Charred trees still standing after a wildfire in Glacier National Park, Montana Gorski/NurPhoto/Shutters​tock In 2021, a smouldering underground coal seam ignited the tinder-dry grass and brush in Poverty Flats, Montana, setting off a wildfire that burned 267 square kilometres. The blaze killed 50,000 trees, mostly ponderosa pines, that had shaded cattle grazing on the Gentry…

Quantum computers are strange-looking machines ROBERT GHEMENT/EPA/Shutterstock Picture a quantum computer. Are you imagining an ordinary computer, but somehow just better? If so, that would be a mistake, because quantum computers are fundamentally different. They rely on exotic quantum phenomena occurring between their constituent parts, known as qubits, but their strange nature often invites myths…