Phys.org May 29, 2023 There is a need for low-cost alternatives to traditional materials used in infrared optics such as germanium. Sulfur-rich copolymers hold promise, as they are made from low-cost feedstocks and have a high refractive index. Researchers in Australia copolymerized cyclopentadiene with sulfur to provide a plastic with the highest long-wave infrared transparency reported to date for this class of materials. Diverse lens architectures were accessible through melt casting or reactive injection molding. The featured copolymer was black, which enabled its use as an infrared-transparent blind for protection of thermal imaging equipment and clandestine surveillance. According to the […]
Researchers build bee robot that can twist
Science Daily May 23, 2023 A team of researchers in the US (UCLA, industries, Washington State University) has developed a an insect-scale flying robot, Bee ++, driven by four independently actuated flapping wings using new method for synthesizing and implementing high-performance six-degree-of-freedom (6 -DOF) flight controllers. Each wing of the Bee ++ was installed with a preset orientation enabling reliable roll, pitch, and yaw torque generation, and a Lyapunov-based nonlinear control architecture that enabled closed-loop position and attitude regulation and tracking. The control algorithms stabilize position and attitude by independently varying the wing stroke amplitudes of the four flapping wings. […]
Small fusion experiment hits temperatures hotter than the sun’s core
Phys.org May 30, 2023 An international team of researchers (Ireland, USA – Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Germany) has produced ion temperatures of over 100 million degrees Kelvin (8.6 keV) in the ST40 compact high-field spherical tokamak (ST). Ion temperatures more than 5 keV have not previously been reached in any ST and have only been obtained in much larger devices with substantially more plasma heating power. The corresponding fusion triple product was calculated. These results demonstrated for the first time that ion temperatures relevant for commercial magnetic confinement fusion can be obtained in a compact high-field […]
Source-shifting metastructures composed of only one resin for location camouflaging
Science Daily May 30, 2023 Researchers in Japan numerically demonstrated an inverse design of a structure for camouflaging the location of a sound source as if the sound emanated from a different location. They used a topology optimization approach used in acoustic elastic coupled problems, the difference between the sound pressure fields emanating from an actual source and a virtual source, was the objective function infimized in camouflaging the sound source. Optimal topologies of elastic structures made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene were designed for the camouflaging purpose, acoustic metamaterials were not used. The metastructures (source-shifters) were expressed at the design […]
Telecom-wavelength quantum repeater node transmits quantum information over tens of kilometers
Phys.org May 23, 2023 An international team of researchers (Austria, France) has presented a quantum repeater node based on trapped ions that act as single-photon emitters, quantum memories, and an elementary quantum processor. They demonstrated the node’s ability to establish entanglement across two 25-km-long optical fibers independently, then to swap that entanglement efficiently to extend it over both fibers. The resultant entanglement was established between telecom-wavelength photons at either end of the 50 km channel. Finally, they calculated the system improvements to allow for repeater-node chains to establish stored entanglement over 800 km at hertz rates revealing a near-term path […]
The Tonga volcano eruption caused a ‘super bubble’ in Earth’s ionosphere, disrupting satellite navigation
Phys.org May 30, 2023 The Hunga Tonga Volcano eruption launched waves which generated traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) in the ionosphere, which are known to adversely impact radio applications such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). One such GNSS application is Precise Point Positioning (PPP), which can achieve cm-level accuracy using a single receiver, following a typical convergence time of 30 min to 1 hr. An international team of researchers (Australia, USA – Boston College, Vietnam) used a network of ionosondes located throughout the Australian region in combination with GNSS receivers to explore the impacts of the volcano eruption on the […]
Using AI, scientists find a drug that could combat drug-resistant infections
MIT News May 25, 2023 Discovering new antibiotics against Acinetobacter baumannii, a pathogen that often displays multidrug resistance has proven challenging through conventional screening approaches. An international team of researchers (Canada, USA – MIT, Harvard University) screened ~7,500 molecules for those that inhibited the growth of A. baumannii in vitro and trained a neural network with this growth inhibition dataset and performed in silico predictions for structurally new molecules with activity against A. baumannii. They discovered abaucin, an antibacterial compound with narrow-spectrum activity against A. baumannii. Further investigations revealed that abaucin perturbs lipoprotein trafficking, and it could control an A. […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of May 26, 2023
01. Calcium rechargeable battery with long cycle life 02. Engineers harvest abundant clean energy from thin air, 24/7 03. A flexible near-infrared light-writing multicolor hydrogel system for on-demand information display 04. High-quality 2D films could be one-drop away 05. Metal-filtering sponge removes lead from water 06. Printing atom by atom 07. Researchers demonstrate novel way to convert heat to electricity 08. Smart material prototype challenges Newton’s laws of motion 09. Study reveals generation mechanism of radiative effects on novel active optical hyperspectral LiDAR system 10. Team uses 3D printing to strengthen a key material in aerospace, energy-generation applications And others […]
Calcium rechargeable battery with long cycle life
Science Daily May 23, 2023 As potential alternatives to Li-ion batteries, rechargeable Ca metal batteries offer advantageous features such as high energy density, cost-effectiveness, and natural elemental abundance. However, Ca metal passivation by electrolytes and a lack of cathode materials with efficient Ca2+ storage capabilities, impede the development of practical Ca metal batteries. To overcome these limitations, an international team of researchers (Japan, USA – Toyota Research Institute of North America) verified the applicability of a CuS cathode in Ca metal batteries and its electrochemical properties. Their results showed that a CuS cathode comprising nanoparticles that are well dispersed in […]
Deadly virus structures point toward new avenues for vaccine design
Science Daily May 24, 2023 There are currently no widely approved treatments or vaccines for the Lassa virus. An international team of researchers (USA – The Scripps Research Institute, University of Georgia, Tulane University School of Medicine, UK, Germany, the Netherlands) determined the structure of LASV glycoprotein complex (GPC) which mediates viral entry and is the sole target for neutralizing antibodies. Scientists have also struggled to isolate Lassa glycoproteins — the spike-like proteins that surround the virus and are the target of most antibodies. In the infectious virus, these glycoproteins exist in complexes of three, called trimers. For decades, however, […]