Science Daily March 29,2018 An international team of researchers (Germany, Italy) experimentally and theoretically demonstrated the occurrence of the Aubry transition (AT), predicted in the 1980s, in an extended two-dimensional system at room temperature using a colloidal monolayer on an optical lattice. Unlike the continuous nature of the AT in 1D, they observed a first-order transition in 2D leading to a coexistence regime of pinned and unpinned areas. The data demonstrates that the original concept of AT not only survives in 2D but is relevant for the design of nanoscopic machines and devices at ambient temperature…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL […]
Thin engineered material perfectly redirects and reflects sound
Science Daily April 10, 2018 Using 3-D printers, an international team of researchers (USA – Duke University, Finland) fabricated a metamaterial made of a series of rows of hollow columns with a narrow opening cut down the middle of one side. The width of the channels between each row of columns and the size of the cavity inside each individual column controls how the sound is manipulated. The program is fed boundary conditions needed to dictate the outgoing and reflected waves’ behavior. They demonstrated redirecting a sound wave coming straight at the metamaterial to a sharp 60-degree outgoing angle with […]
Why We Need a Universal Flu Vaccine
Forbes March 21, 2018 The virus’s continual evolution is why we keep crafting new cocktails for it. If it evolves aggressively enough, we’re almost certain to have another pandemic. According to experts the pandemic clock is ticking. Researchers are tracking one strain in China right now. It has a 40% fatality rate. The World Bank estimates that a pandemic would cost 4.8% of GDP today, or about $3 trillion. Medicine shortages and travel interruptions for medical professionals would lead to a slow recovery period. This is an all-hands-on-deck time. Not just for flu experts but for people in disciplines far […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Innovations for the Week of April 6, 2018
01. Easing uncertainty: How Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle can be relaxed 02. Finding order in disorder demonstrates a new state of matter 03. Tuning in to magnetic ink 04. Knitting electronics with yarn batteries 05. Why noise can enhance sensitivity to weak signals 06. Sugar-coated nanosheets developed to selectively target pathogens 07. Chaos that will keep you warm: Researchers improve heat insulation using deliberate chaos 08. Microengineered slippery rough surface for water harvesting in air 09. Engineers turn plastic insulator into heat conductor 10. Building lithium-sulfur batteries with paper biomass And others… Are we quantum computers? International collaboration will investigate the […]
Are we quantum computers? International collaboration will investigate the brain’s potential for quantum computation
Phys.org March 27, 2018 QuBrain project at UCSB is a collaborative project among an international team of leading scientists spanning quantum physics, molecular biology, biochemistry, colloid science and behavioral neuroscience to seek explicit experimental evidence to answer whether we might in fact be quantum computers. They will explore neuronal function with state-of-the-art technology from completely new angles. QuBrain has the potential for breakthroughs in the fields of biomaterials, biochemical catalysis, quantum entanglement in solution chemistry and mood disorders in humans, regardless of whether quantum processes indeed take place in the brain… read more.
Building lithium-sulfur batteries with paper biomass
Science Daily April 2, 2018 A major byproduct in the papermaking industry is lignosulfonate, a sulfonated carbon waste material. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have demonstrated the potential of using lignosulfonate to design sustainable, low-cost electrode materials for lithium-sulfur batteries. In its elemental form, sulfur is nonconductive, but when combined with carbon at elevated temperatures, it becomes highly conductive, allowing it to be used in novel battery technologies. They have created a lithium-sulfur battery prototype that is the size of a watch battery, which can cycle about 200 times. The next step is to scale up the prototype to markedly […]
Chaos that will keep you warm: Researchers improve heat insulation using deliberate chaos
Science Daily March 31, 2018 Thermal conductivity of well-ordered crystal structure is low. Researchers in Germany produced nanoparticles which exhibit a thermal conductivity that is even much lower. These materials are mixtures in powder form: crystalline order is thus replaced with chaos. They found that the highest insulation effect is reached by mixing a very large number of small particles with fewer large particles and the difference in size between the two types of particles also plays a crucial role. The discovery will help to conceive improved device layouts with more reliable heat dissipation or conservation properties in the future… […]
Crash! Scientists explain what happens when nanoparticles collide
Eurekalert April 4, 2018 To understand the forces that control energy transport at the nanoscale, researchers at SUNY Buffalo focused on small nanoparticles — those with diameters of 5 to 15 nanometers. They found that in collisions, particles of this size behave differently depending on their shape. Nanoparticles with crystal facets transfer energy well, making them an ideal component of materials designed to harvest energy; nanoparticles that are rounder in shape, with amorphous surfaces, adhere to nonlinear force laws making them especially useful for shock mitigation; the behavior of nanoparticles with sharp edges varies depending on sharpness of the edges […]
Easing uncertainty: How Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle can be relaxed
Science Daily April 2, 2018 Researchers in Switzerland used sequences of multiple periodic position and momentum measurements to demonstrate that varying the period controls whether one measurement disturbs the state of the following one. At specific values of the period, they found that such measurements can avoid disturbance, whereas other choices produce strong disturbance. Modular position and momentum measurement are central components of several proposals for quantum computing and precision-measurement protocols that exploit periodic functions of position and momentum to escape Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The research provides a fundamental ingredient — measurement — for such applications, thus bringing them closer […]
Engineers turn plastic insulator into heat conductor
Science Daily March 30, 2018 Previously engineered ultradrawn nanofibers from a standard sample of polyethylene could only dissipate heat along the length of each polymer chain. A team of researchers in the US (MIT, Argonne National Laboratory) developed a new way to engineer a polymer conductor using oxidative chemical vapor deposition, whereby two vapors are directed into a chamber and onto a substrate, where they interact and form a film creating rigid chains of polymers, rather than the twisted, spaghetti-like strands in normal polymers. 2 square centimeter samples they produced were able to conduct heat at about 2 watts per […]