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It’s been previously shown that the jellyfish are the world’s most efficient swimmers, and researchers wanted to see if they could implement some of its features into a flying machine. New York University researchers have built a small vehicle whose flying motion resembles the movements of a jellyfish – possibly paving the way for small […]
Photons and molecules Scientists managed to ‘trick’ photons (the elementary particles of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation) into forming molecules for the first time – a state of matter that until recently had been purely theoretical. Scientists from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are challenging the current paradigm […]
Carbon nanotubes and graphene have been hailed time and again as the wonder materials that will change the face of technology in the future. Before silicon can be dethroned from its reigning position, however, a lot of manufacturing issues need to be addressed. A new technique developed by researchers at University of Illinois provides a […]
Astronomers all over the world rejoiced recently after they were treated to a most privileged event. Using the RAPTOR (RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response) system in New Mexico and Hawaii, in conjunction with the most sophisticated observatories in the world, researchers witnessed what may be the most brightest event this century: an extreme flash of light […]
Stanford researchers claim the inherent disordered molecular structure of polymer semiconductors is actually desirable. Current organic solar cells made with semiconducting polymers try to mimic orderly silicon structures as much as possible; this direction of research may be fundamentally wrong according to the Stanford researchers. A balance between molecular order and disorder at the polymer […]
There’s only so much you can cram into conventional magnetic storage devices. We’re already seeing these slowly, but surely lose ground in the face of solid-state drives, which offer more storage density and don’t have any moving parts (last longer, make no noise, etc.). What about even further ahead in the future? Well, it’s most […]
A team of researchers at Washington State University achieved a dramatic 400 fold increase in electrical conductivity for a crystal after it was accidentally left exposed to light one day. This readings are attributed to photoconductivity, a phenomenon which causes a material to become more electrically conductive due to the absorption of electromagnetic radiation such as […]
In science we have what are called “laws”, be them Newton’s Laws of Motion or Archimedes’ Principle, because these mathematical expressions describe systems in a rigid set of boundaries, essentially helping predict how these systems will behave in the future. What about overly complex, highly dynamic systems; could we use a single mathematical equation to […]
Capable of illuminating in a wide array of pure colors and operating at high efficiency, quantum dot LEDs are set to become the future’s foremost illuminating medium. However, at this time, these fantastic quantum dot light emitting diodes are limited by a physical effect which triggers after a certain photon barrier is crossed, becoming highly […]
Mysterious and elusive, dark matter has escaped scientists time and time again; yet confirming its existence is quintessential to current efforts of studying the Universe. With this in mind, detecting dark matter has become one of the foremost goals in the physics of the 21st century. An experiment at MIT, called DarkLight, aims to prove […]
German researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have achieved a new world record for wireless data transmission after they successfully reached 100 gigabits/second over a distance of 20 meters and at a frequency of 237.5 GHz. This translates into a transfer rate of 12.5 gigabytes per second – equivalent to exchanging the contents of a blue-ray disk or […]
A joint project between scientists at NASA and MIT is focusing on creating a new kind of microscope that uses neutrons instead of beams of light or electrons to create high-resolution images. Since the subatomic particles are electrically neutral, such a microscope would allow scientists to peer through places otherwise inaccessible today, like inside metals […]
Researchers at MIT have recreated Mars-like conditions within a three-story-tall cloud chamber in Germany, adjusting the temperature and humidity to match those on Mars – basically creating Martian clouds. Judging by the images Curiosity has sent us, Martian clouds look quite similar to ours – the gauzy, high-altitude wisps look a lot like the cirrus […]
Just a few moments ago, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs on Tuesday for their 1964 postulation of the existence of the Higgs boson. The elementary particle was finally confirmed in 2012 by a team of international researchers using the Large Hadron Collider […]
Jellyfish are really impressive creatures, for all their simplicity; now, a new research has shown that the elastic body allows moon jellyfish to travel extra distance at no energy cost. The sockeye salmon is a sleek, muscular torpedo which rams up waterfalls. The jellyfish is a blob, drifting on aimlessly in the oceans. Obviously, the […]
Physicists have been dreaming of achieving controlled nuclear fusion for decades, and year by year we’ve been getting closer to turning it into reality. A recent paper published in the journal Physics of Plasmas reports improvements in the design of an experimental set-up capable of igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy. Researchers at […]
A team of scientists, part of a collaborative effort involving multiple Universities from the U.S., are proposing to take 3D printing one step further by adding a new dimension – time. Their work involves building a new class of materials that can morph, change their physical properties and functionality over time based on external stimuli […]
Last week we showed you some great fluid dynamics at work – water bridges between two beakers connected to high voltage current. Water and fluids in particular sometimes behave in amazing ways under certain conditions. Today, I’d like to show another dazzling display: the Leidenfrost effect. This is a phenomenon that occurs when liquid, say […]
A team of brilliant researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have demonstrated a working particle accelerator, used to accelerate particles like electrons or protons to extremely high energies and probe the Universe’s secrets, which is the size of a typical silicon chip. Typically, particle accelerators range from a […]
Hey molybdenum, is it me or are you looking chubbier these days? The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has conducted more precise measurements, changing the official atomic weight of 19 elements. The changes are very small, but they are proof of technological improvements and are part of a regular effort to update […]
The experiment: two identical glass beakers filed with deionized water are put into contact. A voltage is applied ( 10,000 to 15,000 volts DC ) to the water inside the beakers and these glasses are slowly moved apart. An amazing physical phenomenon is then observed – a water bridge between the two beakers is formed, as […]
Using low-frequency laser pulses, a team of researchers has carried out the first measurements on a mineral called herbertsmithite. This (pretty awesome looking) mineral features a unique kind of magnetism. Insite it, magnetic elements constantly fluctuate, leading to an exotic magnetic state, unlike conventional magnetism in which all magnetic forces allign in the same direction […]
The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Soitec, CEA-Leti and the Helmholtz Center Berlin jointly announced today having achieved a new world record for solar cell efficiency: 44.7% That means that 44.7% of all solar energy (from the Ultraviolet to the Infrared) is gathered and transformed into electricity. After going into research just three […]
Even in these modern times, steam condensation is one of the main drivers of electricity production and clean water: It is part of the power cycle that drives 85 percent of all electricity-generating plants and about half of all desalination plants globally, according to the United Nations and International Energy Agency. So improving the efficiency […]
What you’re seeing above is the Hofstadter’s butterfly – a mathematical object describing the theorised behaviour of electrons in a strong magnetic field. It took physicists 40 years, but they have finally found experimental evidence that the model, proposed in 1976 by Douglas Hofstadter is valid. Thing is, to catch this kind of fractal butterfly, […]
Geophysicists trying to understand hotspot volcanoes have used a process known as seismic tomography and detected previously unknown finger-like structures of heat, some thousands of km long. The vast majority of volcanoes arises at contact zones between tectonic plates. However, another, entirely different type of volcano exists: hotspots are volcanic regions which can appear even […]
Somebody in Tokyo is reading Game of Thrones: the Japanese government has announced plans to create a wall of ice underneath the contaminated area to contain the water leaks from the Fukushima nuclear plant. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his administration will provide the money for this. “The government needs to resolve the problem by […]
Honeybees are exquisite and majestic beings, which have always caught the imagination of people. Bees are typically associated with feminine energy, because they are ruled by queens, particularly with the roman goddess Venus. In some cultures, bees also represent wisdom. From a biological point of view however, bees could be definitely associated with motherhood. Without bees, […]
Geophysical data from Greenland have revealed the existence of a canyon comparable in size with the Grand Canyon beneath the ice sheet. The canyon has the characteristics of a winding river channel and is over 750 km long and it is often as deep as 800 m. This immense feature is thought to predate humanity […]
Theoretical Physicists John Preskill and Spiros Michalakis sat down for a short talk in which they describe how quantum computing differs from the classical view (i.e. digital computers). They first go on about the fundamental, key aspect of the quantum world: the laws that describe and govern things at the tiniest level differ from those […]
Time and time again we’ve hailed on ZME Science the cultural and scientific advances graphene is about to bring to humanity. It’s the strongest material known so far, while also being the lightest, it can be magnetic and – something of uttermost important to science – it’s the best electrical conductor that we know of. […]
I’ve written about our incredible biological ability to gather information about our environment by sensing electromagnetic radiation. As complex as our eyes are however, light holds far more information than what we are able to perceive with our eyes. Science has given us the means to determine far more than just that there is a […]
What do volcanic eruptions, oil spills, sewages and chimneys all have in common? Not much at a first glance – but if you ask Peter Baines, a scientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, they are tightly connected; in all these events, a fluid rises into a environment stratified by density (like the atmosphere […]
For many quantum mechanics is very hard to comprehend because so many of its insights are extremely bizarre (see spooky action at a distance or quantum entanglement) and counter-intuitive (for instance wave-particle duality, which is the idea that all things have both a wave- and particle-like nature). For many years scientists vacuum was synonymous with […]
Using an innovative technique that mathematically infers what the environment outside the lens’ perspective might look like based on how light enters the camera, researchers at Harvard University have managed to create 3D images using only one lens and without moving the camera. The findings could prove to be applicable to amateur and professional photographers […]
Temperature is an important physical parameter which greatly influences a system. Monitoring and/or manipulating this state parameter with great accuracy is thus of great importance to scientists. Recently, researchers part of DARPA’s Quantum-Assisted Sensing and Readout (QuASAR) program proved a new technique that allowed them to measure and control temperatures at the nanometer scale inside living cells. Measuring […]
Scientists at the University of Darmstadt, Germany have set a new record after they devised an experimental set-up that allowed them to stop light in its tracks for a full minute. During this time, the light could have traveled 18 million kilometers or roughly the equivalent of 20 there and back trips to the moon. Beyond […]
We all appreciate and love the sun’s gaze in the morning, but truth be told were it not for our planet’s protective magnetic fields the sun’s warm embrace would have suddenly turn into a death ray. So instead of scorching Earth, solar wind bounces off the magnetic field, which leads radioactive particles to circulate the […]
Water droplets, coffee granules, fragments of polystyrene and even a toothpick – all of these, and more, have been levitating and moving around in a Swiss laboratory lately; all of them lifted by sound waves, that is. This is the first time a device is capable of handling several objects simultaneously. This achievement was detailed […]
Understanding how supercooled water acts can be very important for understanding basic processes during cryoprotection – the preservation of tissues and/or organs by liquid nitrogen, with the purpose of thawing without damaging them. A team from the University of Arkansas have found that surprisingly, when cooled at extremely low temperatures, water turns into an entirely […]
Lots of volcanoes erupted in 2009 – but one of them really screamed out. Its unique howls provide a glimpse into the very heart of the volcano, and also in some unexplained processes that accompany an eruption. It’s not unusual for swarms of small earthquakes to precede a volcanic eruption – it’s quite common. As […]
A trio of papers recently published in Science link hydraulic fracking and geothermal energy production to numerous earthquakes in the United States. Most of these events have been relatively small, with a magnitude of under 5.0, but a few were quite significant – including the 5.6 event that hit Oklahoma on 6 November 2011, damaging […]
In the world of microelectronics, packing the most computing power you can squeeze in the smallest surface is the topmost priority. As powerful devices in term of computing become ever miniaturized, however, efficiently disposing of heat or keeping devices cool under a working temperature is one of the biggest challenges the industry is facing right […]
Scientists at the Laboratoire Charles Fabry (LCF) in Palaiseau and the University of Lille have for the very first time performed a direct measurement of a Van der Waals force – the weak intermolecular force that causes, in some cases when there isn’t a strong force present, to attract and “stick” to one another. The Van […]
It’s the world of science fiction come alive – Swiss researchers have developed contact lenses which, when paired with special spectacles, bestow telescopic vision on their wearers. Cool, and very useful The contact-lens-and-spectacles have the ability of zooming in 2.8 times. The device was not created for Bond-like purposes, but rather to help people suffering […]
Idaho State University researchers have created uranium crystals by crushing nuclear fuel pellets and heating them in a furnace. This was made with the purpose of studying a single uranium crystal, understanding how heat would flow through it, and ultimately develop safer fuels for nuclear reactors. Uranium crystal. Credit: INL Eric Burgett, a professor at […]
Scientists from Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford have analyzed the compositions of Martian meteorites found on Earth and data from NASA’s rovers, and they reached the conclusion that the Red Planet had an atmosphere pretty rich in oxygen 4 billion years ago. They compared Martian rocks with meteorites, and the fact […]
Rock permeability in the geologic fault that unleashed China’s 2008 quake shows that fractures mend quicker than was thought. A devastating earthquake The 2008 Sichuan earthquake struck at 02:28:01 PM China Standard Time, with a magnitude of 8. It came as quite a surprise, as the area is not particularly active from a seismic point […]
Most certainly, one of the top goals in physics today is proving the existence of dark matter – the elusive form of matter that makes up 85% of all matter in the Universe. Many theories have been proposed and tested, however to this day we only have glimpses and possible hints of dark matter. A […]
It’s not a well known problem by most, but those who work in the field are very aware of it – medical isotopes are a very valuable commodity. But now, a Canadian team may have very well found a way to end the shortage, developing and upgrade that allows hospital cyclotrons to make a much-needed […]
