Integrated Calendar

We show how the distribution of skills or phenotypes in a population acts as collective memory or "distributed information
store" serving individual so that individuals with varying innate abilities are able to
attain the mature fully skilled phenotype. We show how information moves "in" and "out" of genomes, relative to this memory system, elucidating how evolution determines where best to store information. This question applies to understanding diverse biological systems in which individuals acquire capacities from the population, including immunity, the microbiome, and social learning. Using Agent Based Modeling we investigate how properties of the
population and social aspects of the acquisition process affect the behavior of the system. We show
that the genetic properties of the population react predictably to changes in population properties that affect selection
pressures, without any group level selective processes. Specifically, parameter changes that make
acquisition slower lead to skills becoming increasingly innate while changes in parameters that improve
the results of acquisition (e.g., making acquisition reliant on abundant left-over tools) lead
to an increased reliance on acquisition, all while the average phenotype remains constant. The dynamics
we study contribute to understanding how individuals can evolve to become more or less reliant on
social learning and cultural information, how this depends on population properties (e.g., group
size), and how this manifests demographically. The more information stored externally, the stronger
the selection pressure on traits that support acquisition. Finally, we contrast our model and the Baldwin
Effect and relate out results to the study of the evolution of human social learning.

The modern information era is built on silicon nanoelectronic devices. The future quantum information era might be built on silicon too, if we succeed in controlling the interactions between individual spins hosted in silicon nanostructures.
Spins in silicon constitute excellent solid-state qubits, because of the weak spin-orbit coupling and the possibility to remove nuclear spins from the environment through 28Si isotopic enrichment. Substitutional 31P atoms in silicon behave approximately like hydrogen in vacuum, providing two spin 1/2 qubits -- the donor-bound electron and the 31P nucleus -- that can be coherently controlled [1,2], read out in single-shot [2,3], and are naturally coupled through the hyperfine interaction.
In isotopically-enriched 28Si, these single-atom qubits have demonstrated outstanding coherence times, up to 35 seconds for the nuclear spin [4], and 1-qubit gate fidelities well above 99.9% for both the electron and the nucleus [5]. The hyperfine coupling provides a built-in interaction to entangle the two qubits within one atom. The combined initialization, control and readout fidelities result in a violation of Bell’s inequality with S = 2.70, a record value for solid-state qubits [6].
Despite being identical atomic systems, 31P atoms can be addressed individually by locally modifying the hyperfine interaction through electrostatic gating [7]. Multi-qubit logic gates can be mediated either by the exchange interaction [8] or by electric dipole coupling [9].
Scaling up beyond a single atom presents formidable challenges, but provides a pathway to building quantum processors that are compatible with standard semiconductor fabrication, and retain a nanometric footprint, important for truly large-scale quantum computers.

[1] J.J. Pla et al., Nature 489, 541 (2012)
[2] J.J. Pla et al., Nature 496, 334 (2013)
[3] A. Morello et al., Nature 467, 687 (2010)
[4] J.T. Muhonen et al., Nature Nanotech. 9, 986 (2014)
[5] J.T. Muhonen et al., J. Phys.: Condens. Matt. 27, 154205 (2015)
[6] J.P. Dehollain et al., Nature Nanotech. 11, 242 (2016)
[7] A. Laucht et al., Science Advances 1, e1500022 (2015)
[8] R. Kalra et al., Phys. Rev. X 4, 021044 (2014)
[9] G. Tosi et al., Nature Communications 8:450 (2017)

: In this special event, motivated by the 2017 Physics Nobel prize and the recent first
detection of a neutron star merger via both gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation,
we will review the recent discovery and its implications.