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Brain activity is inherently analog, expressed through continuous waves and subtle fluctuations in electrical patterns. Translating these signals into discrete commands for digital systems demands enormous computational power and precision. Quantum computing opens the possibility of real-time mental control of external devices, and even the emergence of shared cognitive environments where information flows seamlessly between human and machine. In such systems, intention, attention and emotion could be sensed, decoded and responded to with unprecedented speed and sensitivity. Beyond hardware rivalry, long-term leadership in quantum computing will center on the integration of various technologies. China is still lagging behind the US in basic research, including the development of fault-tolerant systems. However, China is well-positioned to play a leading role in integrating quantum computing, AI and robotics, thanks to its unique combination of industrial capacity, policy coordination, and state-of-the-art public infrastructure. At the hardware level, China is unparalleled in its ability to produce quantum and AI components at scale. It has made breakthroughs in key technologies like superconducting quantum processors, photonic computing and scalable control systems. At the same time, China leads the world in robotics manufacturing, and its domestic companies produce competitive AI accelerator chips such as Huawei's Ascend. The vertically integrated supply chain gives China a distinct advantage in building tightly coupled quantum, AI and robotic systems. China is also expanding its geopolitical influence through technology exports, such as quantum key distribution links with Austria, Russia and South Africa, as well as robotics and AI systems across the Global South. Its ambition is not only to master these technologies but to shape global standards and infrastructure, especially among BRICS and Belt and Road countries. Fig. 5. Expected milestone in quantum computing development. (HPC refers to High Performance Computing.) Quantum computing will gradually increase its capabilities and expand into more domains. The primary users will be pharmaceutical and chemical companies, financial institutions, tech giants, governments and research institutions involved in climate modeling. Smaller users and perhaps consumers may be able to rent 'quantum computing time' in the quantum cloud. (There won't be a quantum computer on every desk, but perhaps a quantum terminal.) The jury is still out on who will win the quantum computing race. But the country that can fuse quantum computing with real-world systems, from intelligent supply chains to brain-computer interfaces, will play a leading role in the future of computation. The winner may not be the one with the first universal quantum computer, but the one that builds the first quantum-powered infrastructure of the 21st century.
