Phys.org August 11, 2021 In 2020 NSF and NASA created the Space Weather with Quantified Uncertainties (SWQU) program. The main change in version 2 was the refinement of the numerical grid in the magnetosphere, several improvements in the algorithms, and a recalibration of the empirical parameters. The Geospace Model provides only about 30 minutes of advanced warning. Researchers at the University of Michigan are working to increase lead time to one to three days. They hope to start from the Sun, using remote observation of the Sun’s surface instead of the current data from a satellite measuring plasma parameters one […]
Quantum materials cloak thermal radiation
Nanowerk August 11, 2021 For most solids, the thermally emitted power increases monotonically with temperature in a one-to-one relationship that enables applications such as infrared imaging and noncontact thermometry. A team of researchers in the US (University of Wisconsin–Madison, Harvard University, Purdue University, Brookhaven National Laboratory) has demonstrated that ultrathin thermal emitters that violate this one-to-one relationship via the use of samarium nickel oxide (SmNiO3), a strongly correlated quantum material that undergoes a fully reversible, temperature-driven solid-state phase transition. Due to the smooth and hysteresis-free nature of this unique insulator-to-metal phase transition enabled them to engineer the temperature dependence of […]
Scientists develop chain mail fabric that can stiffen on demand
Science Daily August 12, 2021 Structured fabrics, such as woven sheets or chain mail armours, design can target desirable characteristics, such as high impact resistance, thermal regulation, or electrical conductivity. However, the properties are usually fixed. An international team of researchers (Singapore, USA – Caltech) has developed new chain fabric that is flexible like cloth but can stiffen on demand. It comprises hollow octahedrons that interlock with each other. Increase in bending resistance arises because the interlocking particles have high tensile resistance. They found that chain mails, consisting of different non-convex granular particles, undergo a jamming phase transition that is […]
Single-step synthesis of solid-state sensors for detecting explosives
Nanowerk August 12, 2021 Most existing techniques to detect nitroaromatic compounds cannot be used in practical situations. Conventional methods available for the formulation of aggregation-induced emission (AIE) polymers are highly complicated, involving multi-step purification processes, proving detrimental in the application of AIE polymer-based probes. Researchers in South Korea have developed a single step protocol that produces tetraphenylethylene-hyperbranched polyglycidol (TPE-HPG) polymer solution that is added to water for formation of bright blue fluorescent TPE-HPG aggregated nanoparticles. Through empirical analysis, the researchers observed that the strong blue fluorescence of these nanoparticles is quenched by almost 95% on addition of 90 µM concentration […]
System trains drones to fly around obstacles at high speeds
MIT News August 10, 2021 Researchers at MIT developed a multi-fidelity Bayesian optimization framework that models the feasibility constraints based on analytical approximation, numerical simulation, and real-world flight experiments. By combining evaluations at different fidelities, trajectory time is optimized while the number of costly flight experiments is kept to a minimum. The algorithm is thoroughly evaluated for the trajectory generation problem in two different scenarios: (1) connecting predetermined waypoints; (2) planning in obstacle-rich environments. They found that a drone trained with their algorithm flew through a simple obstacle course up to 20 percent faster than a drone trained on conventional […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of August 6, 2021
01. Engineers bend light to enhance wavelength conversion 02. Effective EMI shielding behavior of thin graphene/PMMA nanolaminates 03. Exotic property of ‘ambidextrous’ crystals points to new magnetic phenomena 04. New approach to information transfer reaches quantum speed limit 05. Running quantum software on a classical computer 06. Towards next-gen computers: Mimicking brain functions with graphene-diamond junctions 07. World’s first commercial re-programmable satellite blasts into space 08. A comprehensive study of technological change 09. Concrete and the hard-core bacteria that stubbornly persist within 10. Nearly 14,000 Scientists Warn That Earth’s ‘Vital Signs’ Are Rapidly Worsening And others… Can East Asian monsoon […]
Can East Asian monsoon enhancement induce global cooling?
Phys.org August 2, 2021 The strong erosion in the Himalayas was assumed to be a primary driver of Cenozoic atmospheric CO2 decline and global cooling predominantly through accelerating silicate chemical weathering in the India-Asia collision zone or through effective burial of organic carbon in the nearby Bengal Fan in South Asia. An international team of researchers (China, France) has found that the northward advance of the East Asian monsoon on tectonically inactive subtropical China induced globally significant silicate weathering atmospheric CO2 sink. The organic carbon burial flux is approximately 25% of the contemporary CO2 consumption by silicate weathering. The unusual […]
China to release updated climate plans ‘in near future’: envoy
Phys.org August 3, 2021 Climate negotiators from 196 countries and the European Union as well as businesses, experts and world leaders will gather in Glasgow in November for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) summit. Under the Paris Agreement, countries are meant to have submitted updated 2030 climate targets ahead of COP26, but nearly half have yet to do so. China said they will soon release their updated plans. The United Nations is pushing for a global coalition committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 which will cover all countries. Many scientists now say 1.5 degrees must […]
A comprehensive study of technological change
MIT News August 2, 2021 Researchers at MIT have provided predicted yearly performance improvement rates for nearly all definable technologies by creating a correspondence of all patents within the US patent system to a set of 1757 technology domains. A technology domain is a body of patented inventions achieving the same technological function using the same knowledge and scientific principles. The domains contain 97.2% of all patents within the entire US patent system. From the identified patent sets, they calculated the average centrality of the patents in each domain to predict their improvement rates, following a patent network-based methodology tested […]
Concrete and the hard-core bacteria that stubbornly persist within
Phys.org August 4, 2021 Researchers at the University of Delaware hypothesized that the microbial communities of concrete reflect those of the concrete components and that these communities change as the concrete ages. To show how microbial communities change over 2 years of outdoor weathering they used two sets of concrete cylinders, one prone to the concrete-degrading alkali-silica reaction (ASR) and the other having the risk of the ASR mitigated. After identifying and removing taxa that were likely laboratory or reagent contaminants, they found that precursor materials, particularly the large aggregate (gravel), were the probable source of ∼50 to 60% of […]