Scientists use high-energy heavy ion collisions as a new tool to reveal subtleties of nuclear structure with implications for many areas of physics. Scientists have demonstrated a new way to use high-energy particle smashups at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) — a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory — to reveal subtle details about the shapes of atomic nuclei. The method, described in a paper just published in Nature, is…
… best quality at minimum cost thanks to precise stabilisation. Online characterisation, plastic formulations, more profitable. All organic substances, including plastics such as polypropylene (PP), undergo auto-oxidation in the presence of oxygen.This happens millions of times faster at the high temperatures of compounding and injection moulding. The result for PP is a degradation of the polymer chains, i.e. reduction in molecular weight, which means that products made from these plastics can no longer be recycled. Antioxidants added during the manufacturing…
Part chemist, part physicist and 100% researcher, Niéli Daffé is interested in materials that change colour or magnetism when illuminated. She studies them using X-rays in her SNSF-supported research. From the very first questions, Niéli Daffé’s frank laughter echoes in the small café corner of the library at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Aargau. “It’s true that being a physics researcher sometimes scares people,” she laughs. However, for this expert in magnetic nanosized materials, her job is just like…
Small satellites that find and collect space debris: Mohamed Khalil Ben-Larbi is working towards this goal. He is the new Professor of Space Informatics and Satellite Systems at the University of Würzburg. Humanity also leaves its rubbish in space: discarded satellites and debris orbit the earth in large numbers. There are an estimated 26,000 debris objects larger than ten centimetres. There are also millions of smaller pieces. And because new satellites are always being built, the population of space debris…
Experiments at GSI/FAIR determine properties of moscovium an. An international team led by scientists of GSI/FAIR in Darmstadt, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz, succeeded in determining the chemical properties of the artificially produced superheavy elements moscovium and nihonium (elements 115 and 113). Moscovium thus becomes the heaviest element ever chemically studied. Both of the newly characterized elements are more chemically reactive than flerovium (element 114), which was previously studied at GSI/FAIR. The results are published in…
ISTA researchers investigate why graph isomorphism algorithms seem to be so effective. Graphs are everywhere. In discrete mathematics, they are structures that show the connections between points, much like a public transportation network. Mathematicians have long sought to develop algorithms that can compare any two graphs. In practice, many algorithms seem always to work efficiently. But in theory, there is no guarantee. In a new arXiv preprint, researchers from the Kwan Group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria…
A wide variety of COVID-19 symptoms exist, ranging from mild to severe, and while current strains of the virus generally cause milder symptoms, those with co-morbidities are still at an exponentially greater risk of severe disease. Now, new research from Emory University is providing a more precise prediction of COVID-19 severity that can be found by looking at autoantibodies in the nasal cavity, leading to more personalized treatment plans. For high-risk individuals, this could provide critical information to inform immediate…
Aquaculture is the fastest growing food sector in the world. In order to meet the growing demand, solutions are needed outside of coastal waters, which are heavily polluted by shipping, tourism and the expansion of coastal structures. The international joint project “Ngā Punga o te Moana – Anchoring Our Open Ocean Future”, in which TU Braunschweig is involved, addresses precisely this issue. It aims to shift aquaculture from congested coastal regions to open, exposed ocean areas. Experts from the fields…
Fraunhofer IBP Is Driving the Development of Climate-Friendly Construction Materials. Cutting carbon emissions by more than two-thirds with consistently high quality: Specialists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP are working on future ways to manufacture the popular construction material with as little climate impact as possible. They will be showcasing their solutions at the BAU trade show in Munich from January 13 to 17, 2025. What would perfect concrete be like? The researchers at Fraunhofer IBP are tackling…
A research group may have unraveled the mystery behind the locomotion of the ancient marine reptile, the plesiosaur, by recreating a bio-inspired control system that accounts for motion adjustment. Extinct animals have vastly different body shapes from animals still around today, making it difficult to determine how they moved by comparing them to living species. Additionally, fossils rarely preserve the soft limb tissues that scientists need to study locomotion and gain key insights into their lifestyles. Plesiosaurs roamed Earth’s prehistoric…
In case you’re scratching your head, we help break it down. Using muon spin rotation at the Swiss Muon Source SmS, researchers at PSI have discovered that a quantum phenomenon known as time-reversal symmetry breaking occurs at the surface of the Kagome superconductor RbV₃Sb₅ at temperatures as high as 175 K. This sets a new record for the temperature at which time-reversal symmetry breaking is observed among Kagome systems. Excuse me, what? Yes, you read that right: -98 degrees Celsius….
Dysferlin protein protects and shapes the membrane of heart muscle cells. Researchers from the Heart Center of the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) led by Priv.-Doz. Dr Sören Brandenburg have identified a protein that plays a central role in the heart’s adaptation to increased stress. The results of the study were published in the renowned journal ‘Circulation Research’. The heartbeat is carried out by specialized heart muscle cells called cardiomyocytes that can neither divide nor renew themselves. As a result,…
Researchers are perfecting processes to grow high-quality diamond material reliably and efficiently. Researchers are developing new ideas about the best ways to make lab-grown diamonds while minimizing other forms of carbon, such as soot. These diamonds aren’t destined for rings and necklaces, though. These are the kinds that are needed for the computers, optics and sensors of the future. One new study, conducted by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University, investigated ways to reliably…
In the dark ocean depths, seals hunt prey with their highly sensitive whiskers, which detect vibrations. And it is the design of those hairs that inspired a University of Texas at Dallas researcher to develop a sensor to monitor turbulence in the deep ocean. “The geometry of seal whiskers is not circular; the whisker’s shape is twisted cylinders,” said Dr. Yaqing Jin, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. Jin was recently…
Data is power. According to Dinesh Bharadia, an associate professor at UC San Diego in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Qualcomm Institute (QI), “data will be the next decade’s ‘silicon.’” The rapid growth of the Internet of Things means that data is more readily available and easily accessible than ever. Sensors, “smart” devices and software connect our world to the cloud, gathering information and enabling new…
Using hydrogen to generate electricity does not cause any climate-damaging emissions. But storing and transporting the gas pose technical challenges. With this in mind, Fraunhofer researchers use ammonia, a hydrogen derivative that is easier to handle, as a starting material. Ammonia is cracked in a high-temperature fuel cell stack, and the hydrogen produced in this process is converted to electricity. The waste heat can be used as heat energy, for example. There are high hopes for hydrogen and its derivatives…
Feedback
