Transformers.

Norway hearts PhDs.

“I start every day pretty much the same way: Coffee and News Items.” — Richard Haass, president emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations.

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1. In an experiment reminiscent of the Transformers movie franchise, engineers at Princeton University have created a type of material that can expand, assume new shapes, move and follow electromagnetic commands like a remotely controlled robot even though it lacks any motor or internal gears. "You can transform between a material and a robot, and it is controllable with an external magnetic field," said researcher Glaucio Paulino, the Margareta Engman Augustine Professor of Engineering at Princeton. Research paper is here. (Sources: engineering.princeton.edu, nature.com)

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2. Mounting evidence suggests that vaccination against the varicella zoster virus—which causes chickenpox in children and triggers shingles in adults—also protects the brain. Several recent studies suggest that the vaccines reduce the risk of dementia in older adults, but key questions remain, including: How the vaccines might work to stop or delay the condition, and whether the benefit is limited to people of a certain age. The vaccines studied, Zostavax and Shingrix, both appeared to offer protection. (Source: wsj.com)

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3. Scientists have sent messages encrypted using principles of quantum physics over a 250km German commercial telecommunications network, in a milestone towards next-generation data security. Toshiba Europe researchers have used so-called quantum key distribution (QKD) cryptography to transfer messages over traditional communication systems in a way that would be safe from hackers. QKD exploits a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement. This refers to the way two subatomic particles’ characteristics can be related, even when separated by a vast distance. By measuring data from one particle, you can infer information from the other. This allows the pair to serve as keys that can exchange coded messages but are unreadable to outsiders. (Source: ft.com)