Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) has awarded four years of funding ($4.8 million) to The Grainger College of Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana‑Champaign. The award supports a multidisciplinary effort to identify and understand two-level system (TLS) defects in superconducting quantum hardware, a major source of error in qubits used for quantum computing. Researchers from physics, materials science, and electrical engineering will combine growth, fabrication, characterization, and atomic-scale simulation to trace the origin of TLS defects. The goal: establish a recipe for reducing these defects and thereby improve the performance and scalability of superconducting quantum processors.

Large language models such as GPT-5 and Llama systematically rate speakers of German dialects less favorably than those using Standard German. This is shown by a recent collaborative study. The results show that all tested AI systems reproduce social stereotypes.

Published today in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, a University of Minnesota Medical School research team found that access to wheelchairs through Medicare-listed suppliers is inconsistent and often challenging.

Genome sequencing has been used to determine how much genes influence human characteristics including height and weight, and susceptibility to diseases like Type 2 diabetes, in a study co-led by University of Queensland researchers and collaborators at genomic technology company Illumina, Inc.