Phys.org November 25, 2021 According to the Russian defense ministry, a Soyuz rocket carrying a classified payload blasted off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia in the early hours of Thursday morning. It is believed to be part of the Kremlin’s early warning anti-missile system. It did not provide further details. According to the Spaceflightnow website, which covers space launches, the launch could be delivering a Tundra satellite. Russia has previously launched Tundra satellites in 2015, 2017 and 2019, according to Interfax…read more.
Scientists successfully manipulate a single skyrmion at room temperature
Nanowerk November 24, 2021 The key to creating spintronics devices is the ability to effectively manipulate, and measure, a single tiny vortex. Researchers in Japan used a thin magnetic plate made up of a compound of cobalt, zinc, and manganese which is known as a chiral-lattice magnet. They directly observed the dynamics of a single skyrmion at room temperature and tracked the motions of the skyrmion and control its Hall motion directions by flipping the magnetic field when they subjected it to ultrafast pulses of electric current—on the scale of nanoseconds. They found that the skyrmion’s motion demonstrated a dynamic […]
Shifting colors for on-chip photonics
Nanowerk November 24, 2021 Today, most frequency shifters are either too inefficient, losing a lot of light in the conversion process, or they can’t convert light in the gigahertz range. A team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, Caltech, industry) etched coupled ring-resonators and waveguides on thin-film lithium niobate. In the first device, two coupled resonators form a figure eight-like structure. Input light travels from the waveguide entering as one color and emerging as another. It provides frequency shifts as high as 28 gigahertz with about 90% efficiency. It can be reconfigured as tunable frequency-domain beam splitters. The second device […]
‘Super jelly’ can survive being run over by a car (with Video)
Phys.org November 25, 2021 The way materials behave is dependent upon the way molecules are joined by crosslinkers. Researchers in the UK used barrel-shaped molecules called cucurbiturils as crosslinking molecule, like molecular handcuff, which hold two guest molecules that prefer to stay inside the cavity for longer than normal keeping the polymer network tightly linked, allowing for it to withstand compression even at 80% water content. They found that the compressive strength could be easily controlled by simply changing the chemical structure of the guest molecule inside the cavity. To make their glass-like hydrogels, the team chose specific guest molecules […]
Where will the next pandemic begin? The Amazon rainforest offers troubling clues
Phys.org November 22, 2021 According to the scientists the next pandemic is likely to emerge from a community as people demolish forest, they not only accelerate global warming but also dramatically increase their risk of exposure to disease. Lurking in mammals and birds are about 1.6 million viruses, some of which will be deadly when they leap to humans. Scientists say that disease hot zones are multiplying from Africa to South America, and that deforestation has already triggered a rise in infectious disease. Zoologists have traced about a third of all known outbreaks around the world to rapid land use […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of November 19, 2021
01. A nanoantenna for long-distance, ultra-secure communication 02. New holographic camera sees the unseen with high precision 03. New material could be two superconductors in one 04. Tiny chip provides a big boost in precision optics 05. Ultra-thin film of magnetite optimized for spintronics 06. Ultrafast charging of batteries using fully new anode material 07. Exploding and weeping ceramics provide path to new shape-shifting material 08. Magnetene: Graphene-like 2D material leverages quantum effects to achieve ultra-low friction 09. Molecular snakes become ladders – potential building blocks for electronics 10. Chemists discover new way to harness energy from ammonia And others… […]
‘Anti-aging’ chemistry taken from nature overcomes next-gen lithium battery decay
Phys.org November 15, 2021 Degradation occurs pretty much everywhere in nature since oxygen is one of the elements most capable of attracting electrons from other atoms and molecules. Organisms often produce different types of enzymes that work to scavenge active oxygen and free radicals to alleviate the issue. Inspired by the anti-oxygen coping mechanisms in nature researchers in China developed a photostabilizer—a simple, anti-aging binder additive to the electrolyte that can scavenge the singlet oxygen atoms and free radicals as they occur. Through experimental investigation and theoretical calculation, they found that the scavenging mechanism in layered transition metal oxides-based lithium […]
Chemists discover new way to harness energy from ammonia
Phys.org November 11, 2021 Researchers at the University of Wisconsin developed a technique to convert ammonia to nitrogen gas using a metal catalyst containing ruthenium without added energy. The process can be harnessed to produce electricity, with protons and nitrogen gas as byproducts. In addition, the metal complex can be recycled through exposure to oxygen and used repeatedly, a much cleaner process than using carbon-based fuels. The new reaction avoids toxic byproducts. If the reaction were housed in a fuel cell where ammonia and ruthenium react at an electrode surface, it could cleanly produce electricity without the need for a […]
Exploding and weeping ceramics provide path to new shape-shifting material
Phys.org November 17, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – University of Minnesota, Germany) discovered that the systematic tuning of crystal lattice parameters to achieve improved kinematic compatibility between different phases is a broadly effective strategy for improving the reversibility, and lowering the hysteresis, of solid–solid phase transformations. They showed that when cooling the kinematically compatible ceramic (Zr/Hf)O2(YNb)O4 through its tetragonal-to-monoclinic phase transformation, the polycrystal slowly and steadily falls apart at its grain boundaries or even explosively disintegrates. However, when they tuned the lattice parameters to satisfy a stronger ‘equidistance’ condition, the resulting material exhibits reversible behaviour with low […]
List of Highly Cited Researchers 2021 published
Max-Plank Society November 16, 2021 Clarivate unveiled its 2021 list of Highly Cited Researchers. To determine the “who’s who” of influential researchers it draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information™ at Clarivate. The list identifies some 6,600 researchers from across the globe who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. The names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for the field. The United States is the institutional […]