Phys.org March 13, 2023 An international team of researchers in the US ( Michigan State University, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Cornell University) used peer review data from 312,740 biological sciences manuscripts across 31 studies to (1) examine evidence for differential peer review outcomes based on author demographics, (2) evaluate the efficacy of solutions to reduce bias and (3) describe the current landscape of peer review policies for 541 ecology and evolution journals. They found notably worse review outcomes (for example, lower overall acceptance rates) for authors whose institutional affiliations were in Asia, for authors whose country’s primary language […]
Underused satellite, radar data may improve thunderstorm forecasts
Science Daily March 9, 2023 Many of the processes necessary for daytime convection initiation (CI) are rooted in the planetary boundary layer (PBL), which numerical models struggle to accurately predict. To improve ensemble forecasts of the PBL and subsequent CI forecasts in CAM ensembles, researchers at Pennsylvania State University explored the use of underused data from both the GOES-16 satellite and the national network of WSR-88D radars. The GOES-16 satellite provides observations of brightness temperature (BT) to better analyze cloud structures, while the WSR-88D radars provide PBL height estimates and clear-air radial wind velocity observations to better analyze PBL structures. […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of March 10, 2023
01. 3D battery imaging reveals the secret real-time life of lithium metal cells 02. Bending 2D nanomaterial could ‘switch on’ future technologies 03. Graphene quantum dots show promise as novel magnetic field sensors 04. Imaging through random media using coherent averaging 05. Scientists push the boundaries of manipulating light at the submicroscopic level 06. New method enables effective free-space optical communication regardless of weather 07. New ‘phase shifter’ technology will reduce signal loss in antenna systems 08. Reaching superconductivity layer by layer 09. Researchers fabricate novel flexible supercapacitors on paper 10. Scientists thread rows of metal atoms into nanofiber bundles […]
Ringing an electronic wave: Elusive massive phason observed in a charge density wave
Phys.org March 9, 2023 The lowest-lying fundamental excitation of an incommensurate charge-density-wave material is believed to be a massless phason—a collective modulation of the phase of the charge-density-wave order parameter. However, long-range Coulomb interactions should push the phason energy up to the plasma energy of the charge-density-wave condensate, resulting in a massive phason and fully gapped spectrum. A team of researchers in the US (University of Illinois, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) used time-domain terahertz emission spectroscopy, to investigate this issue in (TaSe4)2I, a quasi-one-dimensional charge-density-wave insulator. On transient photoexcitation at low temperatures, they found the material strikingly emits coherent, narrowband […]
3D battery imaging reveals the secret real-time life of lithium metal cells
Science Daily March 9, 2023 An international team of researchers (Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland) succeeded in observing how the lithium metal in the cell behaves as it charges and discharges. They developed an operando synchrotron X-ray tomographic microscopy method capable of probing in real-time the formation, growth, and dissolution of Li microstructures during the cycling of a Li||Cu cell containing a standard non-aqueous liquid electrolyte solution. This enabled tracking the evolution of deposited Li metal as a function of time and applied current density and distinguishing the formation of electrochemically inactive Li from the active bulk of Li microstructures. Now the […]
Bending 2D nanomaterial could ‘switch on’ future technologies
Science Daily March 6, 2023 Mechanical flexibility of two-dimensional (2D) materials is shown to bring about unexpected behaviors to the recently discovered monolayer ferroelectrics, especially those displaying normal, off-plane polarization. Researchers at Rice University introduced a “ferro-flexo” coupling term into the energy expression, to account for the connection of ferroelectricity and bending of the layer, to predict and quantify its spontaneous curvature and how it affects the phase transitions. With InP as a representative example, the first-principles calculations revealed strong coupling between the ferroelectric polarization and the curvature of the layer having profound consequences for both mechanics and ferroelectricity of […]
Graphene quantum dots show promise as novel magnetic field sensors
Nanowerk March 6, 2023 Single quantum dots and coupled quantum dots formed with massless Dirac fermions can be viewed as artificial relativistic atoms and molecules, respectively. Such structures offer a unique testbed to study atomic and molecular physics in the ultrarelativistic regime. An international team of researchers (USA – UC Santa Cruz, UK, Japan) used a scanning tunnelling microscope to create and probe single and coupled electrostatically defined graphene quantum dots to unravel the magnetic-field responses of artificial relativistic nanostructures. When electrons in graphene are confined in a quantum dot, they travel in circular loops around the edge of the […]
Imaging through random media using coherent averaging
Phys.org March 7, 2023 Although methods to recover the Fourier amplitude through random distortions are well established, recovery of the Fourier phase has been a more difficult problem. Researchers in South Korea proposed and demonstrated a new phase retrieval method for imaging through random media. They showed that by ensemble averaging shift-corrected images, the Fourier phase of an object obscured by random distortions can be accurately retrieved up to the diffraction limit. The method is simple, fast, does not have any optimization parameters, and does not require prior knowledge or assumptions about the sample. The feasibility and robustness of the […]
Neural networks could help predict destructive earthquakes
Phys.org March 3, 2023 The movement and deformation of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle provide critical insights into the evolution of earthquake processes and future earthquake potentials. Crustal deformation can be modeled by dislocation models that represent earthquake faults in the crust as defects in a continuum medium. Researchers in Japan have proposed a physics-informed deep learning approach to model crustal deformation due to earthquakes. Neural networks can represent continuous displacement fields in arbitrary geometrical structures and mechanical properties of rocks by incorporating governing equations and boundary conditions into a loss function. They introduced polar coordinate system to accurately […]
New method enables effective free-space optical communication regardless of weather
Phys.org March 1, 2023 To overcome the barriers to light propagation for free-space optical communication (FSO) a team of researchers in the US (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Michigan) proposed making use of the acoustic properties of a laser filament coupled together with a donut-shaped signal beam. A filament generated by an ultrafast laser was accompanied by an acoustic wave that clears a cylindrical chamber around the filament’s plasma column that can mimic a transmission channel. They presented a method to couple a Laguerre–Gauss beam through the obstacle-free channel. They imaged and measured the transmitted signal carried by the structured […]