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A new approach to removing ice could make driving during winter less annoying, and flying a lot less dangerous. It relies on a rubbery coating that exploits the mechanics between rigid surfaces, instead of attempting to chemically repel the water in ice like other coatings.
Swiss physicists have developed a new model to chart the early development of the Universe in better detail than ever before.
We can't call it a major discovery. Not yet.
Iowa State University engineers have created a flexible, tunable "meta-skin," a material that uses rows of liquid-metal devices to cloak an object from radar detection.
There's a tune to oxygen, carbon and any other element from the periodic table.
A team from Cornell University’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has found a way to arrange quantum dots together in an almost perfect structure.
If you sprinkle water on a hot plate, it will evaporate. Basic physics, really. If the plate is really hot (well above the boiling point of water) something very interesting happens, which the untrained eye might discard as uneventful. The droplets will dance around the plate on a cushion of its own vapor -- this form of levitation is called the Leindenfrost effect. This layer is about 100 nanometers wide, and for the first time a team of researchers has imaged it.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment Collaboration has started the first batch of tests using a small-scale 35 tons prototype of the final device, dubbed the DUNE Buggy. The team is busy gathering readings from the prototype to tweak and optimize the design of the final device.
Mantis shrimp are probably best known for the dazzling colors that adorn their shells. The second thing they're best known for is their tendency to violently murder anything they come into contact with.
Though technically a metal, the electrons inside graphene behave like a liquid traveling very fast in waves.
This polymer can change shape and release tremendous amounts of stored elastic energy relative to its weight simply by being exposed to a temperature change. This in itself isn't exactly new, but the team led by Chemical Engineering Professor Mitch Anthamatten at the University of Rochester innovated by making the polymer react to room temperature -- a first.
After a century of speculation and tantalizing results, scientists have, for the first time, confirmed the existence of gravitational waves.
In one scenario, parts would spiral farther than the moon!
In the wake of calamities like hurricanes or tornadoes, you'll find trees leveled to the ground. But observations suggest that all trees seem to break at the same wind speed, with parameters like the type of tree, height or diameter barely affecting the outcome.
In a study published in the January 19, 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), scientists at Tsinghua University in China confirmed that something very unusual is happening inside extremely heavy atoms, causing them to deviate from their expect chemical behavior predicted by their place on the Periodic Table of Elements.
Tornadoes are associated with the strongest and most violent storms, reaching winds of up to 300 miles per hour (480 km/h).
To the romantic eye, a tree swaying in the wind is a testimony of nature's heart beat. An engineer might be moved by the same feeling, but he might also add: "well, that looks like a lot of wasted energy."
The moon does more than cause tides and delight lovers - according to a new study, it can also affect how much rainfall falls down on the ground.
Griffith University Associate Professor Joan Vaccaro believes she may have uncovered how our reality differentiates the future from the past. Her paper could topple our understanding of time flow (ironically) forever.
That's not one million or one billion, but roughly on unquadragintillion -- a number so big it exceeds the number of particles in the Universe. So, why is this important?
Finnish and American scientist made knots out of solitary waves, or knot solitons. This was the first time this was demonstrated possible, though theoretically predicted for decades. These sort of knots are thought to play an important role in the quantum-mechanical foundations of nature, though these have remained elusive in quantum dynamics.
Geckos are the largest animals able to scale walls. They use the same mechanism as spiders and hundreds of other animals able to do so: through tiny hairs on their pads that adhere to surfaces due to molecular force interactions. But why isn't there an animal bigger than the gecko that can cling to windows and walls? For that matter, why isn't there any Spiderman?
Though incandescent light bulbs have been used to light homes for more than a hundreds years, and still do so in most of the world, these are ridiculously inefficient. This has prompted many governments to completely phase-them out, among which the E.U., Australia, Canada, Russian, as well as the United States. Their place has been taken over by fluorescent bulbs (CFLs), and the even more efficient LEDs. A team at MIT, however, has a bright idea that might revamp the unfavored bulbs. They've designed a new sort of incandescent bulb that uses a photonic crystal to recycle the waste energy. The resulting bulbs could be more power and light efficient than anything on the market right now.
Tantalizing rumors about gravitational waves have been spreading through the scientific community.
Almost 100 manuscripts have been submitted following last week's tantalizing announcement from CERN.
There's three things every good alien movie needs, in my opinion: aliens, spaceships and tractor beams; so far, science hasn't really delivered well on the "alien" part, and our spaceships still have a way to go. However, recent work in the UK might pull the third element out of the realm of sci-fi into reality.
You know how the old saying goes, that "diamonds are forever," and giving your significant other a piece of diamond jewelry is considered to be a declaration of eternal love? Well, scientists working at the Borexino experiment in Italy may change the saying and send enamored young men scrambling for something that's really eternal to profess their love -- electrons.
The full extent of Japan's 2011 Fukushima meltdown is still being uncovered, with measured levels of contamination increasing in previously identified sites throughout the North American coast. While it's still too low to threaten human or ocean life, this confirms that the power plant continues to leak radioactive isotopes researchers report.
To make diamonds, the industry typically resorts to subjecting graphite to immense pressure and temperature, which makes production volumes low and costly. This paradigm is about to change, since researchers at North Carolina State University found a new phase for carbon called Q-carbon, produced at ambient temperatures and pressure. This is surprisingly close to diamond in structure, with the added benefit of exhibiting a couple of unique properties.
In a new study published in Nature, researchers have demonstrated a technique that allows the mapping of organs at microscopic scales.
An University of Queensland study of mantis shrimp discovered a new form of light communication employed by the animals, the findings having potential applications in satellite remote sensing, biomedical imaging, cancer detection, and computer data storage.
Until the advent of calculus and computing infinite series, not that many digits were added to the ones found by Archimedes for more than a 1,500 years.
University of New South Wales devised a two-qubit system inside a silicon chip and ran a computer code adapted to the quantum world. Their code passed the notoriously intransigent 'Bell test', making it the strongest evidence yet that quantum computers can be instructed to handle operations.
Even inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, outside of Cairo, researchers have found something interesting.
Not every groundbreaking idea is complicated to understand. Ryan Chester, a high school senior from Ohio, seems to think so too. Using simple props and graphics, Chester produced a fantastic short video explaining one of the most important theories in physics - the Theory of Special Relativity proposed by Albert Einstein one hundred years ago. If the name doesn't say too much, maybe E = mc2 will.
Nikola Tesla had it right since 1908.
All models of particle physics are based on the mundane assumption that matter and anti-matter are indistinguishable, but we can't be sure. Luckily, an experiment at Brookhaven National Lab seems to confirm this basic caveat of particle physics after it found the attractive forces between antiprotons are the same as those seen in regular matter.
French scientist working on the Hall thrusters -- an advanced type of engine that harnesses a stream of plasma to generate forward momentum -- have recently figured out a way to optimize them, allowing them to run on (wait for it) a staggering 100 million times less fuel than conventional chemical rockets. The research has been published in Applied Physics Letters.
eam at Lawrence Livermore, helped by researchers from all around the world, announced the discovery of five new isotopes, adding to the already extensive list of 3,000 isotopes of 114 confirmed chemical elements. The exotic atomic variations discovered are one isotope each of heavy elements berkelium, neptunium and uranium and two isotopes of the element americium.
A team of scientists from Switzerland, Russia, Denmark, Belgium and Canada has for the first time demonstrated that it is possible to track the movement of an electron inside a molecule in real time. Moreover, the scientists claim the electron movements can be manipulated allowing unprecedented control over chemical reactions and biological processes.
After decades of searching, researchers believe they have finally discovered a glueball - a proposed particle that consists solely of gluon particles.
Scientists working at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have created a very specific type of material from over 1 billion magnets placed in a specific configuration. Astonishingly, its magnetic properties now change with temperature, just like water can be liquid, solid and gaseous based on temperature.
A group of scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has managed to successfully transfer information from on proton to another one 100 kilometers away (60 miles). This could ultimately lead not to actual teleportation, but rather to unhackable conversations.
Take a candle, light it, turn it on its side -- we all know what will happen. The convection cell that forms around the flame keeps licking up towards the sky (or ceiling) regardless of the orientation of the fuel. But can the movement of air be overcome, can we make a fire burn horizontally? Well, the short answer is yes, yes we can -- we just have to use science.
Usually, we have to use all sorts of disinfectants, soaps and detergents to scrub away smudge, be it sticky, oozy or greasy. This is not only annoying during housekeeping, but also following medical procedures when instruments have to be cleaned. Researchers at University of Southampton have been working for several years on a different kind high tech solution. They developed a gun-shaped device called the StarStream equipped with a special nozzle that injects water bombarded with ultrasound waves. The mix is so powerful that virtually any kind contamination can be removed.
A team of Dutch and Belgian researchers demonstrated an electric circuit coupled with a magnetic insulator. The circuit uses so-called 'spin waves' instead of electrons to transmit information, something that was considered unpractical until not too long ago. The findings could help lead to a new class of electronics which are far more efficient since there's less heat loss.
We all need a bit of quiet in our lives sometimes, but have you ever took a minute to ponder what 'total silence' might feel like? It's scary. Every bodily function, otherwise unnoticed, now sounds like a freight train. Feels like it, anyway. You can even hear your heart beats. Though not exactly 'perfect silence', a team of researchers at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have come mighty close. They report 99.7% absorption of low frequency pressure waves (sound) using subwavelength structures or materials.
A wormhole - a tunnel that connects two distant region in space by creating a shortcut through the spacetime - is thought as the only viable way to visit far away worlds and galaxies. Otherwise, you're stuck with traveling at the speed of light which, considering the vastness of interstellar space, is arduously slow. While for all practical reasons gravitational wormholes remain a staple of science fiction, the same can't be said about magnetic wormholes which were demonstrated for the first time by a group of Spanish physicists.
An intriguing signal reported at the LHC might signal some "cracks" in the Standard Model - the theory which describes how different forces interact with each other.
Today, Intel announced a 10 year collaboration with Delft University of Technology and TNO, the Dutch Organisation for Applied Research, to accelerate and enhance the advancements in quantum computing: the new type of computing which promises to revolutionize the world as we know it
