EurekAlert September 5, 2023 The versatility of the metallocenes stems from their ability to stabilize a wide range of formal electron counts. To date, d-block metallocenes with an electron count of up to 20 have been synthesized and utilized in catalysis, sensing, and other fields but, those with more than 20-electron counts have remained elusive because the metal–carbon bonds in d-block metallocenes become weaker with increasing deviation from the stable 18-electron configuration. An international team of researchers (Japan, Germany, Russia) synthesized, isolated, and characterized a 21-electron cobaltocene derivative. The discovery was based on the ligand design that allowed the coordination […]
Team develops novel sponge-based triboelectric nanogenerator for corrosion protection in transportation systems
Phys.org September 5, 2023 Researchers in China demonstrated highly elastic, and pressure-resistance sponge fabricated TENG capable of adapting to high strength impact in land and water transportation and scalable for any shape for harvesting wave energy and mechanical energy. The sponge had interconnected network and large size ratio of cavity-wall suitable for contact and separation enabled higher output due to the combination of the electronegativity, adhesion, and antioxidant ability. The operation modes provided options for different operating condition and enabled higher output due to the combination of the electronegativity, excellent adhesion, and antioxidant ability… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Three easily measurable parameters can provide valuable information about the structure of volcanoes
Phys.org August 31, 2023 Volcanoes exhibit a wide range of eruptive and geochemical behavior, which has significant implications for their associated risk. The suggested first-order drivers of intervolcanic diversity invoke a combination of crustal and mantle processes. To better constrain mantle-crustal-volcanic coupling, an international team of researchers (Ireland, Switzerland) used the Lesser Antilles to show that melt flux from the mantle, identified by proxy in the form of boron isotopes in melt inclusions, correlates with the long-term volcanic productivity, the volcanic edifice height, and the geophysically defined along-arc crustal structure. These features were the consequence of a variable melt flux […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of September 1, 2023
01. Brighter comb lasers on a chip mean new applications 02. New quantum device generates single photons and encodes information 03. A Hidden State Between Liquid And Solid May Have Been Found 04. Making the invisible, visible: New method makes mid-infrared light detectable at room temperature 05. Micro-optical technology based on metamaterials takes center stage 06. Researchers demonstrate high-fidelity transmission of information via novel electronic-optical system 07. Scientists continue to push the boundaries of imaging techniques and reveal the mysterious world of molecules 08. Researchers take aim at weather forecasters’ biggest blind spot 09. A simpler way to connect quantum […]
Brighter comb lasers on a chip mean new applications
Phys.org August 29, 2023 While conventional optical frequency combs are generated using mode-locked lasers that tend to be constrained to high-end scientific laboratories, there has been recent work to develop optical frequency combs using compact, chip-scale microresonators based on dissipative Kerr solitons (DKSs) which consume very little energy, they also do not produce enough output power to be useful. A team of researchers in the US (NIST, University of Maryland) harnessed the newly proposed Kerr-induced synchronization of Kerr solitons to an external stable laser reference to produce optical frequency combs with substantial increase of power on the other side of […]
Earth’s ‘third pole’ and its role in global climate
Phys.org August 25, 2023 Researchers in China reviewed recent advances in research regarding land–atmosphere coupling processes over the Tibetan Plate (TP) and concluded that climate warming has caused glacier retreat, permafrost degradation, and a general increase in vegetation density, while climate wetting has led to a significant increase in the number of major lakes, primarily through increased precipitation. The TP drives surface pollutants to the upper troposphere in an Asian summer monsoon (ASM) anticyclone circulation before spreading to the lower stratosphere. The thermal forcing of the TP plays an essential role in the ASM. TP forcing can modulate hemispheric-scale atmospheric […]
Energy storage in molecules
Science Daily August 30, 2023 Photoswitches are molecular systems that are chemically transformed after interaction with light and they find potential application in many new technologies. The design and discovery of photoswitch candidates require intricate molecular engineering of a range of properties to optimize a candidate to a specific application. An international team of researchers (Denmark, Spain) performed a large-scale screening of approximately half a million bicyclic diene photoswitches in the context of molecular solar thermal energy storage using ab initio quantum chemical methods. They devised an efficient strategy for scoring the systems based on their predicted solar energy conversion […]
A Hidden State Between Liquid And Solid May Have Been Found
Science Alert August 27, 2023 Oxygen and silicon flow when glass is heated. If it is cooled slowly the particles form into quartz. If it cools quickly, the particles retain a disordered arrangement, and it becomes an amorphous solid. Researchers at UC Berkeley used computation and simulation to determine that this transition might not be so neat, featuring a special activity of particles sitting between their normal liquid and supercooled states. The particles in a supercooled liquid change their configurations resulting in excitations. The researchers treated these excitations in a 2D supercooled liquid as defects in a crystalline solid. They […]
In a First, Scientists Fully Wipe a Cell’s Memory Before Turning It Into a Stem Cell
Science Alert August 30, 2023 The epigenomes of hiPS cells and human embryonic stem (hES) cells differ significantly, which affects hiPS cell function. An international team of researchers (Australia, UK, Singapore) found that reprogramming-induced epigenetic aberrations to emerge midway through primed reprogramming, whereas DNA demethylation begins early in naive reprogramming. Using this they developed a transient-naive-treatment (TNT) reprogramming strategy that emulated the embryonic epigenetic reset. They showed that the epigenetic memory in hiPS cells is concentrated in cell of origin-dependent repressive chromatin. TNT reprogramming reconfigured these domains to a hES cell-like state and did not disrupt genomic imprinting correcting epigenetic […]
Making the invisible, visible: New method makes mid-infrared light detectable at room temperature
Phys.org August 28, 2023 Existing technologies for room-temperature detection of molecular vibrations in the mid-infrared rely on cooled semiconductor detectors because of thermal noise limitations. Researchers in the UK exploited molecular emitters possessing both MIR and visible transitions from molecular vibrations and electronic states, coupled through Franck–Condon factors. By assembling molecules into a plasmonic nanocavity resonant at both MIR and visible wavelengths, and optically pumping them below the electronic absorption band, they showed transduction of MIR light. The upconverted signal was observed as enhanced visible luminescence. Combining visible luminescence with enhanced rates of vibrational pumping gave transduction efficiencies of >10%. […]