An experiment using single particles of light, photons, have produced and implemented them intoa quantum key distribution (QKD) link. The single photons were produced using two devices made of semiconductor nano-structures that emitted a photon each time they were excited by an electrical pulse. The two devices were made up of different semiconductor materials so they emitted photons with different colors.  

QKD is a process that enables two parties, ‘Alice’ and ‘Bob’, to share a secret key that can then be used to protect data they want to send to each other. The secret key is made up of a stream of photons that ‘spin’ in different directions – vertically, horizontally or diagonally – according to the sender’s preferences.

Collisions between heavy ions at machines like the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and more recently the LHC, may help enlighten our understanding of the hot nuclear matter that permeated the early universe and make this hidden realm accessible by recreating the extreme conditions of the early universe on a microscopic scale.

The temperatures achieved in these collisions, more than 4 trillion degrees Celsius, the hottest ever created in a laboratory, briefly liberate the subatomic quarks and gluons that make up protons and neutrons of ordinary atomic nuclei so scientists can study their properties and interactions.

Mathematicians have proposed a new solution to understanding a MicroRNA puzzle; different and sometimes conflicting theories about ways in which microRNAs regulate protein production, since the results varied depending on only slightly changed experimental conditions.

The problem to date has been that scientists have differed over interpretations of how the production of the major building blocks of a cell, proteins, is controlled by microRNAs.

The hormone oxytocin is well-known as the “bliss hormone” because it is secreted upon stimulation by touch and is known to result in a feeling of calm and physical relaxation. But odder claims are that is is a “mindreading” hormone and recent research set out find if there is any truth in those claims.

Physicists doing economics has gotten a bad rap - a practically worldwide recession will do that - but it's no reason to give up, especially if you are of the world view that redistributing wealth is better than a free market.

Models designed to represent taxation and wealth redistribution could be adjusted to create a target level of wealth distribution, according to mathematical physicists from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. 

Our immune systems are funny things. An American traveling to Taiwan, for example, might be warned to get a hepatitis vaccine - unless they grew up on a farm. Rabies is even scarier.  If you are bitten by an unknown animal, it requires a series of painful injections because if clinical disease sets in, it is usually fatal.