Science & Technology News Bulletin
Every week, we editorially select the best S&T stories released from major news outlets. These stories are then ranked and posted (with appropriate credit and references to the originals) on our Blog by Friday afternoon. Hema Viswanath curates this content and has been doing so for ASDR&E's Office of Net Technical Assessments and Office of Technical Intelligence for over seven years before performing the same work for us. Currently, we are experimenting with distributing this content through a free, advertising-supported model. We intend to continue experimenting using paywalls, direct e-mail subscriptions and donations. Hosting this content is important to us and we would like to retain it on at least a revenue-neutral basis. We are also experimenting with enriching the content to make it more relevant to our Government clients.
01. Researchers achieve quantum key distribution for cybersecurity in novel experiment
02. Materials research explores design rules and synthesis of quantum memory candidates
03. New research on tungsten unlocks potential for improving fusion materials
04. New type of tunable filter reveals the potential for terahertz wireless communications
05. Powerless mechanoluminescent touchscreen underwater
06. Preventing magnet meltdowns before they can start
07. Researchers generate super-fast electrons with table-top laser systems
08. Paper AI sensor mimics brain for health monitoring
09. Novel method improves Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy detection of ultra-low concentration trace substances
10. China promises more money for science in 2024
And others
A 3D view into chaos: Researchers visualize temperature-driven turbulence in liquid metal for the first time
Doing more but learning less: Addressing the risks of AI in research
Novel method for controlling light polarization uses liquid crystals to create holograms
Researchers find exception to 200-year-old scientific law governing heat transfer
You don’t need glue to hold these materials together—just electricity
01. Designing a drone that uses adaptive invisibility: Towards autonomous sea-land-air cloaks
02. New class of 2D material displays stable charge density wave at room temperature
03. Research team develops a wireless sensor for spotting chemical warfare agents
04. Researchers create new compound to build space-age antennas
05. Scientists launch hub to channel quantum power for good
06. Tests show high-temperature superconducting magnets are ready for fusion
07. Zero-index metamaterials and the future
08. Making quantum bits fly
09. Research team develops a more durable coating against ice
10. Researchers provide unprecedented view into aerosol formation in Earth’s lower atmosphere
And others
Better neutron mirrors can reveal the inner secrets of matter
Correlation spectroscopy research shows network of quantum sensors boosts precision
Light stimulates a new twist for synthetic chemistry
More than 2 million research papers have disappeared from the Internet
Researchers demonstrate control of living cells with electronics
01. New water batteries stay cool under pressure
02. Researchers develop world-leading microwave photonics chip for high-speed signal processing
03. Novel nanocrystal harnesses full solar spectrum for hydrogen production
04. Electrons become fractions of themselves in graphene
05. Research team discovers two-dimensional waveguides
06. A promising leap towards computers with light-speed capabilities
07. Improving lithium-sulfur batteries with metal-organic framework-based materials
08. Energy-saving electrochemical hydrogen production via co-generative strategies in hybrid water electrolysis
09. Measuring the properties of light: Scientists realize new method for determining quantum states
10. AI to Track Hypersonic Missiles
And others
Bat ‘nightclubs’ may be the key to solving the next pandemic
Clouds disappear quickly during a solar eclipse, shows study
Physicists detect elusive ‘Bragg glass’ phase with machine learning tool
Researchers develop a computer from an array of VCSELs with optical feedback
Temperature, humidity may drive future transmission of parasitic worm infections
RECENT POSTS
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of March 15, 2024
01. Researchers achieve quantum key distribution for cybersecurity in novel experiment
02. Materials research explores design rules and synthesis of quantum memory candidates
03. New research on tungsten unlocks potential for improving fusion materials
04. New type of tunable filter reveals the potential for terahertz wireless communications
05. Powerless mechanoluminescent touchscreen underwater
06. Preventing magnet meltdowns before they can start
07. Researchers generate super-fast electrons with table-top laser systems
08. Paper AI sensor mimics brain for health monitoring
09. Novel method improves Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy detection of ultra-low concentration trace substances
10. China promises more money for science in 2024
And others
A 3D view into chaos: Researchers visualize temperature-driven turbulence in liquid metal for the first time
Doing more but learning less: Addressing the risks of AI in research
Novel method for controlling light polarization uses liquid crystals to create holograms
Researchers find exception to 200-year-old scientific law governing heat transfer
You don’t need glue to hold these materials together—just electricity
A 3D view into chaos: Researchers visualize temperature-driven turbulence in liquid metal for the first time
Phys.org March 11, 2024
Researchers in Germany conducted an experiment inside a cylinder filled with the ternary alloy GaInSn focusing on the manifestation and dynamics of the large-scale circulation (LSC) in turbulent liquid metal convection. The large-scale flow structures were classified and characterized at Rayleigh numbers by means enabling the full reconstruction of the three-dimensional flow structures in the entire convection cell. They identified the dominating modes of the turbulent convection. The analysis revealed that a single-roll structure of the LSC alternates in short succession with double-roll structures or a three-roll structure. This was accompanied by dramatic fluctuations of the Reynolds number, whose instantaneous values could deviate by more than 50 % from the time-average value. No coherent oscillations were observed, whereas a correlation analysis indicated a residual contribution of the torsion and sloshing modes. Analysis suggested a stabilization of the single-roll LSC with increasing Ra at the expense of flow structures with multiple rolls. The relative lifetime of all identified flow states, measured in units of free-fall times, increased with rising Ra… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
China promises more money for science in 2024
Nature March 8, 2024
At its annual meeting this week, China’s legislative body, the National People’s Congress, promised to increase government funding for science by 10% in 2024. It’s the largest boost to funding in five years. The increase comes as the Chinese economy struggles to meet growth targets and is locked in a race for technological supremacy with the United States. “To win this game, China has to invest in science and technology, especially in basic research,” says Marina Zhang, who studies innovation with a focus on China… read more.
Doing more but learning less: Addressing the risks of AI in research
Phys.org March 8, 2024
Scientists are enthusiastically imagining ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) tools might improve research. A team of researchers in the US (Yale University, Princeton University) developed a taxonomy of scientists’ visions for AI, observing that their appeal comes from promises to improve productivity and objectivity by overcoming human shortcomings. But proposed AI solutions can also exploit our cognitive limitations, making us vulnerable to illusions of understanding in which we believe we understand more about the world than we actually do. Such illusions obscure the scientific community’s ability to see the formation of scientific monocultures, in which some types of methods, questions and viewpoints come to dominate alternative approaches, making science less innovative and more vulnerable to errors. The proliferation of AI tools in science risks introducing a phase of scientific enquiry in which we produce more but understand less. By analysing the appeal of these tools, they provided a framework for advancing discussions of responsible knowledge production in the age of AI… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Materials research explores design rules and synthesis of quantum memory candidates
Phys.org March 11, 2024
Stoichiometric Eu3+ compounds have recently shown promise for building dense, optically addressable quantum memory as the cations’ long nuclear spin coherence times and shielded 4f electron optical transitions provide reliable memory platforms but finding rare linewidth behavior within a wide range of potential chemical spaces remains difficult. Researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana─Champaign, have found density functional theory (DFT) procedures that reliably reproduce known phase diagrams and correctly predict two experimentally realized quantum memory candidates. They synthesized the double perovskite halide Cs2NaEuF6 which is an air-stable compound with a calculated band gap of 5.0 eV that surrounds Eu3+ with mononuclidic elements desirable for avoiding inhomogeneous linewidth broadening. They identified phosphates and iodates as the next generation of chemical spaces for stoichiometric quantum memory system studies. According to the researchers their work identifies new candidate platforms for exploring chemical effects on quantum memory candidates’ inhomogeneous linewidth and provides a framework for screening Eu3+ compound stability with DFT… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
New research on tungsten unlocks potential for improving fusion materials
Phys.org March 13, 2024
Understanding phonon scattering has remained challenging and requires detailed information on interactions between phonons and electrons. An international team of researchers (USA – SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sweden, Italy) used an ultrafast electron diffuse scattering technique to resolve the nonequilibrium phonon dynamics in femtosecond–laser-excited tungsten in both time and momentum. They determined transient populations of phonon modes which show strong momentum dependence initiated by electron-phonon coupling. For phonons near Brillouin zone border, they observed a transient rise in their population on a timescale driven by the strong electron-phonon coupling, followed by a slow decay governed by the weaker phonon-phonon relaxation process. They found that the exceptional harmonicity of tungsten was needed for isolating the two processes, resulting in long-lived nonequilibrium phonons in a pure metal. According to the researchers their finding highlights that electron-phonon scattering can be the determinant factor in the phonon thermal transport of metals… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
New type of tunable filter reveals the potential for terahertz wireless communications
Phys.org March 11, 2024
Researchers in Japan constructed a tunable Fabry–Perot interferometer (FPI) by controlling the effective refractive index of pitch-variable subwavelength gratings (PV-SWGs) that were incorporated into an FP cavity. The period of the PV-SWG could be varied to change the effective refractive index and shift the optical resonant frequency of the FPI. Compared with conventional methods that tune the optical resonance by adding fillers or deforming the cavity, the FPI obtained a higher transmission and quality factor (Q-factor) for the transmittance peak, and its resonant frequency could be shifted by simply stretching the PV-SWG. According to the researchers as the effective refractive index and the working frequency could be tailored by altering the geometry design of the PV-SWG, the FPI holds significance for the development of THz communications and for applications at different wave bands… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Novel method for controlling light polarization uses liquid crystals to create holograms
Phys.org March 11, 2024
Metasurfaces are candidates for vectorial optics polarization, but their static post-fabrication geometry largely limits dynamic tunability. Liquid crystal (LC) is usually employed as an additional index-changing layer together with metasurfaces. However, most of the reported LCs only impart a varying but uniform phase on top of that from the metasurface. An international team of researchers (China, Singapore) pixelated a single-layer LC to display versatile and tunable vectorial holography, in which the polarization and amplitude could be arbitrarily and independently controlled at varying spatial positions. The subtle and vectorial LC-holography highlighted the broadband and electrically switchable functionalities. According to the researchers their work reveals significant opportunities for advanced cryptography, super-resolution imaging, and many other applications… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Novel method improves Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy detection of ultra-low concentration trace substances
Phys.org March 7, 2024
High-resolution solar spectra play a crucial role in research pertaining to atmospheric vertical profiles and analysis of atmospheric composition. However, the improvement of spectral resolution is subject to certain limitations due to hardware constraints. Researchers in China proposed multi-step linear prediction (MSLP) method based on sliding windows to enhance the spectral resolution of passive remote sensing FTIR spectra, thereby improving the accuracy and reliability of atmospheric composition analysis. Their method improved the spectral resolution of passive remote sensing FTIR spectra. In simulations, the MSLP method significantly enhanced the spectral resolution of passive remote sensing FTIR spectra. Experimental results demonstrated that compared to the measured high-resolution spectrum, the relative error of the spectrum enhanced by the MSLP method is only 0.28 %… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Paper AI sensor mimics brain for health monitoring
Nanowerk March 11, 2024
Physical reservoir computing (PRC), which mimics the human brain using physical phenomena, offers a low-power consumption architecture. However, creating a flexible and easily disposable sensors using PRC capable of processing optical signals with sub-second response times suitable for biological signals presents a challenge. Researchers in Japan designed disposable and flexible paper-based optoelectronic synaptic devices which are composed of nanocellulose and ZnO nanoparticles, for PRC. The device exhibited synaptic photocurrent in response to optical input. The memory capacity of short-term memory task, indicating the device’s ability to store past information was 1.8. It could recognize handwritten digits with an accuracy of 88%. These results highlight the potential of the device for PRC. The accuracy was not affected even when the device was subjected to 1000 rounds of bending. The device could be simply burned like paper to dispose it… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE