Phys.org July 3, 2023 Researchers in the Netherlands have designed irreversible metamaterials that count mechanical driving cycles and store the result into easily interpretable internal states. They extended the designs to aperiodic metamaterials that were sensitive to the order of different driving magnitudes and realized “lock and key” metamaterials that only reach a specific state for a given target driving sequence. The metamaterials were robust, scalable, and extendable, gave insight into the transient memories of complex media, and opened new routes towards smart sensing, soft robotics, and mechanical information processing. Video https://youtu.be/soO2OzbdRzU… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Researchers create antenna for nanoscale light sources using unusual placement of semiconductor material
Phys.org July 3, 2023 Two-dimensional van der Waals materials are an excellent platform for the study of materials with well-defined interfaces. Signatures of acoustic phonons and defect states have been observed in current-to-voltage measurements. These features can be explained by direct electron–phonon or electron–defect interactions. An international team of researchers (Switzerland, Spain, Japan) used a tunnelling process that involved excitons in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). They studied the tunnel junctions consisting of graphene and gold electrodes separated by hexagonal boron nitride with an adjacent TMD monolayer and observed prominent resonant features in current-to-voltage measurements appearing at bias voltages that corresponded […]
Researchers induce cancer cells to ‘commit suicide’ with a self-produced bacterial toxin
Phys.org July 4, 2023 Suicide gene therapies and immunotoxins have been investigated for the treatment of tumors by direct cancer cell cytotoxicity. Recent advances in mRNA delivery also demonstrated the potential of mRNA-based vaccines and immune-modulators for cancer therapeutics by utilizing nanocarriers for mRNA delivery. Researchers in Israel designed a bacterial toxin-encoding modified mRNA, delivered by lipid nanoparticles into a B16-melanoma mouse model. They showed that local administration of LNPs entrapping a modified mRNA that encodes for a bacterial toxin, induced significant anti-tumor effects and improved overall survival of treated mice. They proposed mmRNA-loaded LNPs as a new class of […]
Scientists develop highly porous materials for electronic and photocatalytic applications
Phys.org July 3, 2023 Porous poly(aryl thioether)s offer stability and electronic tunability by robust sulfur-aryl conjugated architecture, but synthetic access is hindered due to limited control over the nucleophilic nature of sulfides and the air sensitivity of aromatic thiols. An international team of researchers (South Korea, Saudi Arabia) has developed a regioselective synthesis of highly porous poly(aryl thioether)s through polycondensation of perfluoroaromatic compounds with sodium sulfide. The temperature-dependent para-directing formation of thioether linkages led to a stepwise transition of the polymer extension into a network, thereby allowing fine control of the porosity and optical band gaps. The resulting porous organic […]
Scientists find key evidence for existence of nanohertz gravitational waves
Phys.org June 28, 2023 The research by an international team of researchers (China, Germany, Greece, Australia) was based on pulsar timing observations carried out with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Observing and timing a group of millisecond pulsars with high rotational stability enabled the direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). The GW signals could be identified from the spatial correlations encoded in the times-of-arrival of widely spaced pulsar-pairs. According to the researchers this short article serves as a “table of contents” for a forthcoming series of papers related to the CPTA Data Release 1 (CPTA DR1) which uses […]
Transferring data with many colors of light simultaneously
Nanowerk June 29, 2023 Using light to send information between compute nodes can dramatically increase the available bandwidth while simultaneously decreasing energy consumption. Through wavelength-division multiplexing with chip-based microresonator Kerr frequency combs, independent information channels can be encoded onto many distinct colours of light in the same optical fibre for massively parallel data transmission with low energy. Although previous high-bandwidth demonstrations have relied on benchtop equipment for filtering and modulating Kerr comb wavelength channels, data-centre interconnects require a compact on-chip form factor for these operations. Researchers at Columbia University have demonstrated a massively scalable chip-based silicon photonic data link using […]
US Space Force is Deploying Hundreds of New Military Satellites by 2026
Next Big Future June 30, 2023 On June 28 the Space Development Agency released a final request for proposals for its next procurement of 100 satellites as the agency continues to build out a military constellation in low Earth orbit. The Transport Layer Tranche 2 also includes 72 Beta satellites for which SDA already has requested bids. The U.S. Space Force is building a layered network of military satellites. The proliferated warfighter space architecture includes a Transport Layer of interconnected communications satellites and a Tracking Layer of missile-detection and warning sensor satellites. The first highly inclined plane of the T2TL-Alpha […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of June 30, 2023
01. Innovative paper-like, battery-free, AI-enabled sensor for holistic wound monitoring 02. Microsoft claims to have achieved first milestone in creating a reliable and practical quantum computer 03. Nanophotonics: Coupling light and matter 04. A new approach to controlling the properties of turbulence 05. Next-generation memory storage with novel block copolymer structures 06. Researchers develop new electrically pumped edge-emitting laser chip with unprecedented performance 07. Researchers develop a new source of quantum light 08. Study of Earth’s stratosphere reduces uncertainty in future climate change 09. Surprise! Weaker bonds can make polymers stronger 10. ‘Toggle switch’ can help quantum computers cut through […]
Effect of volcanic eruptions significantly underestimated in climate projections
Science Daily June 23, 2023 Standard climate projections, as in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report, assume that explosive volcanic activity over 2015–2100 are of the same level as the 1850–2014 period. Researchers in the UK used the latest ice-core and satellite records to design stochastic eruption scenarios, to show that there is a 95% probability that explosive eruptions could emit more sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere over 2015–2100 than current standard climate projections (i.e., ScenarioMIP). Their simulations using the UK Earth System Model with interactive stratospheric aerosols showed that for a median future eruption scenario, the […]
Experiments reveal that water can ‘talk’ to electrons in graphene
Nanowerk June 23, 2023 Liquids induce electronic polarization and drive electric currents as they flow; electronic excitations, in turn, participate in hydrodynamic friction. Yet, the underlying solid–liquid interactions have been lacking a direct experimental probe. An international team of researchers (Germany, UK, Spain) heated graphene electron quasi-instantaneously by a visible excitation pulse and monitored the time evolution of the electronic temperature with a terahertz pulse. They observed that water accelerated the cooling of the graphene electrons, whereas other polar liquids leave the cooling dynamics largely unaffected. A quantum theory of solid–liquid heat transfer accounts for the water-specific cooling enhancement through […]