Category: Technology

Animals and plants also live and thrive on public squares. This creates opportunities for greater biodiversity and well-being for the human population. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have studied at 103 locations in Munich how various factors affect flora…

Researchers have achieved a breakthrough in improving the efficiency of an electrochemical reaction that produces hydrogen peroxide — a vital chemical for industrial applications such as disinfection, bleaching, and sewage treatment. This reaction, called the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), was improved by…

Scientists have created a new ‘biocooperative’ material based on blood, which has shown to successfully repair bones, paving the way for personalised regenerative blood products that could be used as effective therapies to treat injury and disease. Researchers from the Schools of…

Researchers have developed a deep learning-based approach that significantly streamlines the accurate identification and classification of two-dimensional (2D) materials through Raman spectroscopy. In comparison, traditional Raman analysis methods are slow and require manual subjective interpretation. This new method will speed up the…

Can light itself cast a shadow? It may sound like a philosophical riddle, but researchers have found that under certain conditions, a laser beam can act like an opaque object and cast a shadow. The discovery challenges the traditional understanding of shadows…

Scientists using observations from NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have discovered, for the first time, the signal from a pair of monster black holes disrupting a cloud of gas in the center of a galaxy. “It’s a very weird event, called AT…

An asteroid struck Mars 11 million years ago and sent pieces of the red planet hurtling through space. One of these chunks of Mars eventually crashed into the Earth somewhere near Purdue and is one of the few meteorites that can be…

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have reached a record high in 2024, according to new research by the Global Carbon Project science team. The 2024 Global Carbon Budget projects fossil carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions of 37.4 billion tonnes, up 0.8%…

In the race to develop robust perception systems for robots, one persistent challenge has been operating in bad weather and harsh conditions. For example, traditional, light-based vision sensors such as cameras or LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) fail in heavy smoke and…

A team of clinicians, scientists, and engineers at Mount Sinai trained a deep learning pose-recognition algorithm on video feeds of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to accurately track their movements and identify key neurologic metrics. Findings from this new…

Much of modern life depends on the coding of information onto means of delivering it. A common method is to encode data in laser light and send it through optic cables. The increasing demand for more information capacity demands that we constantly…

As air temperatures stay elevated through fall months, people may still want clothes that cool them down while outside, especially if they live in cities that stay warmer than rural landscapes. Researchers who previously demonstrated a cooling fabric coating now report on…

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have achieved a new material that will be pivotal in making the next generation of high-power electronics faster, transparent and more efficient. This artificially designed material allows electrons to move faster while remaining transparent to both…

Researchers today (Nov. 8, 2024) are releasing the flagship dataset from an ambitious study of biomarkers and environmental factors that might influence the development of type 2 diabetes. Because the study participants include people with no diabetes and others with various stages…

LMU researchers have developed a strategy that enables biosensors to be easily adapted for a wide range of applications. Biosensors play a key role in medical research and diagnostics. At present, however, they generally have to be specially developed for each application.…

Hydrogen-powered planes are set to take wing around the world in the future. To make this possible, engineers have to develop the jet engines that will power them. Experiments by researchers at ETH Zurich are now providing the necessary basis for making…

Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists are developing a formula for success — by studying how a new type of battery fails. The team’s goal is the design for long-term storage of wind and solar energy, which are produced intermittently, enabling their broader…

Robots are supposed to do boring or unpleasant jobs for us. However, tedious tasks such as cleaning the bathroom are challenging to automate. How is it possible to calculate the movement of a robot arm so that it can reach every part…

Readily available thermoelectric generators operating under modest temperature differences can power CO2 conversion, according to a proof-of-concept study by chemists at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The findings open up the intriguing possibility that the temperature differentials encountered in an array…

Nuclear physics theorists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have demonstrated that complex calculations run on supercomputers can accurately predict the distribution of electric charges in mesons, particles made of a quark and an antiquark. Scientists are keen…

Gamma radiation can convert methane into a wide variety of products at room temperature, including hydrocarbons, oxygen-containing molecules, and amino acids, reports a research team in the journal Angewandte Chemie. This type of reaction probably plays an important role in the formation…

Large language models can do impressive things, like write poetry or generate viable computer programs, even though these models are trained to predict words that come next in a piece of text. Such surprising capabilities can make it seem like the models…

Bio-based materials may pose a greater health risk to some of the planet’s most important species than the conventional plastics they are designed to replace, a new study has shown. Such materials are increasingly being advocated as environmentally friendly alternatives to plastics,…

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are warning that artificial intelligence tools gaining popularity in the fields of genetics and medicine can lead to flawed conclusions about the connection between genes and physical characteristics, including risk factors for diseases like diabetes. The faulty predictions…

The continuing release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is a major driver of global warming and climate change with increased extreme weather events. Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have now presented a method for effectively converting carbon dioxide into…

Biomedical engineers from the University of Melbourne have invented a 3D printing system, or bioprinter, capable of fabricating structures that closely mimic the diverse tissues in the human body, from soft brain tissue to harder materials like cartilage and bone. This cutting-edge…

Enough landmines are buried underground worldwide to circle Earth twice at the equator, but the identification and removal of these explosives is costly and time-consuming. New University of Mississippi research could help solve the problem. Vyacheslav Aranchuk, principal scientist in the National…

Cause and effect. We understand this concept from an early age. Tug on a pull toy’s string, and the toy follows. Naturally, things get much more complicated as a system grows, as the number of variables increases, and as noise enters the…

UCLA chemists have found a big problem with a fundamental rule of organic chemistry that has been around for 100 years — it’s just not true. And they say: It’s time to rewrite the textbooks. Organic molecules, those made primarily of carbon,…

People with stronger autistic trails showed distinct exploration patterns and higher levels of persistence in a computer game, ultimately resulting in better performance than people with lower scores of autistic traits, according to a new study published this week in PLOS Computational…

In the 1997 movie “Contact,” adapted from Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, the lead character scientist Ellie Arroway (played by actor Jodi Foster) takes a space-alien-built wormhole ride to the star Vega. She emerges inside a snowstorm of debris encircling the star —…

Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) aims to collect millions to billions of high-quality, highly contextualized vocalizations in order to understand how sperm whales communicate. But finding the whales and knowing where they will surface to capture the data is challenging — making…

For Halloween, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reveals this spooktacular image of a dark nebula that creates the illusion of a wolf-like silhouette against a colourful cosmic backdrop. Fittingly nicknamed the Dark Wolf Nebula, it was captured in a 283-million-pixel image by…

A monkey randomly pressing keys on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time would eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare purely by chance, according to the Infinite Monkey Theorem. This widely known thought-experiment is used to help us understand…

By applying an electric field, the movement of microswimmers can be manipulated. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS), the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad and the University of Twente, Netherlands, describe the underlying physical principles by…

Rice University researchers have developed an electrochemical reactor that has the potential to drastically reduce energy consumption for direct air capture, the removal of carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. The new reactor design could be a part of the solution to…

While many smoking rooms in U.S. airports have closed in recent years, they are still common in other airports around the world. These lounges can be ventilated, but how much does it actually help the dispersion of smoke? Research published in Physics…

Published in JAMA Network Open, a collaborative team of researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School, Stanford University, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the University of Virginia studied how well doctors used GPT-4 — an artificial intelligence (AI) large language…

Before your favorite produce arrives at the grocery store, it must be carefully harvested and maintained across long stretches of time. A recent University of Georgia review suggests new temperature measuring technologies could make that process much simpler, amid growing agricultural challenges…

Professor Chiyoung Park of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at DGIST (President Kunwoo Lee) has developed a groundbreaking new material poised to advance high-sensitivity recyclable sensor technology. Working in collaboration with Professor U-hyeok Choi of Inha University (President Cho Myeongwoo),…

Saturn’s largest moon Titan is the only place other than Earth known to have an atmosphere and liquids in the form of rivers, lakes and seas on its surface. Because of its extremely cold temperature, the liquids on Titan are made of…

The idea of turning the air around us into drinking water is a marvel on its own. And grabbing a sustainable amount of it from low-humidity environments has long been closer to science fiction than reality. As a megadrought stresses the water…

The type of semiconductive nanocrystals known as quantum dots are both expanding the forefront of pure science and also hard at work in practical applications including lasers, quantum QLED televisions and displays, solar cells, medical devices, and other electronics. A new technique…

Researchers from the University of Virginia have made significant strides in the rapidly advancing field of 3D-printed concrete by developing a more sustainable, printable cementitious composite. This new material, which combines graphene with limestone and calcined clay cement (LC2), offers enhanced strength…

As renewable energy sources such as wind and solar become more widespread, managing the power grid has become increasingly complex. Researchers at the University of Virginia have developed an innovative solution: an artificial intelligence model that can address the uncertainties of renewable…

A team led by researchers at MIT has discovered that a distant interstellar cloud contains an abundance of pyrene, a type of large, carbon-containing molecule known as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). The discovery of pyrene in this far-off cloud, which is…

Published today in Nature Human Behaviour, the paper outlined essential factors for researchers, policymakers and technology companies to consider while adapting GenAI to support human learning in all levels of education and workplaces. Key considerations included understanding how to use GenAI to…

The opioid epidemic claims more 70,000 lives each year in the U.S., and lifesaving interventions are urgently needed. Although naloxone, sold as an over-the-counter nasal spray or injectable, saves lives by quickly restoring normal breathing during an overdose, administrating the medication requires…

Caltech scientists have developed a method driven by machine learning that allows them to accurately measure the mass of individual particles and molecules using complex nanoscale devices. The new technique opens the possibility of using a variety of devices for the measurement…

Some computing challenges are so big that it’s necessary to go all in. That’s the approach a diverse team of scientists and computing experts led by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, along with colleagues from Microsoft and other national…

A team of researchers at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute/Hamad Bin Khalifa University, the synchrotrons PETRA III in Hamburg and SOLEIL in Gif-sur-Yvette (France), the Sorbonne University in Paris,…

Chemicals are omnipresent today: they enter our bodies through food, air or the skin. But how do these complex mixtures of chemicals affect our health? In a study published in the journal Science, a research team from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental…

Predicting the behavior of many interacting quantum particles is a complicated process but is key to harness quantum computing for real-world applications. A collaboration of researchers led by EPFL has developed a method for comparing quantum algorithms and identifying which quantum problems…

The world is rapidly transitioning to renewable power, but there are shortcomings. Solar power falls at night, and wind power recedes and ascends irregularly. New technologies need to be developed that can store energy from the electrical grid when there’s a surplus…

A team of physicists from the universities of Amsterdam, Princeton and Oxford have shown that extremely light particles known as axions may occur in large clouds around neutron stars. These axions could form an explanation for the elusive dark matter that cosmologists…

University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science professor Nikolaos Sidiropoulos has introduced a breakthrough in graph mining with the development of a new computational algorithm. Graph mining, a method of analyzing networks like social media connections or biological systems, helps…

Trees are the most abundant natural resource living on Earth’s land masses, and North Carolina State University scientists and engineers are making headway in finding ways to use them as sustainable, environmentally benign alternatives to producing industrial chemicals from petroleum. Lignin, a…

When an election result is disputed, people who are skeptical about the outcome may be swayed by figures of authority who come down on one side or the other. Those figures can be independent monitors, political figures, or news organizations. However, these…

A quasar is the extremely bright core of a galaxy that hosts an active supermassive black hole at its center. As the black hole draws in surrounding gas and dust, it blasts out an enormous amount of energy, making quasars some of…

With heart attacks, every second counts. A new blood test diagnoses them in minutes rather than hours and could be adapted as a tool for first responders and people at home. “Heart attacks require immediate medical intervention in order to improve patient…

Northwestern University engineers have developed a new system for full-body motion capture — and it doesn’t require specialized rooms, expensive equipment, bulky cameras or an array of sensors. Instead, it requires a simple mobile device. Called MobilePoser, the new system leverages sensors…

Researchers from Japan explore how the domesticated flightless silkworm moth (Bombyx mori), a prominent insect model in olfactory research, uses wing flapping to manipulate airflow, enhancing their ability to detect distant pheromones. These findings highlight how moths guide pheromones to their odor…

Active electronics — components that can control electrical signals — usually contain semiconductor devices that receive, store, and process information. These components, which must be made in a clean room, require advanced fabrication technology that is not widely available outside a few…

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the ‘inside-out’ growth of a galaxy in the early universe, only 700 million years after the Big Bang. This galaxy is one hundred times smaller than the Milky Way, but…

NASA’s Europa Clipper has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life. The spacecraft launched at 12:06 p.m. EDT Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon…

In pioneering drug development, the new technology that enables the easy and rapid editing of key atoms responsible for drug efficacy has been regarded as a fundamental and “dream” technology, revolutionizing the process of discovering potential drug candidates. KAIST researchers have become…

When something draws us in like a magnet, we take a closer look. When magnets draw in physicists, they take a quantum look. Scientists from Osaka Metropolitan University and the University of Tokyo have successfully used light to visualize tiny magnetic regions,…

Researchers have used the chemical fingerprints of zinc contained in meteorites to determine the origin of volatile elements on Earth. The results suggest that without ‘unmelted’ asteroids, there may not have been enough of these compounds on Earth for life to emerge.…

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft simultaneously set their sights on Uranus recently, allowing scientists to make a direct comparison of the planet from two very different viewpoints. The results inform future plans to study like types of planets around…

Multimaterial 3D printing enables makers to fabricate customized devices with multiple colors and varied textures. But the process can be time-consuming and wasteful because existing 3D printers must switch between multiple nozzles, often discarding one material before they can start depositing another.…

Hydrogen-burning internal combustion engines offer great promise in the fight against climate change because they are powerful without emitting any earth-warming carbon. They can power heavy-duty trucks and buses and are suited for off-road and agricultural equipment and backup power generators, providing…

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, known commonly as PFAS, could take over 40 years to flush out of contaminated groundwater in North Carolina’s Cumberland and Bladen counties, according to a new study from North Carolina State University. The study used a novel combination…

Astronomers have observed Jupiter’s legendary Great Red Spot (GRS), an anticyclone large enough to swallow Earth, for at least 150 years. But there are always new surprises — especially when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope takes a close-up look at it. Hubble’s new…

A Rutgers University-New Brunswick professor who has devoted his career to resolving the mysteries of higher mathematics has solved two separate, fundamental problems that have perplexed mathematicians for decades. The solutions to these long-standing problems could further enhance our understanding of symmetries…

Step aside hard, rigid materials. There is a new soft, sustainable electroactive material in town — and it’s poised to open new possibilities for medical devices, wearable technology and human-computer interfaces. Using peptides and a snippet of the large molecules in plastics,…

As tools powered by artificial intelligence increasingly make their way into health care, the latest research from UC Santa Cruz Politics Department doctoral candidate Lucia Vitale takes stock of the current landscape of promises and anxieties. Proponents of AI envision the technology…

Using ammonia is regarded as a promising method of transporting hydrogen. However, an efficient process is also needed to convert it back into hydrogen and nitrogen. An international research team has gained new insights into the mode of operation of an iron…

Every second, more than 3,000 stars are born in the visible universe. Many are surrounded by what astronomers call a protoplanetary disk — a swirling “pancake” of hot gas and dust from which planets form. The exact processes that give rise to…

Environmental phenols are found in a wide range of common consumer products. They include preservatives in packaged foods, parabens in shampoos and bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic dishware, so humans have broad exposure to them, day in and day out. Some of…

Deposits of ice in lunar dust and rock (regolith) are more extensive than previously thought, according to a new analysis of data from NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission. Ice would be a valuable resource for future lunar expeditions. Water could be…

Increasingly complex applications such as artificial intelligence require ever more powerful and power-hungry computers to run. Optical computing is a proposed solution to increase speed and power efficiency but has yet to be realized due to constraints and drawbacks. A new design…

Looking deep into the early universe with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found something unprecedented: a galaxy with an odd light signature, which they attribute to its gas outshining its stars. Found approximately one billion years after the big bang,…

Researchers have developed a way to make one type of plastic material more durable and less likely to shed dangerous microplastics. The study identified a secure way to attach chemical additives to polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Found in everything from toys, construction supplies…

Liquefied natural gas leaves a greenhouse gas footprint that is 33% worse than coal, when processing and shipping are taken into account, according to a new Cornell University study. “Natural gas and shale gas are all bad for the climate. Liquefied natural…

Particles larger than ordinary molecules or atoms yet still small enough to be invisible to the naked eye can give rise to many different kinds of useful structures such as tiny propellers for microrobots, cellular probes and steerable microwheels for targeted drug…

For the first time, scientists have taken near-daily measurements of the Sun’s global coronal magnetic field, a region of the Sun that has only been observed irregularly in the past. The resulting observations are providing valuable insights into the processes that drive…

University of Copenhagen mathematicians have developed a recipe for upgrading quantum computers to simulate complex quantum systems, such as molecules. Their discovery brings us closer to being able to predict how new drugs will behave within our bodies and has the potential…

Remember that old high school chemistry experiment where salt crystals precipitate out of a saltwater solution — or maybe the one where rock candy crystals form from sugar water? It turns out that your understanding of how crystals formed in those solutions…

Professional and amateur astronomers teamed up with artificial intelligence to find an unmatched stellar trio called TIC 290061484, thanks to cosmic “strobe lights” captured by NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The system contains a set of twin stars orbiting each other…

Researchers have successfully integrated a megahertz-speed optical coherence tomography (MHz-OCT) system into a commercially available neurosurgical microscope and demonstrated its clinical usefulness. This advancement represents an important step toward developing an OCT instrument that could be used to identify tumor margins during…

Deep-learning models are being used in many fields, from health care diagnostics to financial forecasting. However, these models are so computationally intensive that they require the use of powerful cloud-based servers. This reliance on cloud computing poses significant security risks, particularly in…

For the first time ever, researchers have witnessed — in real time and at the molecular-scale — hydrogen and oxygen atoms merge to form tiny, nano-sized bubbles of water. The event occurred as part of a new Northwestern University study, during which…

Like atoms coming together to release their power, fusion researchers worldwide are joining forces to solve the world’s energy crisis. Harnessing the power of fusing plasma as a reliable energy source for the power grid is no easy task, requiring global contributions.…

Astronomers have published a gigantic infrared map of the Milky Way containing more than 1.5 billion objects — the most detailed one ever made. Using the European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope, the team monitored the central regions of our Galaxy over more…

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have studied how nanoplastic affects aquatic organisms in lakes and rivers. The results are surprising and the researchers are the first to show that some species are being wiped out, while others — such as cyanobacteria…

Each year, about 2.2 million bone-grafting procedures are performed worldwide, the gold standard of care being autografting, which uses the patient’s own bone for tooth implantation and to repair and reconstruct parts of the mouth, face and skull. Given drawbacks to autografting…

Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) uses hundreds of millions, sometimes billions, of data points to train itself to produce realistic and innovative outputs that can mimic human-created content. Its applications include personalized recommendations for online shoppers, creating audio and visual content and accelerating…

By 2100, hospitalizations from diarrheal diseases are predicted to increase in the city of Dhaka in Bangladesh as a result of climate change, even if global warming stays under 2 degrees Celsius. Farhana Haque and colleagues from University College London, London School…

The discovery of an Earth-like planet 4,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy provides a preview of one possible fate for our planet billions of years in the future, when the sun has turned into a white dwarf, and a…

The theory of indirect reciprocity holds that people who earn a good reputation by helping others are more likely to be rewarded by third parties, but widespread cooperation depends on agreement about reputations. In most theoretical models examining how reputations impact people’s…

A research team led by Rice University’s James Tour has developed a method to recycle valuable metals from electronic waste more efficiently while significantly reducing the environmental impact typically associated with metal recycling. Metal recycling can reduce the need for mining, which…

Is our home galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, a special place? A team of scientists started a journey to answer this question more than a decade ago. Commenced in 2013, the Satellites Around Galactic Analogs (SAGA) Survey studies galaxy systems like the…

There are more than 7,000 rare and undiagnosed diseases globally. Although each condition occurs in a small number of individuals, collectively these diseases exert a staggering human and economic toll because they affect some 300 million people worldwide. Yet, with a mere…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the buzz phrase of 2024. Though far from that cultural spotlight, scientists from agricultural, biological and technological backgrounds are also turning to AI as they collaborate to find ways for these algorithms and models to analyze datasets to…

Astronomers from the University of Arizona, along with an international group of researchers, observed the atmosphere of a hot and uniquely inflated exoplanet using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The exoplanet, which is the size of Jupiter but only a tenth of…

A multi-institutional research team led by Georgia Tech’s Hailong Chen has developed a new, low-cost cathode that could radically improve lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) — potentially transforming the electric vehicle (EV) market and large-scale energy storage systems. “For a long time, people have…

Quasars are the most luminous objects in the Universe and are powered by material accreting onto supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. Studies have shown that early-Universe quasars have black holes so massive that they must have been swallowing gas…

Within the cycling realm, “to Everest” involves riding up and down the same mountain until your ascents total the elevation of Mt. Everest — 8,848 meters. After a new cycling “Everesting” record was set a few years ago, a debate ensued on…

Using state-of-the-art energy efficiency technologies to renovate existing properties and construct new ones could enable Europe’s construction sector to almost eliminate its carbon emissions by 2060, a new study suggests. Published in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, the research is…

Spintronic devices work with spin textures caused by quantum-physical interactions. A Spanish-German collaboration has now studied graphene-cobalt-iridium heterostructures at BESSY II. The results show how two desired quantum-physical effects reinforce each other in these heterostructures. This could lead to new spintronic devices…

A research team led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has developed a computational workflow for analyzing large data sets in the field of metabolomics, the study of small molecules found within cells, biofluids, tissues, and entire ecosystems. Most recently,…

Lasso peptides are natural products made by bacteria. Their unusual lasso shape endows them with remarkable stability, protecting them from extreme conditions. In a new study, published in Nature Chemical Biology, researchers have constructed and tested models for how these peptides are…

The importance of testing for diseases was thrust into the limelight during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of us have undergone a PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) or ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay) test within the past four years. Yet these forms of testing are…

By staring into the hellish landscape of Jupiter’s moon Io — the most volcanically active location in the solar system — Cornell University astronomers have been able to study a fundamental process in planetary formation and evolution: tidal heating. “Tidal heating plays…

For the first time, scientists are able to directly compare the different kinds of injury that mechanical ventilation causes to cells in the lungs. In a new study, using a ventilator-on-a-chip model developed at The Ohio State University, researchers found that shear…

Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) have developed hexagon-shaped robotic components, called modules, that can be snapped together LEGO-style into high-speed robots that can be rearranged for different capabilities. The team of researchers from the Robotic Materials Department at MPI-IS,…

A new type of OLED (organic light emitting diode) could replace bulky night vision goggles with lightweight glasses, making them cheaper and more practical for prolonged use, according to University of Michigan researchers. A memory effect in the OLEDs could also lead…

Deep inside what we perceive as solid matter, the landscape is anything but stationary. The interior of the building blocks of the atom’s nucleus — particles called hadrons that a high school student would recognize as protons and neutrons — are made…

In a new study, MIT physicists propose that if most of the dark matter in the universe is made up of microscopic primordial black holes — an idea first proposed in the 1970s — then these gravitational dwarfs should zoom through our…

Inspired by the architecture of human bone’s tough outer layer, engineers at Princeton have developed a cement-based material that is 5.6 times more damage-resistant than standard counterparts. The bio-inspired design allows the material to resist cracking and avoid sudden failure, unlike conventional,…

A new study by MIT physicists proposes that a mysterious force known as early dark energy could solve two of the biggest puzzles in cosmology and fill in some major gaps in our understanding of how the early universe evolved. One puzzle…

Now, a team of UBC Okanagan researchers believe they have found a way to harness the strengths of both technologies in a way that could be life-changing — and life-saving — for many. Dr. Hadi Mohammadi and his fellow researchers in the…

Most rechargeable batteries that power portable devices, such as toys, handheld vacuums and e-bikes, use lithium-ion technology. But these batteries can have short lifetimes and may catch fire when damaged. To address stability and safety issues, researchers reporting in ACS Energy Letters…

A groundbreaking study has made it possible to extract much more information from fingerprints as evidence than what is currently achievable. A new study from the Department of Forensic Medicine at Aarhus University is the first in the world to analyze fingerprints…

Low-orbit satellites could soon offer millions of people worldwide access to high-speed communications, but the satellites’ potential has been stymied by a technological limitation — their antenna arrays can only manage one user at a time. The one-to-one ratio means that companies…

An international team of researchers has found a surprisingly simple relationship between the rates of energy and information transmission across an interface connecting two quantum field theories. Their work was published in Physical Review Letters on August 30. The interface between different…

Kumamoto University’s research team, led by Assistant Professor Kazuto Hatakeyama and Professor Shintaro Ida of Institute of Industrial Nanomaterials, has announced a groundbreaking development in hydrogen ion barrier films using graphene oxide (GO) that lacks internal pores. This innovative approach promises significant…

Taking inspiration from enzymes, chemists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a catalyst to simplify the synthesis of ethers, key functional components of many drugs, foods, personal care items and other consumer goods. The catalyst puts the two chemical ingredients in…

One of the drawbacks of fitness trackers and other wearable devices is that their batteries eventually run out of juice. But what if in the future, wearable technology could use body heat to power itself? UW researchers have developed a flexible, durable…

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world’s most powerful solar telescope, designed, built, and operated by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO), achieved a major breakthrough in solar physics by directly mapping the strength of the…

For the first time, astronomers have captured images of a star other than the Sun in enough detail to track the motion of bubbling gas on its surface. The images of the star, R Doradus, were obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter…

As Rohit Velankar, now a senior at Fox Chapel Area High School, poured juice into a glass, he could feel that the rhythmic glug, glug, glug was flexing the walls of the carton. Rohit pondered the sound, and wondered if a container’s…

Bioactive glasses, a filling material which can bond to tissue and improve the strength of bones and teeth, has been combined with gallium to create a potential treatment for bone cancer. Tests in labs have found that bioactive glasses doped with the…

Maryam Shanechi, the Sawchuk Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding director of the USC Center for Neurotechnology, and her team have developed a new AI algorithm that can separate brain patterns related to a particular behavior. This work, which can…

Researchers from Kyushu University have revealed that a zeolite material called Na-ZSM-5 is effective in improving the chemical conversion of biomass into olefins — a precursor chemical that makes everything from plastics to pharmaceuticals — using microwaves. Publishing their work in Chemical…

As a rule, GPS indicates our location with an accuracy of just a few meters. But we have all experienced situations where the possible error increases to a few hundred meters or the indicated location is simply wrong. One reason for this…

Typically, electrons are free agents that can move through most metals in any direction. When they encounter an obstacle, the charged particles experience friction and scatter randomly like colliding billiard balls. But in certain exotic materials, electrons can appear to flow with…

A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory identified and successfully demonstrated a new method to process a plant-based material called nanocellulose that reduced energy needs by a whopping 21%. The approach was discovered using molecular…

A widely used disinfectant worldwide, chloroxylenol, has been associated with eco-toxicological threats in water environments due to its relatively high chemical stability and massive consumption. Researchers at the School of Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have…

Water contamination by the chemicals used in today’s technology is a rapidly growing problem globally. A recent studyby the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that 98 percent of people tested had detectable levels of PFAS, a family of particularly long-lasting compounds,…

Researchers at Tohoku University have successfully increased the capacity, lifetime durability, and cost-effectiveness of a capacitor in their pursuit of a more power-efficient future. A capacitor is a device used as part of a circuit that can store and release energy, just…

A better understanding of the inner workings of neutron stars will lead to a greater knowledge of the dynamics that underpin the workings of the universe and also could help drive future technology, said the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign physics professor Nicolas…

It’s 7 billion years ago, and the universe’s heyday of star formation is beginning to slow. What might our Milky Way galaxy have looked like at that time? Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found clues in the form of…

Building a robot takes time, technical skill, the right materials — and sometimes, a little fungus. In creating a pair of new robots, Cornell University researchers cultivated an unlikely component, one found on the forest floor: fungal mycelia. By harnessing mycelia’s innate…

Around 4 billion years ago, an asteroid hit the Jupiter moon Ganymede. Now, a Kobe University researcher realized that the Solar System’s biggest moon’s axis has shifted as a result of the impact, which confirmed that the asteroid was around 20 times…

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a world leader in molten salt reactor technology development — and its researchers additionally perform the fundamental science necessary to enable a future where nuclear energy becomes more efficient. In a recent paper…

A team of scientists has unlocked the potential of 6G communications with a new polarisation multiplexer. Terahertz communications represent the next frontier in wireless technology, promising data transmission rates far exceeding current systems. By operating at terahertz frequencies, these systems can support…

Understanding how cells process nutrients and produce energy — collectively known as metabolism — is essential in biology. However, analyzing the vast amounts of data on cellular processes to determine metabolic states is a complex task. Modern biology generates large datasets on…

While some microbes can make people sick or spoil food, others are critical for survival. These tiny organisms can also be engineered to make specific molecules. Researchers reporting in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering have rewired one such microbe to help tackle…

Wearable, long-term continuous heart monitors helped identify 52% more cases of atrial fibrillation compared to usual care, but that did not lead to a reduction in hospitalizations due to stroke, according to a study led by the Duke Clinical Research Institute. The…

The invention of a tool capable of unlocking previously impossible organic chemical reactions has opened new pathways in the pharmaceutical industry to create effective drugs more quickly. Traditionally, most drugs are assembled using molecular fragments called alkyl building blocks, organic compounds that…

In order to train more powerful large language models, researchers use vast dataset collections that blend diverse data from thousands of web sources. But as these datasets are combined and recombined into multiple collections, important information about their origins and restrictions on…

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have successfully simulated higher-order topological (HOT) lattices with unprecedented accuracy using digital quantum computers. These complex lattice structures can help us understand advanced quantum materials with robust quantum states that are highly sought after…

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital have found a new method to increase both speed and success rates in drug discovery. The study, published Aug. 30 in the journal Science Advances, offers renewed promise when…

Astronomers have spotted a pair of galaxies in the act of merging 12.8 billion years ago. The characteristics of these galaxies indicate that the merger will form a monster galaxy, one of the brightest types of objects in the Universe. These results…

Chemists at the University of Amsterdam have developed a method to furnish a range of molecules with a trifluoromethyl group attached to a sulphur, nitrogen or oxygen atom. Their procedure, which has just been published in Science, avoids the use of PFAS…

Rice University researchers have developed a smart material that adjusts its transparency with changes in temperature, outperforming similar materials in terms of durability, transparency and responsiveness. The new polymer blend could significantly enhance energy efficiency for indoor space cooling, according to a…

Supermassive black holes typically take billions of years to form. But the James Webb Space Telescope is finding them not that long after the Big Bang — before they should have had time to form. It takes a long time for supermassive…

Published in the Journal of Neural Engineering, a research team led by the University of Minnesota Medical School evaluated the reliability of human experts in comparison to an automated algorithm in assessing the quality of intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) data. This research hopes…

Rare-earth elements are everywhere in modern life, found in everything from the smart device you’re reading this on to the LED lightbulbs overhead and neodymium magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines. However, purifying these critical metals from ores with complex mixtures…

Using evolution as a guiding principle, researchers have successfully engineered bacteria-yeast hybrids to perform photosynthetic carbon assimilation, generate cellular energy and support yeast growth without traditional carbon feedstocks like glucose or glycerol. By engineering photosynthetic cyanobacteria to live symbiotically inside yeast cells,…

Nothing in science can be achieved or understood without measurement. Today, thanks to advances in quantum sensing, scientists can measure things that were once impossible to even imagine: vibrations of atoms, properties of individual photons, fluctuations associated with gravitational waves. A quantum…

For about fifteen years, Kagome materials with their star-shaped structure reminiscent of a Japanese basketry pattern have captivated global research. Only staring from 2018 scientists have been able to synthesize metallic compounds featuring this structure in the lab. Thanks to their unique…

A 3D quantum spin liquid has been discovered in the vicinity of a member of the langbeinite family. The material’s specific crystalline structure and the resulting magnetic interactions induce an unusual behaviour that can be traced back to an island of liquidity.…

Scientists for several years have studied the theoretical effectiveness of injecting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to reflect heat from the Sun and offset Earth’s warming temperatures. But they also want to ensure that the solar geoengineering approaches being studied are evaluated…

A multi-institutional team of scientists in the United States, led by physicist Peng Wei at the University of California, Riverside, has developed a new superconductor material that could potentially be used in quantum computing and be a candidate “topological superconductor.” Topology is…

A team of researchers at Michigan State University has discovered a set of methods that enabled the first successful CRISPR-based genome editing in Nile grass rats. The study, published in BMC Biology, is the first to successfully edit genomes in Nile grass…

When NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft collided with an asteroid moon called Dimorphos in 2022, the moon was significantly deformed — creating a large crater and reshaping it so dramatically that the moon derailed from its original evolutionary progression —…

New research using neural networks, a form of brain-inspired AI, proposes a solution to the tough challenge of modelling the states of molecules. The research shows how the technique can help solve fundamental equations in complex molecular systems. This could lead to…

As climate change creates hotter, drier conditions, we are seeing longer fire seasons with larger, more frequent wildfires. In recent years, catastrophic wildfires have destroyed homes and infrastructure, caused devastating losses in lives and livelihoods of people living in affected areas, and…

Imagine owning a camera so powerful it can take freeze-frame photographs of a moving electron — an object traveling so fast it could circle the Earth many times in a matter of a second. Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed…

Who are we? Why are we here? As the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song suggests, we are stardust, the result of chemistry occurring throughout vast clouds of interstellar gas and dust. To better understand how that chemistry could create prebiotic molecules…

This summer’s Western heat waves raise the specter of recent years’ rotating power outages and record-breaking electricity demand in the region. If utilities across the area expanded current schemes to share electricity, they could cut outage risks by as much as 40%,…

Researchers using Georgia State University’s Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) Array have identified new details about the size and appearance of the North Star, also known as Polaris. The new research is published in The Astrophysical Journal. Earth’s North Pole…

Nylon, Teflon, Kevlar. These are just a few familiar polymers — large-molecule chemical compounds — that have changed the world. From Teflon-coated frying pans to 3D printing, polymers are vital to creating the systems that make the world function better. Finding the…

NIMS and SoftBank Corp. have jointly developed a model capable of predicting the cycle lives of high-energy-density lithium-metal batteries by applying machine learning methods to battery performance data. The model proved able to accurately estimate batteries’ longevity by analyzing their charge, discharge…

The dramatic dimming of a light source ~ 860 million light-years away from Earth confirms the accuracy of a detailed model developed by a team of astrophysicists, including Syracuse University Professor Eric Coughlin. Powerful telescopes like NASA’s Hubble, James Webb, and Chandra…

Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have developed a novel reagent that enhances the precision of drug synthesis. This innovative method, published in Nature Communications, introduces a new sulfur fluoride exchange (SuFEx) reagent that allows for highly controlled production of crucial sulfur-based molecules, including…

Two University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists have discovered a new type of “whistler,” an electromagnetic wave that carries a substantial amount of lightning energy to the Earth’s magnetosphere. The research is published in Science Advances. Vikas Sonwalkar, a professor emeritus, and Amani…

James Tour’s lab at Rice University has developed a new method known as flash-within-flash Joule heating (FWF) that could transform the synthesis of high-quality solid-state materials, offering a cleaner, faster and more sustainable manufacturing process. The findings were published in Nature Chemistry…

A groundbreaking technology has been unveiled that improves the efficiency of thermoelectric materials, which are key in converting waste heat into electricity, by altering their geometry to resemble an hourglass. Unlike previous research that solely depended on the material properties of thermoelectric…

Geoscientists from the University of Cologne have led an international study to determine the origin of the huge piece of rock that hit the Earth around 66 million years ago and permanently changed the climate. The scientists analysed samples of the rock…

A mathematical framework that builds on the economic theory of hidden-action models provides insight into how the unobservable nature of effort and risk shapes investigators’ research strategies and the incentive structures within which they work, according to a study published August 15…

For the past century since their discovery, superconductors and their mysterious atomic properties have left researchers in awe. These special materials allow electricity to flow through them without any energy loss. They even allow trains to levitate. But superconductors typically only work…

A new brain-computer interface (BCI) developed at UC Davis Health translates brain signals into speech with up to 97% accuracy — the most accurate system of its kind. The researchers implanted sensors in the brain of a man with severely impaired speech…

The remarkable affinity of the microbial enzyme iron nitrogenase for the greenhouse gas CO2 makes it promising for future biotechnologies. Nitrogenases are among the most geochemically important enzymes on Earth, providing all forms of life with bioavailable nitrogen in the form of…

University of Missouri scientists are battling against an emerging enemy of human health: nanoplastics. Much smaller in size than the diameter of an average human hair, nanoplastics are invisible to the naked eye. Linked to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in people, nanoplastics…

Using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a Southwest Research Institute-led team has confirmed hydroxyl molecules on the surface of the metallic asteroid Psyche. The presence of hydrated minerals suggests a complex history for Psyche, important context for the NASA spacecraft…

Last year marked Earth’s warmest year on record. A new study finds that some of 2023’s record warmth, nearly 20 percent, likely came as a result of reduced sulfur emissions from the shipping industry. Much of this warming concentrated over the northern…

New research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that programming robots to create their own teams and voluntarily wait for their teammates results in faster task completion, with the potential to improve manufacturing, agriculture and warehouse automation. This research was recognized…

With temperatures rising globally, the need for more sustainable cooling options is also growing. Researchers at UCLA and their colleagues have now found an affordable and scalable process to cool buildings in the summer and heat them in the winter. Led by…