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Nobel Prize

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The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics recognises experiments that demonstrated how quantum tunnelling can be observed on a macroscopic scale, involving many particles.

John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis – awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics – constructed an experiment using a superconducting electrical circuit.

The chip that held this circuit was about a centimetre in size. Previously, tunnelling and energy quantisation had been studied in systems that had just a few particles; here, these phenomena appeared in a quantum mechanical system with billions of Cooper pairs that filled the entire superconductor on the chip. In this way, the experiment took quantum mechanical effects from a microscopic scale to a macroscopic one.

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This year’s medicine laureate Shimon Sakaguchi discovered a new class of T cells.

At the start of the 1980s Sakaguchi isolated T cells that had matured in genetically identical mice and injected them into the mice without a thymus. This had an interesting effect: there appeared to be T cells that could protect the mice from autoimmune diseases.

This and other similar results convinced Sakaguchi that the immune system must have some form of security guard, one that calms down other T cells and keeps them in check. But what type of cell was this?

When researchers differentiate between T cells, they use proteins located on the cells’ surface. Helper T cells can be recognised thanks to a protein called CD4, while killer T cells are distinguished by CD8.

In the experiment in which Sakaguchi protected the mice from autoimmune diseases, he used cells with CD4 on their surface – helper T cells. Ordinarily, these cells wake up the immune system and set it to work, but in Sakaguchi’s experiment the immune system was held back. His conclusion was that there must be different forms of T cells that carry CD4.

To test his hypothesis, Sakaguchi needed to find a way of differentiating between the various types of T cell. This took him over a decade, but in 1995 he presented an entirely new class of T cells to the world. In ‘The Journal of Immunology’ he demonstrated that these T cells – which calm the immune system – are characterised not only by carrying CD4 on their surface, but also a protein called CD25.

This newly identified T cell class was named regulatory T cells.

Read more about the story behind this year’s medicine prize: https://bit.ly/46NpqbG

Our immune system is an evolutionary masterpiece. Every day it protects us from the thousands of different viruses, bacteria and other microbes that attempt to invade our bodies. Without a functioning immune system, we would not survive.

One of the immune system’s marvels is its ability to identify pathogens and differentiate them from the body’s own cells. The microbes that threaten our health do not wear a uniform – they all have different appearances. Many have also developed similarities to human cells, as a form of camouflage. So how does the immune system keep track of what to attack and what to protect? Why doesn’t the immune system attack our bodies more frequently?

Researchers long believed they knew the answer to these questions: that immune cells mature through a process called central immune tolerance (see image). However, our immune system turned out to be more complex than they believed. Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.

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BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 in Physics to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”

This year’s physics laureates’ experiments on a chip revealed quantum physics in action.

A major question in physics is the maximum size of a system that can demonstrate quantum mechanical effects. The 2025 physics laureates conducted experiments with an electrical circuit in which they demonstrated both quantum mechanical tunnelling and quantised energy levels in a system big enough to be held in the hand.

Quantum mechanics allows a particle to move straight through a barrier, using a process called tunnelling. As soon as large numbers of particles are involved, quantum mechanical effects usually become insignificant. The laureates’ experiments demonstrated that quantum mechanical properties can be made concrete on a macroscopic scale.

In 1984 and 1985, John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis conducted a series of experiments with an electronic circuit built of superconductors, components that can conduct a current with no electrical resistance. In the circuit, the superconducting components were separated by a thin layer of non-conductive material, a setup known as a Josephson junction. By refining and measuring all the various properties of their circuit, they were able to control and explore the phenomena that arose when they passed a current through it. Together, the charged particles moving through the superconductor comprised a system that behaved as if they were a single particle that filled the entire circuit.

This macroscopic particle-like system is initially in a state in which current flows without any voltage. The system is trapped in this state, as if behind a barrier that it cannot cross. In the experiment the system shows its quantum character by managing to escape the zero-voltage state through tunnelling. The system’s changed state is detected through the appearance of a voltage.

The laureates could also demonstrate that the system behaves in the manner predicted by quantum mechanics – it is quantised, meaning that it only absorbs or emits specific amounts of energy.

The transistors in computer microchips are one example of the established quantum technology that surrounds us. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors.

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Press release: https://bit.ly/42jAlZg
Popular information: https://bit.ly/4gKFvTX
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Cambridge Dictionary The official Cambridge University Press & Assessment Dictionary page.

Are you preparing students for Cambridge English Qualifications?

When it comes to formal writing, students often struggle to use the appropriate formal register.

Help them make their writing more persuasive and interesting, by teaching these formal alternatives to common words.
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What do you usually do at the weekend? ⚽

We use the present simple to talk about repeated actions or things that are always true.

We can also use it to talk about scheduled events in the future, e.g. with transport times.

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