From Built In Chicago, July 24, 2020: The Department of Energy has unveiled a plan to develop nationwide quantum internet — and Illinois is at the center of it. DOE representatives announced that Fermilab, Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago will play a key role in developing quantum internet for all.

A study conducted by the TEAM-UP task force provides a road map for doubling the number of African Americans obtaining bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy.

From FedScoop, July 23, 2020: The Department of Energy identified essential research, engineering and design barriers and near-term goals for developing nationwide quantum internet in a blueprint released on July 23. DOE‘s 17 national laboratories will form the foundation of a system for secure communication using quantum mechanics, the prototype for which is expected within the next decade.

From ITPro, July 23, 2020: An unhackable quantum internet could be realized within a decade, the U.S. Department of Energy has announced. The government body laid out a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum network on July 23. In Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago successfully established one of the longest land-based quantum networks in the U.S., and it will soon be connected to the Fermilab as a three-node, 80-mile test bed.

From Engadget: July 23, 2020: The Department of Energy has provided a blueprint strategy for a prototype national quantum internet that could be completed within 10 years. DOE’s 17 national labs would serve as the backbone of the network. Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago built a 52-mile quantum network through unused fiber, and it should expand to 80 miles once Fermilab connects to the system.

From the Hyde Park Herald, July 23, 2020: The Department of Energy put out its new report on a strategy for the creation and development of a national quantum internet, an innovation with significant scientific and technological implications. In February, Argonne created a 52-mile quantum entanglement loop in the western suburbs — one of the longest such networks in the country. The loop will soon be connected to Fermilab’s headquarters in Batavia, forming an 80-mile network that will function as a test bed.

Fermilab scientist Robert Ainsworth has won a $2.5 million Department of Energy Early Career Research Award to study different ways of ensuring stability in high-intensity proton beams. By studying how certain types of beam instabilities emerge and evolve under different conditions, his team can help sharpen scientists’ methods for correcting them or avoiding them to begin with.

From Gizmodo, July 23, 2020: On July 23, the Department of Energy rolled out a blueprint for full-on quantum internet that could be up and running within the coming decade. The backbone of this new internet system will be based across the 17 different DOE laboratories housed across the country. Funding, meanwhile, will come off the back of the more than $1 billion the president agreed to pump into the country’s quantum research when the National Quantum Initiative Act was signed in late 2018.

From mystateline.com, July 23, 2020: At a press event on July 23, DOE unveiled a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet infrastructure. Argonne and the University of Chicago entangled photons across a 52-mile “quantum loop” in the Chicago suburbs. That network will soon be connected to Fermilab, establishing a three-node, 80-mile test bed.

No one knows for sure what dark matter is. But we know we need something to explain what we see in the universe, and we’ve crossed a few ideas off of our list.