Month: January 2024

A Rutgers biophysical chemist and his brother, a political scientist on the West Coast, have joined intellectual forces, realizing a long-standing dream of co-authoring an article that bridges their disciplines involving cells and society. In their paper, they have proposed that powerful…

Researchers have taken the first steps toward finding liquid solvents that may someday help extract critical building materials from lunar and Martian-rock dust, an important piece in making long-term space travel possible. Using machine learning and computational modeling, Washington State University researchers…

Astronomers have made the rare discovery of a small, cold exoplanet and its massive outer companion — shedding light on the formation of planets like Earth. The findings include a planet with radius and mass between that of the Earth and Neptune,…

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Columbia University have developed a way to convert carbon dioxide (CO2), a potent greenhouse gas, into carbon nanofibers, materials with a wide range of unique properties and many potential long-term…

Combining a biological heart and a silicone robotic pump, researchers created a biorobotic heart that beats like a real one, with a focus on a valve on the left side of the heart. The heart valve simulator, presented on January 10 in…

In an effort to make the internet more accessible for people with disabilities, researchers at The Ohio State University have begun developing an artificial intelligence agent that could complete complex tasks on any website using simple language commands. In the three decades…

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found a brown dwarf (an object more massive than Jupiter but smaller than a star) with infrared emission from methane, likely due to energy in its upper atmosphere. This is an unexpected discovery because…

Data Assimilation (DA) is an important mathematical method for predicting turbulent flows for weather forecasting. However, the origins of the critical length scale, a crucial parameter in this method, and its dependence on the Reynolds number are not well understood. Now, researchers…

With a split-second muscle contraction, the greater blue-ringed octopus can change the size and color of the namesake patterns on its skin for purposes of deception, camouflage and signaling. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have drawn inspiration from this natural…

Professor Bumjoon Kim’s research team in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering succeeded in implementing a stretchable organic solar cell by applying a newly developed polymer material that demonstrated the world’s highest photovoltaic conversion efficiency (19%) while functioning even when stretched…

The integration of mechanical memory in the form of springs has for hundreds of years proven to be a key enabling technology for mechanical devices (like clocks), achieving advanced functionality through complex autonomous movements. In our times, the integration of springs in…

Perovskite nanosheets show distinctive characteristics with significant applications in science and technology. In a recent study, researchers from Korea and UK achieved enhanced signal amplification in CsPbBr3 perovskite nanosheets with a unique waveguide pattern, which enhanced both gain and thermal stability. These…

As the world moves away from gas towards electricity as a greener power source, the to-do list goes beyond cars. The vast global manufacturing network that makes everything from our batteries to our fertilizers needs to flip the switch, too. A study…

In the quest to understand the potential for life beyond Earth, researchers are widening their search to encompass not only biological markers, but also technological ones. While astrobiologists have long recognized the importance of oxygen for life as we know it, oxygen…

Of the world’s various weather phenomena, fog is perhaps the most mysterious, forming and dissipating near the ground with fluctuations in air temperature and humidity interacting with the terrain itself. While fog presents a major hazard to transportation safety, meteorologists have yet…

Lights could soon use the full color suite of perfectly efficient organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, that last tens of thousands of hours, thanks to an innovation from physicists and engineers at the University of Michigan. The U-M team’s new phosphorescent OLEDs,…

Research groups around the world are developing technologies to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into raw materials for industrial applications. Most experiments under industrially relevant conditions have been carried out with heterogeneous electrocatalysts, i.e. catalysts that are in a different chemical phase to…