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Categories: Environmental: Biodiversity, Physics: Optics

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Scientists unveil next-generation research trends in metaphotonics platforms with AI.

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At first glance, Rabih Al-Kaysi's molecular motors look like the microscopic worms you'd see in a drop of pond water. But these wriggling ribbons are not alive; they're made from crystallized molecules that perform coordinated movements when exposed to light. With continued development, these tiny machines could be used as drug-delivery robots or engineered into arrays that direct the flow of water around submarines.

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Researchers have made very fast and very precise images of excitons -- in fact, accurate to one quadrillionth of a second and one billionth of a meter. This understanding is essential for developing more efficient materials with organic semiconductors.

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Researchers have used a series of artificial stream channels to mimic the behavior of headwater creeks under future climate change scenarios. They found that drier conditions shifted the life cycles of the algae and insects that form the base of the alpine food web. However, because species adjusted to the shifts in a variety of ways, the stream ecosystems were generally resilient to the changing conditions.

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Leafhoppers, a common backyard insect, secrete and coat themselves in tiny mysterious particles that could provide both the inspiration and the instructions for next-generation technology, according to a new study. In a first, the team precisely replicated the complex geometry of these particles, called brochosomes, and elucidated a better understanding of how they absorb both visible and ultraviolet light.

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Anyone who wants to produce medication, plastics or fertilizer using conventional methods needs heat for chemical reactions -- but not so with photochemistry, where light provides the energy. The process to achieve the desired product also often takes fewer intermediate steps. Researchers are now going one step further and are demonstrating how the energy efficiency of photochemical reactions can be increased tenfold. More sustainable and cost-effective applications are now tantalizingly close.

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Researchers developed a system that enables projection mapping within an illuminated environment. Several standard projectors and one large-aperture projector reproduce the environmental illumination in all areas except for the target object, whereas texture projectors display the texture on the unilluminated object's surface. Experiments show that participants perceived the objects using surface-color mode instead of aperture-color mode, verifying that the proposed system has the potential to produce highly realistic interactive environments.

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Important data can be stored and concealed quite easily in ordinary plastic using 3D printers and terahertz radiation, scientists show. Holography can be done quite easily: A 3D printer can be used to produce a panel from normal plastic in which a QR code can be stored, for example. The message is read using terahertz rays -- electromagnetic radiation that is invisible to the human eye.

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A new visitor was reported on the coast of Cyprus, thanks to the growing power of citizen science. Researchers collected information and specimens through personal communication with amateur naturalists, but also through the internet, in order to compose the mosaic of repeated appearances of a giant water bug on the eastern shoreline of the island.

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A novel mixed light field technique that utilizes a mix of ray-controlled ambient lighting with projection mapping (PM) to obtain PM in bright surroundings has been developed by scientists. This innovative technology utilizes a novel kaleidoscope array to achieve ray-controlled lighting and a binary search algorithm for removing ambient lighting from PM targets. It provides an immersive augmented reality experience with applications in various fields.

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New research suggests that there might be other ways to generate solar energy than just trying to make individual solar cells super-efficient.

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Physicists achieve major leap in precision and accuracy at extremely low light levels.

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In order to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 C, it is essential to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. This would mean not exploiting most of the existing coal, conventional gas and oil energy resources in regions around the world, according to new research. The study presents the atlas of unburnable oil in the world, a world map designed with environmental and social criteria that warns which oil resources should not be exploited to meet the commitments of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015 to mitigate the effects of climate change.

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Perfectly adapted microorganisms live in extreme environments from deep-sea trenches to mountaintops. Learning more about how these extremophiles survive in hostile conditions could inform scientists about life on Earth and potential life on other planets.

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Researchers have discovered a new class of plasma oscillations -- the back-and-forth, wave-like movement of electrons and ions. The research paves the way for improved particle accelerators and commercial fusion energy.

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Electrical engineers have determined the theoretical fundamental limit for how much electromagnetic energy a transparent material with a given thickness can absorb. The finding will help engineers optimize devices designed to block certain frequencies of radiation while allowing others to pass through, for applications such as stealth or wireless communications.

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Which process is best suited for mass production of perovskite solar cells? While solvent-based manufacturing processes are used in laboratories around the world, vacuum vapor-phase deposition processes are still the standard for the production of thin films for photovoltaics or organic light-emitting diodes. A new study that reveals major differences in the scientific discussion of these production processes.

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To combine two low-energy photons into one high-energy photon efficiently, the energy must be able to hop freely, but not too quickly, between randomly oriented molecules of a solid. The discovery provides a much-needed design guideline for developing materials for more efficient PV cells, displays, or even anti-cancer therapies.

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Mechanical engineers have devised a diagnostic platform that uses sound waves to spin an individual drop of water up to 6000 revolutions per minute. These speeds separate tiny biological particles within samples placed in a very light disc sitting on top of the spinning drop. The technique could allow new point-of-care applications ranging from precision bioassays to cancer diagnosis. The technique requires less time and sample volume while inflicting less damage to delicate exosomes.

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A new process for microscale 3D printing creates particles of nearly any shape for applications in medicine, manufacturing, research and more -- at the pace of up to 1 million particles a day.