A new research by the National University of Singapore (NUS), The Australian National University (ANU), the University of Queensland and the University of Oxford identifies that quantum discord, a more robust and easy to access phenomenon than entanglement, can also deliver a quantum advantage. The team in Singapore discovered a direct link between quantum power and quantum discord. The ANU team encoded information onto laser light to demonstrate the unlocking of this quantum resource. In their experiment, they show that they can retrieve more information by using quantum discord than if the discord is not accessed. "We’ve shown that quantum discord is a resource that we can tap with the right quantum tools,” said Mile Gu, a Research Fellow of the Centre for Quantum Technologies at NUS.

Mile Gu, Helen M. Chrzanowski, Syed M. Assad, Thomas Symul, Kavan Modi, Timothy C. Ralph, Vlatko Vedral & Ping Koy Lam: Observing the operational significance of discord consumption, In: Nature Physics AOP, August 05, 2012, DOI:10.1038/nphys2376: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys2376

Researcher at Catalan Institute of Nanotechno- logy, CIN2 (ICN-CSIC), Spain, and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Campus UAB-Facultat de Biociències, Spain, present a new strategy for a simple and fast detection of cancer circulating cells (CTCs) using nanoparticles.

Marisa Maltez-da Costa, Alfredo de la Escosura-Muñiz, Carme Nogués, Lleonard Barrios, Elena Ibáñez, and Arben Merkoçi: Simple Monitoring of Cancer Cells Using Nanoparticles, In: Nano Letters ASAP, July 20, 2012, DOI: 10.1021/nl301726g: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl301726g

Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart, Germany, are working on paints for building façades which contain titanium dioxide particles. If the wall gets dirty, the photocatalysis degrades the organic contaminants and the paint stays reasonably clean. The scientists have even developed a self-cleaning coating for glass surfaces: "If you apply a thin coating of titanium dioxide to a glass surface such as a smartphone screen, the skin oils and fingerprints gradually disappear from the display by themselves," says Dr. Michael Vergöhl, head of department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST in Braunschweig and head of the Fraunhofer Photocatalysis Alliance. All that is needed is one hour of sunlight – unlike previous photocatalytic surfaces, which would have required the smartphone to be left in the sun for three days. The next step is to develop new materials that can also be activated by artificial light.