The gravitational constant G determines the strength of gravity – the force that makes apples fall to the ground or pulls the Earth in its orbit around the sun. It is part of Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation, which he first formulated more than 300 years ago. The constant cannot be derived mathematically; it has to be determined through experiment. Over the centuries, scientists have conducted numerous experiments to determine the value of G, but the scientific community isn’t…
Urchins emerge to forage on living kelp when they can’t catch kelp scraps, mowing down swaths of the underwater forest. Purple sea urchins are munching their way through California’s kelp forests at a speed and scale that have stunned scientists, fishermen and divers alike. But the kelp forests have long been home to red and purple urchins, so it’s clear the three species can get along. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara sought to determine what factors disrupt this harmony. “Why…
Observations reveal the angle dependence of the magnetic field needed to suppress superconductivity in CeRh₂As₂. Uniquely, the behavior of “odd parity” superconductors is revealed. Superconductivity is a fascinating state of matter in which an electrical current can flow without any resistance. Usually, it can exist in two forms. One is destroyed easily with a magnetic field and has “even parity”, i.e. it has a point symmetric wave function with respect to an inversion point, and one which is stable in…
Waste heat is a very promising source of energy conservation and reuse, by means of converting this heat into electricity—a process called thermoelectric conversion. Commercially available thermoelectric conversion devices are synthesized using rare metals. While these are quite efficient, they are expensive and, in the majority of cases, utilize toxic materials. Both these factors have led to these converters being of limited use. One of the alternatives are oxide-based thermoelectric materials, but the primary drawback these suffer from is a…
Theoreticians at the MPSD have demonstrated how the coupling between intense lasers, the motion of electrons, and their spin influences the emission of light on the ultrafast timescale. Their work has been published in npj computational materials. Electrons, present in all kind of matter, are charged particles and therefore they react to the application of light. When an intense light field hits a solid, these particles experience a force, called the Lorentz force, that drives them and induces some exquisite…
With their newly developed “nanoTIPTOE” technique, physicists from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, in cooperation with Stanford University, have managed for the first time to record a helical light field on shortest time and length scales. It has been known since the end of the 19th century that light is an electromagnetic wave, whereby its frequency determines its color. With around one quadrillion oscillations per second, light oscillates so quickly that…
What if you could power the smart thermostats, speakers and lights in your home with a kitchen countertop? Stones, such as marble and granite, are natural, eco-friendly materials that many people building or renovating houses already use. Now, in a step toward integrating energy storage with these materials, researchers have fabricated microsupercapacitors onto the surface of stone tiles. The devices, reported in ACS Nano, are durable and easily scaled up for customizable 3D power supplies. It would be convenient if…
… using the organic electro-optic polymer for visible light. [Highlights] – Development of an optical modulator using the organic electro-optic polymer operated in visible light – Significantly shorter wavelength and higher efficiency (smaller size and lower voltage) than conventional optical modulators for near-infrared light – Application to next generation display devices such as stereoscopic displays and smart glasses [Abstract] The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT, President: TOKUDA Hideyuki, Ph.D.) has successfully developed a highly efficient optical modulator…
Data from fossil corals points to changed circulation of ocean currents – an important finding for climate models. Located between Australia and New Zealand, the Tasman Sea is an important but so far neglected component of the global ocean conveyor belt. Now a new study has discovered evidence that this marginal sea in the South Pacific also played an important role in the exchange of water masses between the large ocean basins during the last ice age. These findings will…
University of Toronto Engineering team creates bioartificial left ventricle. Lab-grown model is made with living heart cells and capable of pumping fluid inside a tube. University of Toronto Engineering researchers have grown a small-scale model of a human left heart ventricle in the lab. The bioartificial tissue construct is made with living heart cells and beats strongly enough to pump fluid inside a bioreactor. In the human heart, the left ventricle is the one that pumps freshly oxygenated blood into…
New understanding of how mechanical features of bone marrow affect resident immune cells in fibrotic cancer points to future therapeutic strategies for cancers and fibrotic diseases. By Benjamin Boettner Fibrosis is the thickening of various tissues caused by the deposition of fibrillar extracellular matrix (ECM) in tissues and organs as part of the body’s wound healing response to various forms of damage. When accompanied by chronic inflammation, fibrosis can go into over-drive and produce excess scar tissue that cannot be…
Seascape genomics insights to key Australian populations. The first widespread census of the genetic diversity of common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) populations living along 3000km of Australia’s southern coastline has raised key pointers for future conservation efforts. The comprehensive Flinders University study calls for more conservation and policy efforts to preserve adaptive DNA diversity and assist connectivity between these dolphin groups. This will support long-term gene flow and adaptation during ongoing habitat changes – including oceanic conditions affected by climate change…
Findings provide mechanism to diagnose and treat autoimmune diseases. Using UT Southwestern’s Cryo-Electron Microscopy Facility, researchers for the first time have captured images of an autoantibody bound to a nerve cell surface receptor, revealing the physical mechanism behind a neurological autoimmune disease. The findings, published in Cell, could lead to new ways to diagnose and treat autoimmune conditions, the study authors said. “We’re entering a new era of understanding how autoimmune disease works in the central nervous system,” said Colleen M. Noviello, Ph.D., Assistant Professor…
In 2019 tidal disruption, much of star’s mass ended up in symmetrical cloud that hid black hole. In 2019, astronomers observed the nearest example to date of a star that was shredded, or “spaghettified,” after approaching too close to a massive black hole. That tidal disruption of a sun-like star by a black hole 1 million times more massive than itself took place 215 million light years from Earth. Luckily, this was the first such event bright enough that astronomers…
… pave the way for better drugs to treat heart disease. The first full-length structures of the human angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) have been determined by researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT) using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). ACE is a blood pressure-regulating protein that is critical for heart health. Published in The EMBO Journal [https://www.embopress.org/doi/10.15252/embj.2021110550] on 12 July 2022, the cryo-EM structures of ACE in two different conformations have the potential to improve drug design for cardiovascular disease – the…
Quantum memories are one of the building blocks of the future quantum internet. Without them, it would be rather impossible to transmit quantum information over long distances and expand into a real quantum network. These memories have the mission of receiving the quantum information encoded in a photon in the form of qubits, store it and then retrieve it. Quantum memories can be realized in different material systems, for example ensembles of cold atoms or doped crystals. In order to…
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