Radioactive arrest
Two people have been arrested in Tokyo, Japan, for allegedly advertising and selling an unauthorised drug that they claim absorbs radioactive substances, removing them from the body. Police estimate that they sold 鈥淧remium Zeolite鈥� to over 1000 people, raking in about 24 million yen (拢176,500).
Quantum quantity
A new record has been set by entangling 14 quantum bits, or qubits. The previous record was eight. Thomas Monz at the University of Innsbruck in Austria and colleagues encoded their qubits on 14 calcium ions held in a magnetic trap. Such a multiple-entangled state could form the heart of a quantum computer.
Fire in the hole
Neutrino and dark-matter experiments have escaped serious damage from a fire on 17 March at the Soudan Underground Laboratory in Minnesota. Staff have inspected the experiments and say they may be back online within a few weeks.
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Mangrove protection
Preserving mangroves is a highly efficient way to fight global warming: they trap a disproportionate amount of carbon compared with other trees, a study of 25 mangrove forests has found. Mangroves occupy just 0.7 per cent of tropical forest by area, yet they account for 10 per cent of the carbon emitted by deforestation (Nature Geoscience, ).
Indian superbug
A gene which makes bacteria resistant to almost all antibiotics has 鈥渆scaped鈥� from hospitals into the environment. DM-1 was found in 14 bacterial species that were present in 4 per cent of drinking water samples and 30 per cent of samples from urban puddles and rivulets in New Delhi (The Lancet Infectious Diseases, ).