Explainer: What is a quantum computer? – MIT Technology Review

This is the first in a series of explainers on quantum technology. The other two are on quantum communication and post-quantum cryptography.

A quantum computer harnesses some of the almost-mystical phenomena of quantum mechanics to deliver huge leaps forward in processing power. Quantum machines promise to outstrip even the most capable of todaysand tomorrowssupercomputers.

They wont wipe out conventional computers, though. Using a classical machine will still be the easiest and most economical solution for tackling most problems. But quantum computers promise to power exciting advances in various fields, from materials science to pharmaceuticals research. Companies are already experimenting with them to develop things like lighter and more powerful batteries for electric cars, and to help create novel drugs.

The secret to a quantum computers power lies in its ability to generate and manipulate quantum bits, or qubits.

What is a qubit?

Today's computers use bitsa stream of electrical or optical pulses representing1s or0s. Everything from your tweets and e-mails to your iTunes songs and YouTube videos are essentially long strings of these binary digits.

Quantum computers, on the other hand, usequbits, whichare typically subatomic particles such as electrons or photons. Generating and managing qubits is a scientific and engineering challenge. Some companies, such as IBM, Google, and Rigetti Computing, use superconducting circuits cooled to temperatures colder than deep space. Others, like IonQ, trap individual atoms in electromagnetic fields on a silicon chip in ultra-high-vacuum chambers. In both cases, the goal is to isolate the qubits in a controlled quantum state.

Qubits have some quirky quantum properties that mean a connected group of them can provide way more processing power than the same number of binary bits. One of those properties is known as superposition and another is called entanglement.

Qubits can represent numerous possible combinations of 1and 0 at the same time. This ability to simultaneously be in multiple states is called superposition. To put qubits into superposition, researchers manipulate them using precision lasers or microwave beams.

Thanks to this counterintuitive phenomenon, a quantum computer with several qubits in superposition can crunch through a vast number of potential outcomes simultaneously. The final result of a calculation emerges only once the qubits are measured, which immediately causes their quantum state to collapse to either 1or 0.

Researchers can generate pairs of qubits that are entangled, which means the two members of a pair exist in a single quantum state. Changing the state of one of the qubits will instantaneously change the state of the other one in a predictable way. This happens even if they are separated by very long distances.

Nobody really knows quite how or why entanglement works. It even baffled Einstein, who famously described it as spooky action at a distance. But its key to the power of quantum computers. In a conventional computer, doubling the number of bits doubles its processing power. But thanks to entanglement, adding extra qubits to a quantum machine produces an exponential increase in its number-crunching ability.

Quantum computers harness entangled qubits in a kind of quantum daisy chain to work their magic. The machines ability to speed up calculations using specially designed quantum algorithms is why theres so much buzz about their potential.

Thats the good news. The bad news is that quantum machines are way more error-prone than classical computers because of decoherence.

The interaction of qubits with their environment in ways that cause their quantum behavior to decay and ultimately disappear is called decoherence. Their quantum state is extremely fragile. The slightest vibration or change in temperaturedisturbances known as noise in quantum-speakcan cause them to tumble out of superposition before their job has been properly done. Thats why researchers do their best to protect qubits from the outside world in those supercooled fridges and vacuum chambers.

But despite their efforts, noise still causes lots of errors to creep into calculations. Smart quantum algorithmscan compensate for some of these, and adding more qubits also helps. However, it will likely take thousands of standard qubits to create a single, highly reliable one, known as a logical qubit. This will sap a lot of a quantum computers computational capacity.

And theres the rub: so far, researchers havent been able to generate more than 128 standard qubits (see our qubit counter here). So were still many years away from getting quantum computers that will be broadly useful.

That hasnt dented pioneers hopes of being the first to demonstrate quantum supremacy.

What is quantum supremacy?

Its the point at which a quantum computer can complete a mathematical calculation that is demonstrably beyond the reach of even the most powerful supercomputer.

Its still unclear exactly how many qubits will be needed to achieve this because researchers keep finding new algorithms to boost the performance of classical machines, and supercomputing hardware keeps getting better. But researchers and companies are working hard to claim the title, running testsagainst some of the worlds most powerful supercomputers.

Theres plenty of debate in the research world about just how significant achieving this milestone will be. Rather than wait for supremacy to be declared, companies are already starting to experiment with quantum computers made by companies like IBM, Rigetti, and D-Wave, a Canadian firm. Chinese firms like Alibaba are also offering access to quantum machines. Some businesses are buying quantum computers, while others are using ones made available through cloud computing services.

Where is a quantum computer likely to be most useful first?

One of the most promising applications of quantum computers is for simulating the behavior of matterdown to the molecular level. Auto manufacturers like Volkswagen and Daimler are using quantum computers to simulate the chemical composition of electrical-vehicle batteries to help find new ways to improve their performance. And pharmaceutical companies are leveraging them to analyze and compare compounds that could lead to the creation of new drugs.

The machines are also great for optimization problems because they can crunch through vast numbers of potential solutions extremely fast. Airbus, for instance, is using them to help calculate the most fuel-efficient ascent and descent paths for aircraft. And Volkswagen has unveiled a service that calculates the optimal routes for buses and taxis in cities in order to minimize congestion. Some researchers also think the machines could be used to accelerate artificial intelligence.

It could take quite a few years for quantum computers to achieve their full potential. Universities and businesses working on them are facing a shortage of skilled researchersin the fieldand a lack of suppliersof some key components. But if these exotic new computing machines live up to their promise, they could transform entire industries and turbocharge global innovation.

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Explainer: What is a quantum computer? - MIT Technology Review

What Is Quantum Computing? A Super-Easy Explanation For Anyone

Its fascinating to think about the power in our pockettodays smartphones have the computing power of a military computer from 50 years ago that was the size of an entire room. However, even with the phenomenal strides we made in technology and classical computers since the onset of the computer revolution, there remain problems that classical computers just cant solve. Many believe quantum computers are the answer.

The Limits of Classical Computers

Now that we have made the switching and memory units of computers, known as transistors, almost as small as an atom, we need to find an entirely new way of thinking about and building computers. Even though a classical computer helps us do many amazing things, under the hood its really just a calculator that uses a sequence of bitsvalues of 0 and 1 to represent two states (think on and off switch) to makes sense of and decisions about the data we input following a prearranged set of instructions. Quantum computers are not intended to replace classical computers, they are expected to be a different tool we will use to solve complex problems that are beyond the capabilities of a classical computer.

Basically, as we are entering a big data world in which the information we need to store grows, there is a need for more ones and zeros and transistors to process it. For the most part classical computers are limited to doing one thing at a time, so the more complex the problem, the longer it takes. A problem that requires more power and time than todays computers can accommodate is called an intractable problem. These are the problems that quantum computers are predicted to solve.

The Power of Quantum Computers

When you enter the world of atomic and subatomic particles, things begin to behave in unexpected ways. In fact, these particles can exist in more than one state at a time. Its this ability that quantum computers take advantage of.

Instead of bits, which conventional computers use, a quantum computer uses quantum bitsknown as qubits. To illustrate the difference, imagine a sphere. A bit can be at either of the two poles of the sphere, but a qubit can exist at any point on the sphere. So, this means that a computer using qubits can store an enormous amount of information and uses less energy doing so than a classical computer. By entering into this quantum area of computing where the traditional laws of physics no longer apply, we will be able to create processors that are significantly faster (a million or more times) than the ones we use today. Sounds fantastic, but the challenge is that quantum computing is also incredibly complex.

The pressure is on the computer industry to find ways to make computing more efficient, since we reached the limits of energy efficiency using classical methods. By 2040, according to a report by the Semiconductor Industry Association, we will no longer have the capability to power all of the machines around the world. Thats precisely why the computer industry is racing to make quantum computers work on a commercial scale. No small feat, but one that will pay extraordinary dividends.

How our world will change with quantum computing

Its difficult to predict how quantum computing will change our world simply because there will be applications in all industries. Were venturing into an entirely new realm of physics and there will be solutions and uses we have never even thought of yet. But when you consider how much classical computers revolutionized our world with a relatively simple use of bits and two options of 0 or 1, you can imagine the extraordinary possibilities when you have the processing power of qubits that can perform millions of calculations at the same moment.

What we do know is that it will be game-changing for every industry and will have a huge impact in the way we do business, invent new medicine and materials, safeguard our data, explore space, and predict weather events and climate change. Its no coincidence that some of the worlds most influential companies such as IBM and Google and the worlds governments are investing in quantum computing technology. They are expecting quantum computing to change our world because it will allow us to solve problems and experience efficiencies that arent possible today. In another post, I dig deeper into how quantum computing will change our world.

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What Is Quantum Computing? A Super-Easy Explanation For Anyone

Why Quantum Computing Gets Special Attention In The Trump Administration’s Budget Proposal – Texas Standard

The Trump administrations fiscal year 2021 budget proposal includes significant increases in funding for artificial intelligence and quantum computing, while cutting overall research and development spending. If Congress agrees to it, artificial intelligence, or AI, funding would nearly double, and quantum computing would receive a 50% boost over last years budget, doubling in 2022, to $860 million. The administration says these two fields of research are important to U.S. national security, in part because China also invests heavily in these fields.

Quantum computing uses quantum mechanics to solve highly complex problems more quickly than they can be solved by standard or classical computers. Though fully functional quantum computers dont yet exist, scientists at academic institutions, as well as at IBM, Google and other companies, are working to build such systems.

Scott Aaronson is a professor of computer science and the founding director of the Quantum Information Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He says applications for quantum computing include simulation of chemistry and physics problems. These simulations enable scientists to design new materials, drugs, superconductors and solar cells, among other applications.

Aaronson says the governments role is to support basic scientific research the kind needed to build and perfect quantum computers.

We do not yet know how to build a fully scalable quantum computer. The quantum version of the transistor, if you like, has not been invented yet, Aaronson says.

On the software front, researchers have not yet developed applications that take full advantage of quantum computings capabilities.

Thats often misrepresented in the popular press, where its claimed that a quantum computer is just a black box that does everything, Aaronson says.

Competition between the U.S. and China in quantum computing revolves, in part, around the role such a system could play in breaking the encryption that makes things secure on the internet.

Truly useful quantum computing applications could be as much as a decade away, Aaronson says. Initially, these tools would be highly specialized.

The way I put it is that were now entering the very, very early, vacuum-tube era of quantum computers, he says.

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Why Quantum Computing Gets Special Attention In The Trump Administration's Budget Proposal - Texas Standard

The $600 quantum computer that could spell the end for conventional encryption – BetaNews

Concerns that quantum computing could place current encryption techniques at risk have been around for some time.

But now cybersecurity startup Active Cypher has built a password-hacking quantum computer to demonstrate that the dangers are very real.

Using easily available parts costing just $600, Active Cyphers founder and CTO, Dan Gleason, created a portable quantum computer dubbed QUBY (named after qubits, the basic unit of quantum information). QUBY runs recently open-sourced quantum algorithms capable of executing within a quantum emulator that can perform cryptographic cracking algorithms. Calculations that would have otherwise taken years on conventional computers are now performed in seconds on QUBY.

Gleason explains, "After years of foreseeing this danger and trying to warn the cybersecurity community that current cybersecurity protocols were not up to par, I decided to take a week and move my theory to prototype. I hope that QUBY can increase awareness of how the cyberthreats of quantum computing are not reserved to billion-dollar state-sponsored projects, but can be seen on much a smaller, localized scale."

The concern is that quantum computing will lead to the sunset of AES-256 (the current encryption standard), meaning all encrypted files could one day be decrypted. "The disruption that will come about from that will be on an unprecedented, global scale. It's going to be massive," says Gleason. Modelled after the SADM, a man-portable nuclear weapon deployed in the 1960s, QUBY was downsized so that it fits in a backpack and is therefore untraceable. Low-level 'neighborhood hackers' have already been using portable devices that can surreptitiously swipe credit card information from an unsuspecting passerby. Quantum compute emulating devices will open the door for significantly more cyberthreats.

In response to the threat, Active Cypher has developed advanced dynamic cyphering encryption that is built to be quantum resilient. Gleason explains that, "Our encryption is not based on solving a mathematical problem. It's based on a very large, random key which is used in creating the obfuscated cyphertext, without any key information within the cyphertext, and is thus impossible to be derived through prime factorization -- traditional brute force attempts which use the cyphertext to extract key information from patterns derived from the key material."

Active Cypher's completely random cyphertext cannot be deciphered using even large quantum computers since the only solution to cracking the key is to try every possible combination of the key, which will produce every known possible output of the text, without knowledge of which version might be the correct one. "In other words, you'll find a greater chance of finding a specific grain of sand in a desert than cracking this open," says Gleason.

Active Cypher showcased QUBY in early February at Ready -- an internal Microsoft conference held in Seattle. The prototype will also be presented at RSA in San Francisco later this month.

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The $600 quantum computer that could spell the end for conventional encryption - BetaNews

This Breakthrough Just Got Us One Step Closer to a Quantum Internet – Singularity Hub

While quantum computing tends to garner all the headlines, quantum technology also has huge promise for the communication networks of the future. Thats why on top of the roughly $450 million the Trump administration just earmarked for quantum research in their proposed budget, theres $25 million dedicated to building a nationwide quantum internet.

At what point a quantum network becomes the quantum internet is up for debate, but its likely to develop in phases of increasing sophistication, with the ultimate goal being a global network of quantum-connected quantum computers.

The US is well behind China on this front, though. A team led by quantum supremo Jian-Wei Pan have already demonstrated a host of breakthroughs in transmitting quantum signals to satellites, most recently developing a mobile quantum satellite station.

The reason both countries are rushing to develop the technology is that it could provide an ultra-secure communication channel in an era where cyberwarfare is becoming increasingly common.

Its essentially impossible to eavesdrop on a quantum conversation. The strange rules of quantum mechanics mean that measuring a quantum state immediately changes it, so any message encoded in quantum states will be corrupted if someone tries to intercept it.

But quantum states are also intrinsically fragile, which has made it difficult to establish quantum connections over large distances. But a team led by Pan has reported smashing the record for connecting two quantum memories in a paper in Nature.

Making a quantum connection relies on a phenomenon known as entanglement. If the states of two quantum objects are entangled, manipulating or measuring the state of one will be mirrored in the other. In theory this allows you to transmit quantum information instantaneously over very large distances.

So far most research has been done on entangled photonsincluding Pans work on quantum satellitesbut single particles can only carry limited information. Quantum memories, which are made up of clouds of millions of rubidium atoms, can store more, but the biggest distance theyd previously been entangled over was 1.3 kilometers.

Pans team came up with a clever workaround, as John Timmer explains in Ars Technica. Each quantum memory is set by shooting a photon at it, which causes the memory to emit another photon that is entangled with the state of the memory. This photon is then converted to an infrared wavelength so it can be transmitted over fiber optic cable.

The photons from each memory meet at a halfway point where they are measured in such a way that they become entangled. Because each was already entangled with their respective memories, these both become entangled as well, setting up the quantum connection.

The researchers carried out two experiments, one where they transmitted photons over 22 kilometers of cable buried underground between two separate facilities and one where they sent the particles around a 50-kilometer spool of optical cable in their lab.

The authors say those kinds of distances make it feasible to connect cities on a quantum internet and could be used to create quantum repeaters, a series of nodes that help boost the signal over longer distances.

But theres still some way to go. The process of converting the photons into a form that can travel along the fiber optic loses about 30 percent of the photons. The complex process involved in entangling the two photons also leads to further inefficiencies, which means theyre only able to successfully entangle photons roughly twice a second.

Thats a problem, because the memories only hold their state for 70 microseconds. The researchers admit they likely need to both boost the lifetime of the memories and the rate of entanglement for this approach to work in practice.

Its early, but the research is a significant step towards a quantum internet. If the US wants to play any part in its development, its going to have to play catch-up.

Image Credit: Garik Barseghyan from Pixabay

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This Breakthrough Just Got Us One Step Closer to a Quantum Internet - Singularity Hub

Russian Quantum Center and Nissan have launched a project in the field of quantum chemistry – Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

Modeling of complex systems such as materials, batteries, and medicines is extremely difficult for existing computers. The next generation of computing devices, which are quantum computers, will be able to solve such problems more efficiently. As a result, the business will be able to find practical solutions such as modeling of new materials, production of devices of a new class from such materials, and selection of optimal characteristics or reactions inside these materials, which are necessary for increasing the subsequent efficiency. One of the real challenges for the industry and business is the modeling of chemical compounds used in the batteries manufacturing process.

As part of the project, we are developing quantum chemistry methods using machine learning and quantum optimization. We plan to integrate the developed methods into the material design system, which is used today in Nissan. This will allow Nissan to unlock the huge potential of quantum computing for its tasks, and in the future, to achieve technological leadership, said Alexey Fedorov, Head of the Group Quantum Information Technologies RQC, Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics.

Quantum technologies are promising for solving many industrial challenges. The materials that can be created with quantum chemistry will significantly increase the power and capacity of batteries. As a result, we will get the opportunity to create highly efficient and environmentally-friendly transport, as well as new solutions. The future is behind these technologies and, together with our partner, Russian Quantum Center, we are striving to become a pioneer in this industry, said Shigeo Ibuka, Head of Nissan R&D center in Russia, Ph.D. in Physics.

In the long term, the use of quantum technologies will significantly reduce the time for the development of new materials, as well as predict their compliance with the requirements of industry and business. The RQC team will conduct research using both existing quantum computers and their own-developed quantum-inspired algorithms.

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Russian Quantum Center and Nissan have launched a project in the field of quantum chemistry - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

Can All Of Bitcoin Be Hacked? – Forbes

$280 billion rides on the proposition that cryptocurrency is impregnable. Maybe it isnt.

Machinery in an IBM quantum computing lab (photo by Seth Wenig)

Call it the singularity. One day, maybe a decade from now, a message flashes across the internet: Elliptic curves cracked!

Elliptic curve cryptography, or ECC, is the foundation beneath bitcoin. Wouldnt the discovery of a hole in this code destroy the currencyand take down any coin exchange?

I posed the question to Brian Armstrong, who co-founded and runs Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange. He cant prove that there wont be some mathematical shortcut compromising bitcoin keys. But he considers the risk low.

Ten years in, there's a ton of people who have looked at this code, he answered, in an interview at the Coinbase headquarters in San Francisco. It's a hundred-billion-dollar bounty. So I think that scenario is very unlikely.

Bitcoin plus the lesser currencies that compete with it amount to a $280 billion asset pile, a tempting target for bad guys. From bitcoins earliest days, hacks, cracks, hijacks, phishes, vishes, and social engineering have threatened it. So far the successful assaults on this industry have been around the edges; even the big heist at Mt. Gox did not kill cryptocurrency.

But what if thieves discover a fundamental vulnerability? It might be in the way the encryption works. It might be in the global network of computer nodes that track ownership of bitcoin. It might be in some aspect of crypto that no one is thinking much about.

Crypto players offer two answers to the question about cosmic risks. One is that the system might see an asteroid coming and take defensive measures. If bitcoins 11-year-old encryption proves to have a weak spot, the nodes could move en masse to a different protocol. They might be able to do this before any coins have been stolen. Alternatively, they could hark back to an earlier version of the blockchain that was in place before a theft; this is how the Ethereum chain partly undid some skulduggery involving the DAO venture capital fund.

The other answer, not entirely reassuring, is that a lot more than bitcoin is at stake. Says Philip Martin, head of security for Coinbase: A core math problem? Were talking the collapse of the internet. Trillions of dollars course through electronic networks protected with encryption. So, for what its worth, in the digital apocalypse an implosion of bitcoin would be the least of our concerns.

Lets now consider some of the weaknesses that envelop digital currency.

Bad implementation

Once upon a time Sony used elliptic curves to protect its PlayStation. In order to run, a game would have to provide a digital signature constructed from Sonys secret key, the same kind of key that protects your bitcoin. The signature routine uses, as one of its inputs, a different randomly chosen number for each validating signature.

Sony goofed, recycling the same number. It turns out that this enabled anyone possessing two legitimate games and a knowledge of high-school algebra to compute the secret key and run pirated games. Andrea Corbellini, a cryptographer who has explained the flaw, speculates that Sony might have been inspired by this Dilbert cartoon.

You might think that all such potholes were found long ago and repaired. But no. Recently the National Security Agency reported on a flaw in a Microsoft browser that made a mistake in delivering the digital signatures that verify websites as legitimate. ECC calls for using a specific starting point. The flaw enabled a website to slip in a different point. With just the right substitute, a malicious site could have forged a signature and stolen the password for your bank account.

Microsoft quickly patched the hole. But it makes you wonder. Could there be other holes in some or all of the software used to hold and transfer virtual currencies?

Crypto managers are on guard. Says Martin, the Coinbase security guy: I am much more scared of an implementation flaw in a library than I am of a flaw in the underlying math.

Some bitcoin owners, trying to manage their own coin wallets, have made the same mistake Sony did with its game console. Writes one security expert: A lot of Russian bitcoin hackers have coded bots to automatically grab coins from vulnerable addresses. Presumably you have nothing to worry about if you hire experts to manage your wallet.

Social engineering

A crook doesnt have to know algebra to steal bitcoin. Good acting might do it.

Jamie Armistead is a vice president at Early Warning, the bank consortium that runs the Zelle payments network. Is there a risk that someone will crack the encryption that protects the money coursing through Zelle? Answers Armistead: Its not hacking that keeps him awake at night. Its phishing, like the false email to the corporate treasurer.

Vishing, a variant of phishing involving voice commands, is a security risk. So is device hijacking, in which the thief gets control of your smartphone account. So are all manner of man-in-the-middle attacks, the electronic version of a football pass interception. Cybersecurity engineers constantly update communication protocols to prevent that. They can barely keep up.

Could a hoax on a grand scale cause a majority of bitcoin nodes to simultaneously make a fatal mistake? It would have to be rather byzantine. Its conceivable.

Mathematical hacks

Encryption methods in common use look secure, because they have been studied for many years by many people. But they are not provably secure. Someone might discover a way to tunnel into them.

Encryption works by scrambling numbers. One way to do that, in the scheme named RSA (after inventors Rivest, Shamir and Adleman) that is still widely used to secure sensitive data, involves exponentiation and modular arithmetic. When you multiply 4 by itself 3 times, 3 is the exponent and you get 64. In modulo 11, you divide this by 11 and consider only the remainder 9.

With small numbers like these, this is a meaningless exercise. But cryptography uses gigantic numbers, and those numbers get shuffled into a giant mess. To get a sense of this, try out the exponentiation/modular game on our small numbers: 2 turns into 8, 3 into 5, 4 into 9 and so on. The only way to unshuffle is to know a certain secret about the modulo. This secret relates to some mathematical formulas that go back a long ways. A 17th century Frenchman named Fermat played an important role.

The other big shuffling scheme is ECC. This involves the modular multiplying of not single numbers but pairs of them. Think of the pair as the coordinates on a map. The multiplying is weird: To double a pair, you dont just move it twice as far from the corner; you bounce it off an elliptic curve. This scrambles all the points on the map. In cryptography, the starting point is not merely doubled; it is multiplied by a gigantic number. This really scrambles the map. That giant number, kept secret, is the key that unlocks a bitcoin.

RSA and ECC both have this feature: Someone who possesses the secret can prove that he possesses it without revealing it.

These two protection schemes rely on the apparent difficulty of certain arithmetic tasks. In the case of RSA, its finding the two numbers that were multiplied together to arrive at the modulo; in the case of ECC, its dividing the end point by the starting point to determine the multiplier. Difficult means taking trillions of years of guesswork on a laptop.

Unless shortcuts are found. For RSA, a well-known shortcut to factoring numbers involves a number sieve. For ECC, theres a big step, little step algorithm that dramatically reduces the computation time. At this point, these tricks go only so far. The difficulty, for a key of a given size, might be measured in billions rather than trillions of years.

For reassurance about the safety of the crypto market and of internet commerce we go back to what Brian Armstrong said: There is a large incentive to find a killer shortcut, and evidently no one has found one. But there is no way to know that no vastly better tricks are about to be discovered.

Fermat, the French mathematician, conjectured a simple fact about exponents of numbers that looked true but couldnt be proved. For three centuries people labored to prove it and failed. And then one day not too long ago a proof was discovered. It relied, in part, on elliptic curves.

Quantum computers

Computers using quantum effects could, in theory, shrink the time for decoding an encrypted message from billions of years to hours. One such theory, for cracking RSA, dates to 1994.

In October Google sent a shiver through the cryptography world by announcing quantum supremacy. An experimental quantum device, the company said, did in 200 seconds what would have taken a conventional computer 10,000 years. Thats debatable; some researchers at IBM claimed that Google overstated the time difference by six orders of magnitude. Still, quantum computing is a threat.

Not an immediate one. The task in the Google experiment was designed specifically for the limited skills of quantum computing elements. These skills are a long way from those needed to crack codes. The 1994 algorithm is not in use because the hardware for it exists only on paper.

But ten years from now? We dont know where quantum computing will be.

Back door

For an encryption routine the anonymous creator(s) of bitcoin plucked an elliptic curve off the shelf. This curve was designed by the federal government. Were the parameters devilishly selected in a way to create mathematical vulnerabilities? Does the National Security Agency have a back door to your coins? Probably not. But you cannot be sure. Governments are not in sympathy with the anarchist philosophy underlying cryptocurrency.

Since cryptos creation, thousands of coins have been pilfered in hacks, scams and Ponzi schemes. These will continue. As for the big knockover, in which the whole system is taken down, we can say that the probability is low. But it is not zero.

Related story: Guide To Cryptocurrency Tax Rules

Corbellinis primer

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Can All Of Bitcoin Be Hacked? - Forbes

QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES Market: Comprehensive study explores Huge Growth in Future | D-Wave Systems Inc., IBM Corporation, Lockheed Martin…

The QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES market research report added by Report Ocean, is an in-depth analysis of the latest trends, market size, status, upcoming technologies, industry drivers, challenges, regulatory policies, with key company profiles and strategies of players. The research study provides market introduction, QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES market definition, regional market scope, sales and revenue by region, manufacturing cost analysis, Industrial Chain, market effect factors analysis, QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES market size forecast, 100+ market data, Tables, Pie Chart, Graphs and Figures, and many more for business intelligence.

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D-Wave Systems Inc.IBM CorporationLockheed Martin CorporationIntel CorporationAnyon Systems Inc.Cambridge Quantum Computing Limited

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QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES Market: Insights

Global Quantum Computing Technologies Market valued approximately USD 75.0 million in 2018 is anticipated to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than 24.0% over the forecast period 2019-2026. The Quantum Computing Technologies Market is continuously growing in the global scenario at significant pace. As it is recognized as a computer technology based on the principles of quantum theory, which explains the nature and behavior of energy and matter on the quantum level. A Quantum computer follows the laws of quantum physics through which it can gain enormous power, have the ability to be in multiple states and perform tasks using all possible permutations simultaneously. Surging implementation of machine learning by quantum computer, escalating application in cryptography and capability in simulating intricate systems are the substantial driving factors of the market during the forecast period. Moreover, rising adoption & utility in cyber security is the factors that likely to create numerous opportunity in the near future. However, lack of skilled professionals is one of the major factors that restraining the growth of the market during the forecast period.

The regional analysis of Global Quantum Computing Technologies Market is considered for the key regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. North America is the leading/significant region across the world in terms of market share due to increasing usage of quantum computers by government agencies and aerospace & defense for machine learning in the region. Europe is estimated to grow at second largest region in the global Quantum Computing Technologies market over the upcoming years. Further, Asia-Pacific is anticipated to exhibit higher growth rate / CAGR over the forecast period 2019-2026 due to rising adoption of quantum computers by BFSI sectors in the region.

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By Application:OptimizationMachine LearningSimulation

By Vertical:BFSIIT and TelecommunicationHealthcareTransportationGovernmentAerospace & DefenseOthers

Other Report Highlights Competitive Landscape Sales, Market Share, Geographical Presence, Business Segments Product Benchmarking. Market Dynamics Drivers and Restraints. Market Trends. Porter Five Forces Analysis. SWOT Analysis.

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Historical year 2013-2017

Base year 2018

Forecast period** 2019 to 2025 [** unless otherwise stated]

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The market research study offers in-depth regional analysis along with the current market scenarios. The major regions analyzed in the study are:

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Questions answered in the QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES market research report:

Key highlights and important features of the Report:

Overview and highlights of product and application segments of the global QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES Market are provided. Highlights of the segmentation study include price, revenue, sales, sales growth rate, and market share by product.

Explore about Sales data of key players of the global QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES Market as well as some useful information on their business. It talks about the gross margin, price, revenue, products, and their specifications, type, applications, competitors, manufacturing base, and the main business of key players operating in the QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES Market.

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Describe QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES Market Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;

Research Methodology:

We identify the major drivers and restraints for every region (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, & Middle East) of any particular market with a weightage value of how it is impacting the market. For each driver and restraint, we provide weightage in short term, medium term, and long term. Here the driver acts as a pull factor and restraint as a push factor.

Primary ResearchKey players in the market are identified through review of secondary sources such as industry whitepapers, annual reports, published reports by credible agencies, financial reports and published interviews of Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) from leading companies. During the primary interviews, KOLs also suggested some producers that are included under the initial scope of the study. We further refined company profile section by adding suggested producers by KOLs. KOLs include Chief Executive Officer (CEO), general managers, vice presidents, sales directors, market executives, R&D directors, product managers, procurement managers, export managers etc. During the research process, all the major stakeholders across the value chain are contacted for conducting primary interviews.

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There are 15 Chapters to display the Global QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES Market:

Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES, Applications of, Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, Export & Import, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia, Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to explore the Market Analysis by Application Major Manufacturers Analysis;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type, Market Trend by Application;Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Global QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES by region, type and application;Chapter 12, to describe QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.

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QUANTUM COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES Market: Comprehensive study explores Huge Growth in Future | D-Wave Systems Inc., IBM Corporation, Lockheed Martin...

Quantum Internet Workshop Begins Mapping the Future of Quantum Communications – Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

Building on the efforts of the Chicago Quantum Exchange at the University of Chicago, Argonne and Fermi National Laboratories, and LiQuIDNet (Long Island Quantum Distribution Network) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University, the event was organized by Brookhaven. The technical program committee was co-chaired by Kerstin Kleese Van Dam, director of the Computational Science Initiative at Brookhaven, and Inder Monga, director of ESnet at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

The dollars we have put into quantum information science have increased by about fivefold over the last three years, Dabbar told the New York Times on February 10 after the Trump Administration announced a new budget proposal that includes significant funding for quantum information science, including the quantum Internet.

In parallel with the growing interest and investment in creating viable quantum computing technologies, researchers believe that a quantum Internet could have a profound impact on a number of application areas critical to science, national security, and industry. Application areas include upscaling of quantum computing by helping connect distributed quantum computers, quantum sensing through a network of quantum telescopes, quantum metrology, and secure communications.

Toward this end, the workshop explored the specific research and engineering advances needed to build a quantum Internet in the near term, along with what is needed to move from todays limited local network experiments to a viable, secure quantum Internet.

This meeting was a great first step in identifying what will be needed to create a quantum Internet, said Monga, noting that ESnet engineers have been helping Brookhaven and Stony Brook researchers build the fiber infrastructure to test some of the initial devices and techniques that are expected to play a key role in enabling long-distance quantum communications. The group was very engaged and is looking to define a blueprint. They identified a clear research roadmap with many grand challenges and are cautiously optimistic on the timeframe to accomplish that vision.

Berkeley Labs Thomas Schenkel was the Labs point of contact for the workshop, a co-organizer, and co-chair of the quantum networking control hardware breakout session. ESnets Michael Blodgett also attended the workshop.

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Quantum Internet Workshop Begins Mapping the Future of Quantum Communications - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

Please check your data: A self-driving car dataset failed to label hundreds of pedestrians, thousands of vehicles – The Register

Roundup It's a long weekend in the US, though sadly not in Blighty. So, for those of you starting your week, here's some bite-sized machine-learning news, beyond what we've recently covered, if that's your jam.

Check your training data: A popular dataset for training self-driving vehicles, including an open-source autonomous car system, failed to correctly label hundreds of pedestrians and thousands of vehicles.

Brad Dwyer, founder of Roboflow, a startup focused on building data science tools, discovered the errors when he started digging into the dataset compiled by Udacity, an online education platform.

I first noticed images that were missing annotations, Dwyer told The Register. That led me to dig in deeper and check some of the other images. I found so many errors I ended up going through all 15,000 images because I didnt want to re-share a dataset that had such obvious errors.

After flicking through each image, he found that 33 per cent of them contained mistakes. Thousands of vehicles, hundreds of pedestrians, and dozens of cyclists were not labelled. Some of the bounding boxes around objects were duplicated or needlessly oversized too.

Training an autonomous car on such an incomplete dataset could potentially be dangerous. The collection was pulled together to make it easier for engineers to collaborate and build a self-driving car. Thankfully, a project to develop such a system using this information seems to have died down since it launched more than three years ago.

Udacity created this dataset years ago as a tool purely for educational purposes, back when self-driving car datasets were very hard to come by, and those learning the skills needed to develop a career in this field lacked adequate training resources, a Udacity spokesperson told El Reg.

At the time it was helpful to the researchers and engineers who were transitioning into the autonomous vehicle community. In the intervening years, companies like Waymo, nuTonomy, and Voyage have published newer, better datasets intended for real-world scenarios. As a result, our project hasn't been active for three years.

We make no representations that the dataset is fully labeled or complete. Any attempts to show this educational data set as an actual dataset are both misleading and unhelpful. Udacity's self-driving car currently operates for educational purposes only on a closed test track. Our car has not operated on public streets for several years, so our car poses no risk to the public.

Roboflow has since corrected the errors on the dataset, and issued an improved version.

Standing up to patent trolls works: Mycroft AI, a startup building an open-source voice-controlled assistant for Linux-based devices, was sued for allegedly infringing a couple of patents, as we reported earlier this month.

Mycrofts CEO Joshua Montgomery spoke to The Register about his strong suspicions that he was being targeted by a so-called patent troll. His biz was told by a lawyer representing the patents' owner to cough up a license fee, and when Montgomery ignored the request, a patent-infringement lawsuit was filed against his company.

The mysterious patent owner, Voice Tech Corp, turned out to a brand new company in Texas, USA, and its address was someones bungalow, according to court filings. All of that fueled the growing speculation that, yes, Voice Tech Corp, was probably a patent troll.

Now, after facing sufficient resistance from Mycroft, Voice Tech Corp has dropped its case. Montgomery threatened to fight the lawsuit all the way to get Voice Tech Corps patents invalidated so that no other startup would have to face the same problem.

More Clearview drama: The controversial facial-recognition outfit that admitted to harvesting more than three billion publicly shared photos from social media sites is back in the news again.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed it is trying to get Clearview to remove the claim from its marketing that its facial recognition code was verified using a methodology used by the ACLU. The rights warriors said they had no involvement in the product and do not endorse it. In fact, the union is pretty much against everything Clearview is doing.

Clearview boasts that its technology is 99 per cent accurate following numerous tests. Buzzfeed News, however, reckons it is nowhere near that good. The upstart previously said its algorithms helped police in New York City catch a terrorist planning to plant fake bombs on the subway. NYPD denied using Clearviews software.

Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have sent Clearview cease-and-desist letters demanding the startup stop scraping images of their platforms, and to delete those in its database. In a bizarre interview, Clearviews CEO fought back and said he believed that since all the photos were public, his stateside company, therefore, had a First Amendment right to public information." Er, yeah right.

Public funding for AI, 5G: President Donald Trump has vowed to spend more of US taxpayers' money on the research and development of emergent technologies, such as AI, quantum computing, and 5G, than traditional sciences.

The Budget prioritizes accelerating AI solutions, according to a proposal, subject to congressional approval, published this week. Along with quantum information sciences, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, and 5G research and development (R&D), these technologies will be at the forefront of shaping future economies.

The Budget proposes large increases for key industries, including doubling AI and quantum information sciences R&D by 2022 as part of an all-of-Government approach to ensure the United States leads the world in these areas well into the future.

Trump pledged to spend $142.2bn in R&D for the next fiscal year, nine per cent less than this year. While AI and quantum computing are favored, there's less federal funding for general research and development for the other sciences.

The Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and others, will see cuts. The DOEs Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) will be particularly hard hit: not only does the proposed budget effectively eliminate the agency, it must pay back $311m to the treasury.

You can read more about the proposed budget for the fiscal year of 2021, here.

CEO of AI startup steps down over allegations: The CEO of Clinc, a small artificial-intelligence outfit spun out of the University of Michigan, has resigned following claims he sexually harassed employees and customers.

Jason Mars, an assistant professor of computer science at the university, was accused of physically accosting clients, making lewd comments about female employees and interns, and hiring a prostitute during a work trip.

In an email to employees at Clinc, first reported by The Verge, Mars said the allegations against him were rife with embellishments and fabrications. He did, however, admit to drinking too much and partying with staff in a way thats not becoming of a CEO.

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Please check your data: A self-driving car dataset failed to label hundreds of pedestrians, thousands of vehicles - The Register

Daily AI Roundup: The Coolest Things on Earth Today – AiThority

Todays Daily AI Roundup covers the latest Artificial Intelligence announcements on AI capabilities, AI mobility products, Robotic Service, Technology from IBM, Comscore, Arista Networks, Cisco, Atos and DJI.

IBM and Delta Air Lines announced that the global airline is embarking on a multi-year collaborative effort with IBM including joining the IBM Q Network to explore the potential capabilities of quantum computing to transform experiences for customers and employees.

New research from Comscore, a trusted partner for planning, transacting and evaluating media across platforms, found that for the 4th month in a row, Toyota RAV4 was the most shopped new vehicle model market wide.

Arista Networks announced the acquisition of Big Switch Networks, a network monitoring and SDN (Software Defined Networking) company. Arista Networks provides a complete and visionary cloud networking suite, with rich capabilities in all critical areas of the campus, data center and public cloud.

Cisco announced that it has joined Facebooks Express Wi-Fi Technology Partner Program to close the digital divide and enable more people around the world to get connected to a faster, better internet.

Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, announced that it has expanded its collaboration with Microsoft to jointly address the fast-growing SAP HANA market, targeting the most demanding customers, many of whom are running mission-critical SAP workloads.

Talk of drones might have circled around military uses lately, but drones are actually being used to do good around the world. With its #DronesforGood campaign, DJIwishes to make people aware of the many ways in which drones can make our lives better and help keep us safe.

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Daily AI Roundup: The Coolest Things on Earth Today - AiThority

Quantum Computing Market 2020 Trends, Market Share, Industry Size, Opportunities, Analysis and Forecast by 2026 – Instant Tech News

Quantum Computing Market Overview:

Global Quantum Computing Market was valued at USD 89.35 million in 2016 and is projected to reach USD 948.82 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 30.02% from 2017 to 2025.

In the report, we thoroughly examine and analyze the Global market for Quantum Computing so that market participants can improve their business strategy and ensure long-term success. The reports authors used easy-to-understand language and complex statistical images, but provided detailed information and data on the global Quantum Computing market. This report provides players with useful information and suggests result-based ideas to give them a competitive advantage in the global Quantum Computing market. Show how other players compete in the global Quantum Computing market and explain the strategies you use to differentiate yourself from other participants.

The researchers provided quantitative and qualitative analyzes with evaluations of the absolute dollar opportunity in the report. The report also includes an analysis of Porters Five Forces and PESTLE for more detailed comparisons and other important studies. Each section of the report offers players something to improve their gross margins, sales and marketing strategies, and profit margins. As a tool for insightful market analysis, this report enables players to identify the changes they need to do business and improve their operations. You can also identify key electrical bags and compete with other players in the global Quantum Computing market.

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Top 10 Companies in the Quantum Computing Market Research Report:

QC Ware Corp., D-Wave Systems, Cambridge Quantum Computing, IBM Corporation, Magiq Technologies, Qxbranch, Research at Google Google, Rigetti Computing, Station Q Microsoft Corporation, 1qb Information Technologies

Quantum Computing Market Competition:

Each company evaluated in the report is examined for various factors such as the product and application portfolio, market share, growth potential, future plans and recent developments. Readers gain a comprehensive understanding and knowledge of the competitive environment. Most importantly, this report describes the strategies that key players in the global Quantum Computing market use to maintain their advantage. It shows how market competition will change in the coming years and how players are preparing to anticipate the competition.

Quantum Computing Market Segmentation:

The analysts who wrote the report ranked the global Quantum Computing market by product, application, and region. All sectors were examined in detail, focusing on CAGR, market size, growth potential, market share and other important factors. The segment studies included in the report will help players focus on the lucrative areas of the global Quantum Computing market. Regional analysis will help players strengthen their base in the major regional markets. This shows the opportunities for unexplored growth in local markets and how capital can be used in the forecast period.

Regions Covered by the global market for Smart Camera:

Middle East and Africa (GCC countries and Egypt)North America (USA, Mexico and Canada)South America (Brazil, etc.)Europe (Turkey, Germany, Russia, Great Britain, Italy, France etc.)Asia Pacific (Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia and Australia)

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Table of Content

1 Introduction of Quantum Computing Market

1.1 Overview of the Market1.2 Scope of Report1.3 Assumptions

2 Executive Summary

3 Research Methodology of Verified Market Research

3.1 Data Mining3.2 Validation3.3 Primary Interviews3.4 List of Data Sources

4 Quantum Computing Market Outlook

4.1 Overview4.2 Market Dynamics4.2.1 Drivers4.2.2 Restraints4.2.3 Opportunities4.3 Porters Five Force Model4.4 Value Chain Analysis

5 Quantum Computing Market, By Deployment Model

5.1 Overview

6 Quantum Computing Market, By Solution

6.1 Overview

7 Quantum Computing Market, By Vertical

7.1 Overview

8 Quantum Computing Market, By Geography

8.1 Overview8.2 North America8.2.1 U.S.8.2.2 Canada8.2.3 Mexico8.3 Europe8.3.1 Germany8.3.2 U.K.8.3.3 France8.3.4 Rest of Europe8.4 Asia Pacific8.4.1 China8.4.2 Japan8.4.3 India8.4.4 Rest of Asia Pacific8.5 Rest of the World8.5.1 Latin America8.5.2 Middle East

9 Quantum Computing Market Competitive Landscape

9.1 Overview9.2 Company Market Ranking9.3 Key Development Strategies

10 Company Profiles

10.1.1 Overview10.1.2 Financial Performance10.1.3 Product Outlook10.1.4 Key Developments

11 Appendix

11.1 Related Research

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TAGS: Quantum Computing Market Size, Quantum Computing Market Growth, Quantum Computing Market Forecast, Quantum Computing Market Analysis, Quantum Computing Market Trends, Quantum Computing Market

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Quantum Computing Market 2020 Trends, Market Share, Industry Size, Opportunities, Analysis and Forecast by 2026 - Instant Tech News

Nobody is behind in science and technology: Serguei Beloussov – Kuensel, Buhutan’s National Newspaper

The CEO of Acronis, a reputed global technology company, talks on the future of computers and opportunities

Ugyen Penjore

Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing. Sounds too technically sophisticated and way beyond comprehension?

If that was what most in the audience felt when invited to a talk on Future of Computing, the guest speaker, Serguei Beloussov, left many convinced that the future is in science and technology.

Serguei Beloussov is the Chief Executive Officer of Acronis, a reputed global technology company and the founder of Schaffhausen Institute of Technology (SIT), Switzerland.

Bhutan should take advantage of its smallness and use it as an opportunity to get ahead in the field of science and technology, said Serguei Beloussov, who is also a serial tech entrepreneur. Drawing examples of Switzerland where his company SIT is located and Singapore where he is currently based, he said Switzerland was a small poor farming country before it started precision manufacturing. Singapore, he said, transformed from a small poor country to one of the wealthiest nation based on science and technology.

The smallness is not a threat. It is an opportunity. Science could be the future for Bhutan, he said.

In technology and science, the number of people, he said, was not important. It is about having smart people. Albert Einstein in one year did more to science than all the 30million PhD holders did in 50 years, he said. Bhutan, he added, has the advantage given its culture and ethics. In science and technology, ethics matters.

On the importance of quantum computers, Serguei Beloussov, who is also the first man to bring cyber protection to motorsports, said the world was becoming digital whether we want it or not. The world is transforming from primarily a physical world of the past to the digital world of the future. The world is now about Internet of things, next generations computers, big data, virtual reality and space exploration.

On how and where Bhutan could start, Serguei Beloussov, said IT is an amazing field where everything changes every 10 years. There is no way that you are behind because there are many aspects to IT that are new. You can just start new and will be starting fresh with everyone else, he said.

Serguei Beloussov said real-world problems need computers to solve it. The problems of aging and diseases, environment and global warming, social justice and poverty could be solved with better computers, he said. If we have the right computers, we could predict the problems of the universe. Quantum computers are a reality and there are amazing features to solve once unsolvable problems.

The digital world, however, is fragile and needs security. Therefore, cyber protection has become the basic need in the digital world. Without cyber protection, we cannot continue in the future just like we cannot continue living without immune system. Immune system for the digital world is cyber protection.

The CEO said cybersecurity was a priority for Bhutan too. There is no choice. Whether you wan to be happy or unhappy, you have to have cyber security as you have gone digital, he said. For Bhutan, cyber security is more important given our geographic location.

On the apprehension that supercomputers or building the next generation of computers would require resources, human and material, Serguei Beloussov said science and technology are not really difficult or complicated as many believe although a lot of symbols and technical data are involved. Sixty years ago when people were using information theory and computer science, it was for scientists. Today, it is for everyone. Quantum physics actually simpler than classical physics. In fact, it is not harder to learn it than arithmetic, he said. 300 years ago, only the priests could read and they are considered special people. Today everybody could read, write and count. This is no harder.

GNH and the digital world

Calling himself a believer in knowledge, Serguei Beloussov said that knowledge could make people happier when asked about how the drive for technology featured in the concept of Gross national Happiness. I believe that without knowledge, you will be unhappy. And so, if you are refusing technology, its effectively refusing knowledge.

Bhutanese, he said, were a lot happier than others, but the ranking was not high on the happiness ranking. He pointed out issues related to unemployment. People want employment. In my country, we have 100 percent employment and people are happy. I dont think you can argue that you want to have less jobs, he said.

On GDP, Serguei Beloussov said the world cares about GDP. People want to be having higher levels of life. Everybody wants to have a nice house, live longer lives, they to be sick less, get better education, he said.

In my opinion, if you increase the life of a person, you provide them better education, better schools, better healthcare, better roads, better food, better environment, cleaner forest.

IT hub in Bhutan?

At the talk, the CEO said that SIT was considering establishing a South Asia campus in Bhutan. Although it is at an initial stage, the founder of SIT said that leveraging on IT could create high-end jobs, attract high-end tourists and promote local industries and the government.

He said that just 10,000 IT jobs in the country could add about 30,000 non-IT jobs, develop Bhutanese tech companies and add about Nu 3Billion to the GDP.

He also said that SIT campuses could create leaders. The first approach for a SIT campuses in the country would be approaching Cyber security, Atificial Intelligence and machine learning, software engineering and robotics in the field of computers.

In the field of business, the approach is on digitilising health, new generation business management, digital sports digital learning and education and artificial intelligence in arts and design.

The talk on Tuesday, February 11, was organised by His Majestys secretariat at Taj Hotel, Thimphu.

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Nobody is behind in science and technology: Serguei Beloussov - Kuensel, Buhutan's National Newspaper

Why chemistry, fit are biggest keys to building the Redskins – Riggo’s Rag

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MIAMI, FLORIDA JANUARY 30: NFL coach, Ron Rivera, of the Washington Redskins speaks onstage during day 2 of SiriusXM at Super Bowl LIV on January 30, 2020 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM )

Its now time to turn our attention to free agency and the NFL Draft. We all look at the list of names and all the cap numbers, but take it from someone who attracted the attention of Joe Gibbs as a kid and someone who learned from the best general manager in NFL history our very own Bobby Beathard theres a lot more to building a team than height, weight and speed.

Theres a lot more to it than the Wonderlic scores and how many reps a guy can put up at 225. Theres just a lot more to all of it than meets the eye.

My favorite saying in life and its the opening quote in my book, Vision is the art of seeing whats invisible to others Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745.

Nobody in my life has embraced this more than the legendary Bobby Beathard. He is the true mastermind behind the greatest of our years. Nobody has done more to shape my philosophies and a vision for how I would build a team, if ever given the chance.

Ill never forget hearing the story of when Bobby Beathard suggested the name of Joe Gibbs to the immortal Jack Kent Cooke. Mr. Cooke responded initially by saying, Joe who? Make no mistake, Bobby Beathard was the architect of those trophies that now sit in that trophy case just down the road. Nobody really even knew who Joe Gibbs was at that time. Hes now in not one, but two Halls of Fame. Thats vision.

With so many teams clamoring to drop a couple of Brinks trucks worth of Benjis on some big-name free agent or mortgage the future to move into the No. 1 pick, Beathard had other ideas. He saw things differently and it is because of that he knew how to successfully build the Redskins.

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Why chemistry, fit are biggest keys to building the Redskins - Riggo's Rag

Chemist Andy McNally honored with 2020 Sloan Research Fellowship – Source

Andy McNally, assistant professor of chemistry

Andy McNally, an assistant professor in the Colorado State University Department of Chemistry, has received a 2020 Sloan Research Fellowship, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has announced.

McNally is an experimental synthetic chemist whose lab invents new chemical reactions for faster and more efficient synthesis of therapeutic compounds, as well as new drug candidates. He is among 126 early-career researchers to receive the honor, chosen from nearly 1,000 nominees.

Awarded annually since 1995, Sloan fellowships honor scholars in the U.S. and Canada whose creativity, leadership and independent research achievements make them some of the most promising researchers working today, according to the foundation.

At CSU, McNally leads a laboratory focused on the unique chemistry of phosphorus compounds to functionalize pyridine and diazine heterocycles, which are central to how many pharmaceutical agents function. However, it is challenging to make the types of derivatives required in drug-discovery campaigns using existing chemical methods.

McNallys group has developed a suite of new reactions that are being used by medicinal chemistry groups across the country to discover new pharmaceuticals. His groups flagship project, published in Science in 2018, is a new method to link two pyridine heterocycles together using phosphorus intermediates instead of late-transition metals such as palladium.

With the funds from the Sloan fellowship, his group plans to extend these methods for protein bioconjugation a way of forming chemical bonds to specific amino acid residues in biomolecules as a means of studying and treating diseases.

McNally, who joined the CSU faculty in 2014, was previously a Marie Curie International Fellow at Princeton University, where he worked on high-throughput screening methods for new chemical reactions. He has an M.A. and M.Sci. in natural sciences, and a Ph.D. in chemistry, all from University of Cambridge.

According to the Sloan Foundation, past Sloan Research Fellows include many towering figures in the history of science, including physicists Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann, and game theorist John Nash. Fifty fellows have received a Nobel Prize in their respective field, 17 have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, 69 have received the National Medal of Science, and 19 have won the John Bates Clark Medal in economics, including every winner since 2007.

Fellows for 2020 were drawn from more than 60 institutions across the U.S. and Canada. Fellowships are open to scholars in eight scientific and technical fields chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics. Sloan Research Fellows are nominated by fellow scientists, and winners are selected by an independent panel of senior scholars. Nearly 1,000 researchers are nominated each year for 126 fellowships.

Winners receive a two-year, $75,000 award, which can be spent to advance the fellows research.

At CSU, 16 researchers have received Sloan Fellowships in the last five decades, all within the College of Natural Sciences. Recent winners were Jamie Neilson in 2017 and Amber Krummel in 2015, also both faculty in the Department of Chemistry.

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Chemist Andy McNally honored with 2020 Sloan Research Fellowship - Source

Chemical company will pay former Rockland employees $695k for lost benefits – Bangor Daily News

Stephen Betts | BDN

Stephen Betts | BDN

FMC Corp. previously operated the carrageenan plant located on Rockland's waterfront. The plant is now owned by DowDuPont Chemical.

ROCKLAND, Maine FMC Corp. has agreed to pay a group of former employees $695,000 for wages they say the company failed to pay when its Rockland carrageenan plant was sold to DowDupont Chemical more than two years ago.

The settlement resolves the federal lawsuit filed by five longtime FMC employees last year and provides closure to an issue that has festered since the November 2017 sale of the plant. The terms of the settlement agreement, which was filed Friday, must still be approved by a judge.

The lawsuit claimed that FMC, a Pennsylvania-based chemical manufacturing company, violated a company policy and Maine law by failing to pay employees for accrued vacation time in 2017 when their employment with FMC was terminated.

When FMC sold the Rockland plant, its employees became DowDuPont employees.

FMC denied any wrongdoing, but settled the case because further litigation would be protracted, expensive and would divert management and employee time and attention, according to the agreement.

The lawsuit was initially filed on behalf of five former FMC employees: Thomas Ames of Owls Head, Todd Conant of Rockport, Gregory Gould of Rockland, Rodney Mason of Owls Head and Karen Migliore of Union.

It is being treated as a class-action case and about 107 former FMC employees qualify to receive a share of the $695,000 settlement.

The plant itself has been a fixture on Rocklands Tillson Avenue also known as Crockett Point since the 1930s, when Align Corp. began extracting carrageenan from red seaweed. Carrageenan is a thickening agent used in a range of products from ice cream to toothpaste.

FMC operated the plant from the 1970s until the 2017 sale, according to court documents.

The Rockland plant is again expected to change hands, as DuPont Nutrition and Bioscience the division of DowDupont that operates the plant plans to merge with International Flavors and Fragrances, which the companies announced in December of last year.

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Chemical company will pay former Rockland employees $695k for lost benefits - Bangor Daily News

Road salt harmful to native amphibians, new research shows – Binghamton University

The combined effects of chemical contamination by road salt and invasive species can harm native amphibians, according to researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

During the winter, Binghamton and similar areas throughout the United States use a lot of salt to clear icy roads, but what effect does it have on wildlife? George Meindl, visiting assistant professor of environmental studies at Binghamton University, worked with a team of undergraduate students in his plant ecology course to examine how water chemistry changes due to invasive plant leaf litter leachates and road salt, and how it influences the development and survival of the native Northern leopard frog, Lithobates pipiens, and the non-native African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis.

They discovered that the non-native amphibians were more tolerant to chemical changes than the native amphibians, suggesting that the non-native amphibian species might have a competitive advantage when introduced into a new, disturbed environment.

Recently, there has been widespread chemical alteration of natural environments due to human activity, especially with the use of road salt. While road salt is commonly used to keep roads safe during the winter months, it also has negative effects on the surrounding environment and animals, according to Meindls research. Aquatic ecosystems, where frogs tend to reside, are especially susceptible to chemical changes, including those caused by road salt runoff and invasive plant species.

People are changing natural environments in many ways, so it is important that we understand how these changes affect wild populations of plants and animals, in order to better protect them, Meindl said. Using natural areas on campus, my students and I can ask how people are altering natural ecosystems, and then think of better management strategies to make sure these places arent completely degraded.

To test the environmental effects, researchers exposed the frog eggs to metal treatment solutions (i.e., calcium, potassium and manganese), which mimicked documented differences between native and invasive wetland plant species leaf tissues. Researchers first measured the amount of time it took for the eggs to hatch in solutions representing native and invasive plant leachates, and then they exposed the tadpoles to a lethal concentration of sodium chloride and recorded tadpole survival.

Essentially, researchers determined that increased metal concentrations resulted in a lower susceptibility to salt for non-native tadpoles. However, increased metal concentrations caused the native tadpoles to have a higher susceptibility to salt, causing an accelerated time to death.

Meindl and his students chose to focus on the native Northern leopard frog and the non-native African clawed frog for this research to determine whether the salt tolerance of native and non-native animals was differently affected by environmental changes caused by invasive plants.

In addition to studying how chemical contamination can affect amphibians generally, we also wanted to know if native vs. non-native amphibians would respond differently to these stressors, he said. For example, if non-native species are less likely to be negatively impacted by chemical contamination compared to native species, then contaminants might actually encourage the spread of invasive species by giving them a competitive advantage over native species, Meindl said. Perhaps not surprisingly, we found that the non-native African clawed frog was more tolerant to chemical changes compared to the Northern leopard frog, suggesting chemical contamination (e.g., due to road salts or invasive plant species) may facilitate future invasions by non-native species in aquatic ecosystems.

However, invasive species and road salts arent the only factors causing negative environmental effects, Meindl said. He hopes that the results from this study will influence people to focus more on the safety of the environment and the steps they can take to improve it.

Invasive species and road salts are just some of many ways that people are modifying the chemistry of the environment, along with extraction and burning of fossil fuels, plastic pollution, disposal of pharmaceuticals, excessive fertilizer use, etc., Meindl said. A great challenge is understanding how all of these stressors affect the natural environment, and then using this information to guide policy development that protects our planets natural resources. Studies like this will help to generate data that can guide more responsible resource use and behavior by people.

The paper, Exposure to metals (Ca, K, Mn) and road salt (NaCl) differentially affect development and survival in two model amphibians, was published in Chemistry and Ecology.

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From chefs to chemists, Massachusetts burgeoning marijuana industry is creating jobs that use a wide range o – MassLive.com

When Gene Ray was studying biology at Fisk University in Nashville, he started to use marijuana regularly. At the time, he wasnt thinking that if combined, his scientific expertise and interest in cannabis could make a career.

While studying medicinal plant extracts in Hawaii later, it was the first time Ray, a pharmaceutical chemist, thought that his skills could apply to marijuana.

I was like, oh! You could do this with weed," Ray recalled from his office at Garden Remedies cultivation facility in Fitchburg, where he is the vice president of laboratory operations.

With the burgeoning marijuana industry comes new jobs. And most everyone taking these jobs is entering the industry for the first time. From the retail floor at adult-use shops to the science behind creating products or heading up a marijuana companys human resources department, the field offers opportunities for people with a range of degrees and backgrounds.

After studying in Hawaii, Ray continued his research in South Korea and Thailand before teaching in China. A visit from a friend who was a Massachusetts native and working in the marijuana industry helped convince Ray to move to the state, where he landed in 2016, just a few months just before recreational cannabis was legalized.

At Garden Remedies, Ray jumped right into the science of marijuana and learning how to adapt his background to the industry.

My skillset was mostly working with small, small extractions and more isolations and so this was like we need to work on bulk, he recalled.

Walking through the Garden Remedies facility, Ray can break down the science of extraction into simple terms, explaining how complex machinery is used in the process of making edibles, concentrates and vapes.

In 2016, Ray made his first marijuana vape.

Ever since then, weve been trying to figure out ways to make it a little bit better and not as harsh, said Ray.

As the leader of the laboratory, Ray now spends a lot of time at his computer, arranging meetings and overseeing the process from a higher level. But he still loves to get his hands dirty in the lab.

The fact that I enjoy cannabis and the fact that I enjoy the science behind it, I enjoy motivating people to keep doing it and just to keep learning," he said. This is a natural plant. Youre going to always have growers that are going to want to push the envelope and have some crazy genetics. I want to be the person to extract those compounds.

Rays work helps create products that head to the kitchens of marijuana businesses.

Lianne Whalen, the executive chef at Cultivate Holdings, a marijuana shop in Leicester, leads a kitchen with about nine employees as of February 2020.

Those kitchens have jobs attracting culinary professionals to the marijuana industry.

After Lianne Whalen graduated in 2009 with a degree from Johnson & Wales University, she worked in catering, corporate dining and a job at a bakery. Then, she saw online that Cultivate was seeking a chef. Cultivate started as a medical dispensary and was one of the first two shops to sell recreational marijuana in November 2018.

Now Whalen is Cultivates executive chef and leads the kitchen, which currently has a staff of about nine people. Like Whalen, none of the staff had experience in the cannabis industry before coming to Cultivate. Instead, they found their way to the Leicester dispensary by the way of corporate dining, local restaurants and a bakery.

It is very much a kitchen. So Im able to translate my culinary skills to this industry because were creating products all the time by hand, in house, Whalen said. Were doing research and development, we also are launching a topical line, so were dabbling in a little bit of everything.

Whalen, who lives in Worcester, said she was always passionate about food. She grew up cooking with her grandparents and father, she said, recalling frying fish in a cast iron pan.

Ive just always loved to cook. Ive always loved to be creative. When I grew up it was either I was going to be an artist, a florist or a chef, said Whalen, who grew up in Hardwick and Worcester.

She had never worked in the marijuana industry before but knew her training from Johnson & Wales could help her bring marijuana into the kitchen. She relies on math skills for proper dosing.

Ive always been interested in food and healing people, Whalen said. The best part of my day is when someone says they ate something that I produced and they felt better, could sleep, didnt have nausea, their pain went away. Its win-win, really. Its a dream job.

Cultivate employed 30 people before recreational sales began. Currently, there are 105 employees, a spokeswoman said.

At Garden Remedies, 34 new people have been hired since September, with about 10 more openings remaining for the year, said Brooke Charron, the vice president of human resources.

Were looking for those skills that easily translate into this space," Charron said. Our culture here is very collaborative and teamwork is a huge factor when were looking at hiring."

Garden Remedies may seek specialists like chefs and for positions in finance or senior level operations. Skills from the manufacturing industry translate well, Charron said. But more so, theyre seeking individuals with the necessary soft skills, people they can train on the technical side of what happens every day at Garden Remedies.

Ive found that people that are very passionate about cannabis and the products, theyre either a grower or theyre passionate about cannabis in general in which case those people tend to lean toward retail," Charron said.

Massachusetts has been among the states to add thousands of marijuana jobs in the U.S., according to Leaflys annual Cannabis Jobs Report.

As the state passed its first anniversary of adult-use marijuana sales, 10,226 jobs were added, according to the report, which says that in total, legal cannabis has added 13,255 full-time-equivalent jobs in Massachusetts.

As of January, there were 243,700 full-time-equivalent marijuana jobs in the U.S., representing a 15% year-over-year increase. In 12 months, the industry created 33,700 new jobs nationwide, making legal marijuana the fastest-growing industry in America, according to Leafly. In addition to Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Illinois have added a significant number of jobs in the last year.

A search on indeed.com indicates cannabis jobs are available across the state, from full-time to an internship. Rates listed there range from $15 an hour to $37.50, a mix of entry-, mid- and senior-level positions.

A packaging technician at Happy Valley Management in Gloucester can make $16 an hour weighing, packaging and labeling marijuana products, according to a job posting. Also at Happy Valley Management, a trim technician can make $14 an hour harvesting, trimming, curing and drying cannabis plants. For that position, a candidate must be able to hand trim 55 grams per hour, or 1 pound per eight-hour shift, according to the job post.

Temescal Wellness is seeking a production associate who can make $14 per hour handling the day-to-day duties of a medical cannabis cultivation facility. In its job posting, Temescal touts perks like a casual dress code and volunteerism.

At Garden Remedies, entry-level positions average $16 or $17 per hour, said Charron, who said the environment of a cannabis business is worthwhile for applicants looking at several industries.

Everybody in this company is passionate about what they do and that is one common thread. Everybody has such different backgrounds but everybody is passionate about the mission and what were doing and why were here. Thats going to be the biggest difference between this and another industry," Charron said. Youre going to kind of use the same soft skills no matter what company youre in or what industry youre in but in cannabis its just a passion for the plant and what it can do.

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The world’s ‘chemical diversity’ tripled in just 20 years – Futurity: Research News

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There are 350,000 chemicals available on the market and in circulation worldwide, according to a new estimate.

The last time researchers compiled a list, it only ran to 100,000 entries.

Drawn up shortly after the turn of the millennium, the list focused on markets in the US, Canada, and western Europe. That made sense at the time because 20 years ago, these countries accounted for more than two thirds of worldwide chemical sales.

Things have changed dramatically since then, however. First, turnover has more than doubled, reaching EUR 3.4 billion in 2017. Second, the global west now participates in just a third of the worldwide chemical trade, whereas China alone accounts for 37% of turnover.

Only the manufacturers know what they are and how dangerous or toxic they are like a meal where youre told that its well cooked, but not what it contains.

We broadened our scope to take in the global marketand were now presenting a first comprehensive overview of all chemicals available worldwide, says Zhanyun Wang, senior scientist at the civil, environmental, and geomatic engineering department at ETH Zurich.

The researchers brought together data from 22 registers covering 19 countries and regions (including the EU) for the new work.

The chemical diversity we know now is three times greater than 20 years ago, says Wang.

This, he says, is primarily because the researchers are now taking into account a larger number of registers. As a result, our new list includes many chemicals that are registered in developing and transition countries, which are often with limited oversight, Wang says.

On its own, this comprehensive list cannot provide information about which chemicals are hazardous to health or the environment, for example.

Our inventory is only the first step in the substances characterization, says Wang, adding that previous work suggested that some 3% of all chemicals may be cause for concern. If you apply this figure to the new multitude of chemicals, 6,000 new potentially problematic substances could be expected, he says.

Far more astonishing for Wang was the fact that a good third of all chemicals have inadequate descriptions in the various registers. About 70,000 entries are for mixtures and polymers (such as petroleum resin), with no details provided about the individual components. Another 50,000 entries relate to chemicals where the identities are confidential business information and are therefore not publicly accessible.

Only the manufacturers know what they are and how dangerous or toxic they are, says Wang. That leaves you with an uneasy feelinglike a meal where youre told that its well cooked, but not what it contains.

Globalization and worldwide trade ensure thatunlike national registerschemicals do not stop at national borders. As Wang and his colleagues note in their article, the various registers need therefore to be merged if we want to keep track of all the chemicals produced and traded anywhere in the world.

Only by joining forces, across different countries and disciplines, will we be able to cope with this ever-expanding chemical diversity, says Wang.

The paper appears in Environmental Science & Technology.

Source: ETH Zurich

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Extensive Chemical Safety Fraud Uncovered at German Testing Laboratory – Earth Island Journal

Revelations have major implications for animal rights as well as public and environmental health.

Jonathan Latham

February 17, 2020

The case of an animal rights activist who infiltrated an independent German chemical testing laboratory has triggered the discovery of an apparently extensive chemical testing fraud.

LPT Hamburg, with around 175 employees, is one of the largest contract laboratories in Germany. It is a family owned private company. It prepares regulatory studies on behalf of the pharmaceutical and pesticide industries and has three locations: Mienenbttel in Lower Saxony, Neugraben in Hamburg and Wankendorf in Schleswig-Holstein.

An initial case of fraud was reported in 2019 by the German magazine FAKT, which worked with the animal rights organisations Cruelty Free International and SOKO-Tierschutz to expose the findings of the undercover employee. The disturbing irregularities they discovered included the death and replacement of animals without this being reported to authorities.

This distressing video from FAKT summarises the findings and was filmed at LPT.

But since the initial investigation by FAKT five former employees of LPT Hamburg have come forward with new information.

In interviews broadcast by FAKT in November of 2019, one employee told the magazine of testing fraud:

I not only experienced it, I did it myself. I forged documents; our studies. If the results did not meet expectations, I was asked to improve them. The data that did not fit in were marked so that I could enter it on the blank protocol the new values that were given to me. The new report was also marked with the old date and my signature

A second employee who came forward told FAKT:

These animals, especially in the high-dose group, actually had completely open skin - so it was the raw meat that was visible, miserable really miserable. [...] In fact, one animal died in the high-dose group and was replaced by another animal. Here, too, the tattoo number, which is in the chest area of the animal, was cut out of the dead animal and added to the organs of the replaced animal after the end of the study. So that it looks as if this animal had not died at all.

A third told FAKT that they had observed repeated falsification of studies and that they later reported this to the German authorities:

So, a few months after I left LPT, I contacted the responsible authorities here. And had an appointment. And in this appointment we discussed the LPT issue together. It was also about manipulation of data and of course about the fact that studies were so strongly influenced that it was not compatible with my conscience.

However, the employee never heard from the authority again.

These revelations have major implications for public and environmental health. They undermine the idea that testing by commercial laboratories is independent of the chemical industry, thereby challenging the validity of the entire system of toxicological evaluation of chemicals like pesticides and pharmaceuticals. These allegations echo previous cases of chemical testing fraud, such as the IBT scandal of the late 1970s, including the more recent realization that this fraud was covered up by the overseeing government agencies, such as the US EPA.

A further implication, according to a new report on the LPT case carried out by PAN Germany, Corporate Europe Observatory and Global 2000 of Austria, is that many of the studies supporting the EUs reapproval of glyphosate came from LPT.

According to the EUs reassessment of glyphosate, all industry-derived studies on genotoxicity concluded that glyphosate was safe, or nearly so. On the other hand, the majority of peer-reviewed studies concluded it was not. In its reauthorization process the EU agency which evaluated glyphosate concluded that the industry studies submitted were reliable and the peer-reviewed studies were not reliable. This designation cleared the way for reauthorization. At least 21 studies submitted by Monsanto supporting glyphosates reauthorization came from LPT.

The primary given reason why peer reviewed studies are deemed inadmissible by regulators is that they do not have the technical certification known as Good Laboratory Practice (GLP). GLP follows OECD guidelines which were adopted by the EU in 2004.

GLP has long been criticized as failing to guarantee high quality research (Elliott et al. 2016, Myers et al. 2009, Wagner and Michaels 2004). It has always been defended, however, on the basis that it prevented exactly this kind of fraud.

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