Phys.org March 17, 2022 In photonic circuits optical isolators are used to prevent light from reentering the system and destabilizing it. But guiding light in one direction often requires large magnets, making these circuits difficult to create on a small scale. By coupling light confined in a nanophotonic waveguide with an atomically thin, two-dimensional semiconductor, a team of researchers in the US (University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory) exploited the properties of both the light and the material to guide photons in one direction. They fabricated titanium dioxide waveguides directly on the surface of low-disorder, boron nitride-encapsulated tungsten diselenide (WSe2). […]
Warming oceans will significantly alter how sound travels underwater
Phys.org March 24, 2022 A considerable fraction of marine life depends on sound, marine mammals exploit sound in all aspects of their life. Researchers in Italy studied the impact of climate change in sound propagation by computing the three-dimensional global field of underwater sound speed based on present conditions (2006–2016) and a future climate scenario identifying two “acoustic hotspots” where larger sound speed variations are expected. Their results indicated that the identified acoustic hotspots would present substantial climate-change-induced sound speed variations toward the end of the century, potentially affecting the vital activities of species in the areas. They provided evidence […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of March 18, 2022
01. Hoverfly brains mapped to detect the sound of distant drones 02. Blowin’ in the wind – tiny battery-free sensor devices float like dandelion seeds (w/video) 03. Extracting mechanical work from superfast-expanding hydrogels 04. High-Energy Interactions Between Light and Matter Described by Advanced New Mathematical Model 05. Magnetism helps electrons vanish in high-temp superconductors 06. Quantum information: Light from rare-earth molecules 07. Researchers Set Record by Preserving Quantum States in Silicon Carbide for More Than Five Seconds 08. Revealing thermal runaway routes in lithium-sulfur batteries 09. ‘Self-driving’ lab speeds up research, synthesis of energy materials 10. Simpler graphene method paves […]
Are conferences worth time and money?
Phys.org March 14, 2022 A team researchers in the US (Northwestern University, industry) developed a new mathematical model to understand and predict how scientists form collaborations at both in-person and virtual conferences. They validated the model with extensive data. The results suggest that the way organizers design conferences can have a direct effect on which scientific collaborations are formed and, by extension, on the direction of scientific inquiry. The patterns of interaction during conferences can be used to predict who will subsequently form a new collaboration, even when interaction is prescribed rather than freely chosen. After applying its mathematical model […]
Blowin’ in the wind – tiny battery-free sensor devices float like dandelion seeds (w/video)
Nanowerk March 16, 2022 Inspired by plants which disperse their seeds using the wind researchers at the University of Washington developed and demonstrated wind dispersal of battery-free wireless sensing devices. The millimetre-scale devices weigh 30 milligrams and were designed on a flexible substrate using programmable, off-the-shelf parts to enable scalability and flexibility for various sensing and computing applications. The system is powered using lightweight solar cells and an energy harvesting circuit that is robust to low and variable light conditions and has a backscatter communication link that enables data transmission. To achieve the wide-area dispersal and upright landing they developed thin-film […]
California’s first lab-grown mosquitoes may take flight—stirring controversy
Phys.org March 15, 2022 A biotech firm is seeking permission to release 2 million genetically modified male mosquitoes, with a “kill switch” built into their DNA, into the open air of California. When they mate with wild insects, their offspring die, causing an eventual collapse of the population. They are targeting swarms of the mosquito, first detected in Los Angeles County in 2011, which have since spread northward into 20 California counties. Unlike California’s native mosquitoes which emerge at dusk, these black-and-white-striped invaders hunt for blood during the day, when people are outside. They transmit potentially fatal Zika, dengue, yellow […]
COVID-19—lessons for zoonotic disease – Perspective
Science March 10, 2022 According to researchers in Australia zoonotic diseases have been part of the human experience since the origin of our species. The key issue is not that zoonotic diseases appear in humans, but that their emergence seems to be increasing in frequency. Major changes in land use, increasing urbanization, and global connectedness will accelerate the rate of zoonotic events. A core question is whether particular animal groups are common sources of zoonotic viruses. By understanding why and how zoonotic diseases emerge in humans, as well as the barriers to this process, it is possible to be better […]
Extracting mechanical work from superfast-expanding hydrogels
Nanowerk March 12, 2022 Superabsorbent polymer gels can absorb large amounts of water (100–1000× their dry weight). However, gels that are both superabsorbent and able to expand rapidly have not yet been realized. Researchers at the University of Maryland created such gels by in situ foaming of a monomer solution (acrylic acid and acrylamide) using a double-barreled syringe which has acid and base in its two barrels. The gas generated by the acid–base reaction, was stabilized by an amphiphilic polymer in one of the barrels. The monomers are then polymerized by UV light to form the gel around the bubbles, […]
High-Energy Interactions Between Light and Matter Described by Advanced New Mathematical Model
SciTech Daily March 15, 2022 High-harmonic generation has several applications, way to create table-top sources of extreme ultraviolet or x-ray light using lasers, and produce ultrashort light pulses, which are useful for imaging extremely rapid processes such as those that occur in atoms. But high-harmonic generation is inherently difficult to model mathematically, and understand fully. An international team of researchers (Japan, USA – University of Chicago) has developed an analytical approach to high-harmonic generation in the non-perturbative regime using mathematical techniques that had not previously been applied to high-harmonic generation. Their approach revealed the microscopic mechanism that converts incoming intense […]
Hoverfly brains mapped to detect the sound of distant drones
Science Daily March 15, 2022 Insect vision systems have been mapped for some time now to improve camera-based detections. Researchers in Australia shown that it is possible pick up clear and crisp acoustic signatures of drones, including very small and quiet ones, using an algorithm based on the hoverfly’s visual system. They converted acoustic signals into spectrograms and used the neural pathway of the hoverfly brain to improve and suppress unrelated signals and noise, increasing the detection range for the sounds they wanted to detect. They looked for narrowband and/or broadband to pick up drone acoustics at short to medium […]