An international research team involving Paderborn University has achieved a crucial breakthrough on the road to a quantum internet: for the first time ever, the polarisation state of a single photon emitted from a quantum dot was successfully teleported to another, physically separated quantum dot. In simpler terms, this means that the properties of one photon can be transmitted to another via teleportation. This is a particularly vital step for future quantum communication networks. For example, the scientists used a 270m free-space optical link for their experiments. The results have now been published in the specialist journal ‘Nature Communications’.

Dr Shiva Khoshtinat is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering 'Giulio Natta' at Politecnico di Milano. With an interdisciplinary background spanning civil engineering, architecture, materials science, and biology, she explores how nature’s strategies can inspire sustainable construction on Earth and beyond. Her research focuses on biomineralization and microbial co-cultures as self-sustaining systems for construction. In a recent publication in Frontiers in Microbiology, Khoshtinat and co-authors present a bold approach for construction on Mars, harnessing microbial partnerships to transform Martian regolith into structural materials, laying the scientific foundations for building the first habitats on the Red Planet.

Time moves differently on Mars. NIST physicts recently calculated exactly how fast each second passes on Mars. And if humans want to explore the solar system, every microsecond counts.