Showing 20 articles starting at article 841

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Offbeat: Plants and Animals, Physics: General

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A research team has discovered that parasites manipulate their hosts using stolen genes that they likely acquired through a phenomenon called horizontal gene transfer.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have proposed ways to use quasiparticles to create light sources as powerful as the most advanced ones in existence today, but much smaller.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new electrical method to conveniently change the direction of electron flow in some quantum materials could have implications for the development of next-generation electronic devices and quantum computers. A team of researchers has developed and demonstrated the method in materials that exhibit the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect -- a phenomenon in which the flow of electrons along the edge of a material does not lose energy.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have shown how the principles of rogue waves -- huge 30-meter waves that arise unexpectedly in the ocean -- can be applied on a nano scale, with dozens of applications from medicine to manufacturing.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Particle accelerators are crucial tools in a wide variety of areas in industry, research and the medical sector. The space these machines require ranges from a few square meters to large research centers. Using lasers to accelerate electrons within a photonic nanostructure constitutes a microscopic alternative with the potential of generating significantly lower costs and making devices considerably less bulky. Until now, no substantial energy gains were demonstrated. In other words, it has not been shown that electrons really have increased in speed significantly. Two teams of laser physicists have just succeeded in demonstrating a nanophotonic electron accelerator.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Attempts to break the diffraction limit with 'super lenses' have all hit the hurdle of extreme visual losses. Now physicists have shown a new pathway to achieve superlensing with minimal losses, breaking through the diffraction limit by a factor of nearly four times. The key to their success was to remove the super lens altogether.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

When stacked in five layers in a rhombohedral pattern, graphene takes on a rare 'multiferroic' state, exhibiting both unconventional magnetism and an exotic electronic behavior known as ferro-valleytricity.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Physicists have used a small glass bulb containing an atomic vapor to demonstrate a new form of antenna for radio waves. The bulb was 'wired up' with laser beams and could therefore be placed far from any receiver electronics.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The DNA double helix is composed of two DNA molecules whose sequences are complementary to each other. The stability of the duplex can be fine-tuned in the lab by controlling the amount and location of imperfect complementary sequences. Fluorescent markers bound to one of the matching DNA strands make the duplex visible, and fluorescence intensity increases with increasing duplex stability. Now, researchers have succeeded in creating fluorescent duplexes that can generate any of 16 million colors -- a work that surpasses the previous 256 colors limitation. This very large palette can be used to 'paint' with DNA and to accurately reproduce any digital image on a miniature 2D surface with 24-bit color depth.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers tested a molecular energy harvesting device that captures the energy from the natural motion of molecules in a liquid. Their work showed molecular motion can be used to generate a stable electric current. To create the device, they submerged nanoarrays of piezoelectric material in liquid, allowing the movement of the liquid to move the strands like seaweed waving in the ocean, except in this case the movement is on the molecular scale, and the strands are made of zinc oxide. When the zinc oxide material waves, bends, or deforms under motion, it generates electric potential.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Using neutrons to see the additive manufacturing process at the atomic level, scientists have shown that they can measure strain in a material as it evolves and track how atoms move in response to stress.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new study has reconstructed the well-preserved but damaged skull of a great ape species that lived about 12 million years ago. The species, Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, may be crucial to understanding great ape and human evolution.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have theoretically predicted that light can be bent under pseudogravity. A recent study by researchers using photonic crystals has demonstrated this phenomenon. This breakthrough has significant implications for optics, materials science, and the development of 6G communications.  

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Physicists have shown that simulating models of hypothetical time travel can solve experimental problems that appear impossible to solve using standard physics.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The amount of power a microswimmer needs to move can now be determined more easily. Scientists developed a general theorem to calculate the minimal energy required for propulsion. These insights allow a profound understanding for practical applications, such as targeted transport of molecules and substrates.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

In a surprising new study, researchers have found that the electron beam radiation that they previously thought degraded crystals can actually repair cracks in these nanostructures. The groundbreaking discovery provides a new pathway to create more perfect crystal nanostructures, a process that is critical to improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of materials that are used in virtually all electronic devices we use every day.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have long been exploring the effect of using tailored laser drives to manipulate the properties of quantum materials away from equilibrium. One of the most striking demonstrations of these physics has been in unconventional superconductors, where signatures of enhanced electronic coherences and super-transport have been documented in the resulting non-equilibrium states. However, these phenomena have not yet been systematically studied or optimized, primarily due to the complexity of the experiments. Technological applications are therefore still far removed from reality. In a recent experiment, this same group of researchers discovered a far more efficient way to create a previously observed metastable, superconducting-like state in K3C60 using laser light.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new Paroedura gecko species was reported at two small forest sites, Anja Reserve and Tsaranoro Valley forest, in the south-central plateau of Madagascar. Thanks to the recently collected samples, it was described and named after its preferred habitat, the boulders surrounded by the last remaining forests at these sites. Its conservation status was evaluated as Critically Endangered given its tiny distributional range.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductors are special materials that have long fascinated researchers with their unique properties. For one, they are flat, one-atom-thick two-dimensional (2D) materials similar to that of graphene. They are compounds that contain different combinations of the transition metal group (e.g., molybdenum, tungsten) and chalcogen elements (e.g., sulfur, selenium, tellurium).

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

DNA analysis of mummified feces reveals two pre-Columbian Caribbean cultures ate a wide variety of plants, like maize, sweet potato, and peanuts -- and tobacco and cotton traces were detected too, according to a new study.