Local governments in developing countries are crucial for providing public services that promote human development and address challenges like extreme weather, unemployment and crumbling infrastructure. Yet, they often face difficulties in implementing cost-effective programs that meet citizens’ diverse needs, particularly in areas with significant socioeconomic inequalities. A recent study led by University of Notre Dame researcher Krister Andersson explored the impact of economic and social inequalities on local government performance in Chile (a country with very high socioeconomic inequalities), assessing the effectiveness of external policies to alleviate the negative effects of inequality on the quality of local public services.

Quantum walks are a powerful theoretical model using quantum effects such as superposition, interference and entanglement to achieve computing power beyond classical methods. A research team at the National Innovation Institute of Defense Technology from the Academy of Military Sciences (China) recently published a review article that thoroughly summarizes the theories and characteristics, physical implementations, applications and challenges of quantum walks and quantum walk computing. The review was published Nov. 13 in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal, in an article titled “Quantum Walk Computing: Theory, Implementation, and Application”.

An international research team has developed a new technique to study complex spin textures with femtosecond precision. By using multiple time-delayed laser pulses with different polarizations, they were able to measure the full electric field vectors of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) with unprecedented spatial and temporal accuracy. The team demonstrated this method by investigating a meron pair, a topological spin structure, and successfully reconstructed its spin texture. Their approach allows for detailed study of topological properties, such as the Chern number, and could have significant implications for fields like quantum computing and nanomaterials, where stable, topologically protected spin textures are crucial.

One of the biggest mysteries in science – dark energy – doesn't actually exist, according to researchers looking to solve the riddle of how the Universe is expanding. For the past 100 years, physicists have generally assumed that the cosmos is growing equally in all directions. They employed the concept of dark energy as a placeholder to explain unknown physics they couldn't understand, but the contentious theory has always had its problems. Now a team of physicists and astronomers at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand are challenging the status quo, using improved analysis of supernovae light curves to show that the Universe is expanding in a more varied, "lumpier" way.

A brotherly research duo has discovered that when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produces top quarks – the heaviest known fundamental particles – it regularly creates a property known as magic.