Watching corals breathe: Researchers develop a new method to simultaneously measure flow and oxygen. The surface of a coral is rugged. Its hard skeleton is populated by polyps that stretch their tentacles into the surrounding water to filter out food. But how exactly does the water flow over the coral surface, what eddies and flows develop, and what does this mean for the oxygen supply around the coral and its associated algae? Until now, there was no answer to these…
Nearly half of Sun-size stars are binary. According to University of Copenhagen research, planetary systems around binary stars may be very different from those around single stars. This points to new targets in the search for extraterrestrial life forms. Since the only known planet with life, the Earth, orbits the Sun, planetary systems around stars of similar size are obvious targets for astronomers trying to locate extraterrestrial life. Nearly every second star in that category is a binary star. A…
Pairing two waveguides, one with an ill-defined topology, another with a well-defined one, can lead to a topological singularity, with potential for extreme wave phenomena, energy harvesting, and enhancing nonlinear effects. Topological ideas have recently taken the center stage of modern electromagnetics. Typical topological photonic systems are based on nonreciprocal materials, a class of materials that enables asymmetric light–matter interactions. In particular, nonreciprocal platforms, may support unidirectional channels that allow propagation in a given direction of space—let’s say from left…
User-friendly deep learning model analyzes bioacoustics signals from whales, dolphins. Lurking beneath the ocean’s surface, marine mammals use sound for navigation, prey detection, and a wide range of natural behaviors. Passive acoustic data from underwater environments can provide valuable information on these animals, such as their presence or absence within an area, their density and abundance, and their vocal response to anthropogenic noise sources. As the size and number of acoustic datasets increase, accurately and quickly matching the bioacoustics signals…
A new study from the University of Southampton has discovered that ‘crown-like structures’ surrounding breast tumours in overweight and obese patients could hinder their response to therapy. The findings of this study could potentially be used to improve personalised treatment for patients with HER2 positive overexpressed breast cancer. Adipose tissue, or body fat, is an important component of the healthy human breast and yet high body mass index (BMI) is associated with increased risk of developing breast cancer. Overweight patients also…
Diamonds can withstand the heat from high-powered, continuous beam lasers. Just about every car, train and plane that’s been built since 1970 has been manufactured using high-power lasers that shoot a continuous beam of light. These lasers are strong enough to cut steel, precise enough to perform surgery, and powerful enough to carry messages into deep space. They are so powerful, in fact, that it’s difficult to engineer resilient and long-lasting components that can control the powerful beams the lasers…
Newfound black holes in dwarf galaxies shed light on the origin of our galaxy’s supermassive black hole. A team led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found a previously overlooked treasure trove of massive black holes in dwarf galaxies. The newly discovered black holes offer a glimpse into the life story of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. As a giant spiral galaxy, the Milky Way is…
An international research team, led by DIPC and Princeton University, discovered that almost all materials in nature exhibit at least one topological state, contradicting the 40-year-old assumption that topological materials are rare and esoteric. In a paper published this week in Science, the team also introduces the new concept of “supertopological” to the theory of band topology. For the past century, students of chemistry, materials science, and physics have been taught to model solid-state materials by considering their chemical composition,…
HZDR team comes across unexpected flow behavior in liquid metals. Some metals are in liquid form, the prime example being mercury. But there are also enormous quantities of liquid metal in the Earth’s core, where temperatures are so high that part of the iron is molten and undergoes complex flows. A team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now simulated a similar process in the laboratory and made a surprising discovery: Under certain circumstances, the flow of liquid metal is…
Researchers report in unprecedented detail how some of the brain’s immune cells develop, and how to distinguish them from other cells. Thanks to over a century of modern neuroscience, we have made significant strides in our understanding of the brain. Nonetheless, we have only just begun to scratch the surface of how this amazingly complex organ works. Digging deeper into this perplexing puzzle, researchers from Kyushu University’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences have now analyzed in unprecedented detail the development and…
Unlike fictional laser swords, real laser beams do not interact with each other when they cross – unless the beams meet within a suitable material allowing for nonlinear light-matter interaction. In such a case, wave mixing can give rise to beams with changed colors and directions. Wave-mixing processes between different light beams are one cornerstone of the field of nonlinear optics, which is firmly established since lasers have become widely available. Within a suitable material such as particular crystals, two…
Study shows what happens when crystalline grains in metals reform at nanometer scales, improving metal properties. Forming metal into the shapes needed for various purposes can be done in many ways, including casting, machining, rolling, and forging. These processes affect the sizes and shapes of the tiny crystalline grains that make up the bulk metal, whether it be steel, aluminum or other widely used metals and alloys. Now researchers at MIT have been able to study exactly what happens as…
– which is better for bees? How effective environmental measures in agriculture are for biodiversity and wild bee populations depends on various factors and your perspective. This is shown by agroecologists from the University of Göttingen, Germany and the Centre for Ecological Research in Vácrátót, Hungary. The research team found that when assessing the effectiveness of different measures, whether in the field (organic farming) or next to the field (flower strips in conventional farming), biodiversity benefits should be evaluated differently….
CU Boulder scientists have successfully synthesized graphyne, which has been theorized for decades but never successfully produced. For over a decade, scientists have attempted to synthesize a new form of carbon called graphyne with limited success. That endeavor is now at an end, though, thanks to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder. Graphyne has long been of interest to scientists because of its similarities to the “wonder material” graphene—another form of carbon that is highly valued by industry…
Room-temperature superconductors could transform everything from electrical grids to particle accelerators to computers – but before they can be realized, researchers need to better understand how existing high-temperature superconductors work. Now, researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of British Columbia, Yale University and others have taken a step in that direction by studying the fast dynamics of a material called yttrium barium copper oxide, or YBCO. The team reports May 20 in Science that YBCO’s superconductivity…
Study published in Nature reveals an elaborate linked quantum structure. As physicists delve deeper into the quantum realm, they are discovering an infinitesimally small world composed of a strange and surprising array of links, knots and winding. Some quantum materials exhibit magnetic whirls called skyrmions — unique configurations described as “subatomic hurricanes.” Others host a form of superconductivity that twists into vortices. Now, in an article published in Nature a Princeton-led team of physicists has discovered that electrons in quantum…
Feedback
