NASA welcomed members of the news media on December 8 to tour its Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) at Ames Research Center, providing attendees a rare glimpse inside the facility that houses the 1,097-qubit D-Wave 2X quantum computer. Researchers on NASA’s QuAIL team are using the system to investigate areas where quantum algorithms might someday dramatically improve the agency's ability to solve difficult optimization problems in aeronautics, Earth and space sciences and space exploration.

Scientists working on the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment are closer to ruling out the possibility of dark matter detections at low-mass ranges. The new findings come after researchers enhanced LUX's ability to look for WIMPS, or weakly interacting massive particles, and thereafter reexamined data collected during LUX's first run in 2013.

At a signing ceremony hosted on December 4 at the Canadian Embassy in Japan, the heads of Canada’s TRIUMF and Japan’s KEK signed a new partnership agreement to enhance research collaborations between the two centers and promote joint projects in the areas of subatomic physics, accelerator science and materials science.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in November awarded $13.5 million to Stanford University for an international effort, including key contributions from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, to build a working particle accelerator the size of a shoebox. The technique, based on a technology known as “accelerator on a chip," will use laser light to propel electrons through a series of artfully crafted chips.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have found a simple new way to study very delicate biological samples—like proteins at work in photosynthesis and components of protein-making machines called ribosomes—at the atomic scale using SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser.

The SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) executive committee on November 18 held an online forum to discuss the partnership’s impact since its founding in nearly two years ago. SCOAP3 members include libraries, publishers, funding agencies and research centers in more than 40 countries with CERN acting as the administrative host. SCOAP3 works with publishers to convert articles concerned with High Energy Physics (HEP) to open access by redirecting existing subscription funds.

Worthington Industries, Inc., announced its cryogenics business in the pressure cylinders segment is purchasing the assets of the global CryoScience business of Taylor Wharton Cryogenics, including a manufacturing facility in Theodore AL. Worthington will also acquire certain other intellectual property and manufacturing assets of Taylor Wharton focused on the cryogenic industrial and LNG markets.

Recently, the James Webb Space Telescope's "pathfinder telescope," or "Pathfinder," completed its second super-cold optical test. This marked the first check of specialized optical test equipment designed to illuminate the telescope's optics through to the instrument focal plains, as well as the procedures used to operate this test equipment.