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Scientists used high-speed photography and digital image analysis to observe both the events that cause cracks and the speed with which the cracks travel.

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This is the first instance where synthesis of a crystalline framework in which proteins as well as metal ions and organic molecules are vital building components. This fabrication route has potential applications such as hydrogen fuel storage and carbon capture.

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Scientists developed a new probe to measure dynamic behavior of materials on ultrafast timescales.

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Flexible solar panels would benefit from stretchable, damage-resistant, transparent metal electrodes. Researchers found that topology and the adhesion between a metal nanomesh and the underlying substrate played key roles in creating such materials.

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Scientists showed that adding lithium to aluminum nanoparticles results in orders-of-magnitude faster water-splitting reactions and higher hydrogen production rates compared to pure aluminum nanoparticles.

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For the first time, accurate first-principles theoretical calculations of the energy lost to heat in silicon, the primary component of solar cells, have been performed.

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For the first time, a new class of magnetic materials, called topological magnon insulators, was revealed. This novel material can conduct magnetic waves along their edges, without conduction through the bulk material.

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In a review article in Nature Materials, a team of scientists assessed the common design motifs of a range of natural structural materials and determined what it would take to design and fabricate structures that mimic nature.

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A versatile two-step process allows for the controlled synthesis of new materials for energy technology.

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Gels that help prevent oppositely charged nanoparticles from settling out of solution enable applications from ceramic synthesis to adsorption of water. Scientists mapped out a mechanistic understanding of the gel, revealing contributions from three district phenomena.

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A simple process made an electrode that absorbs sunlight and produces oxygen on tiny cobalt islands on a silicon electrode.

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A new tabletop system can accelerate materials characterization and further our understanding of magnetic and electronic properties that enable energy-efficient electronics and information storage.

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Scientists know how a liquid metal technique selectively removes elements from a block of well-mixed metals and creates intricate structures.

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Scientists discovered a pyrite-type compound, similar to fool’s gold, that is competitive with platinum for splitting water to produce hydrogen

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In movies and television shows, audio tapes or other devices self-destruct after delivering the details of impossible missions. Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have taken it to a new level.

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A new architecture takes very few processing steps to produce an affordable solar cell with efficiencies comparable to conventional silicon solar cells.

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A new tool now rests in the 3D printing toolbox. The result is designer materials with desirable structures, such as microchips, or materials with unique properties.

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Making faster, more powerful electronics requires smaller but still uniform connections between different materials. For the first time, researchers created extremely small, 5-nanometer-wide junctions, which were made in a specific pattern using two different flat semiconductors.

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Molecules in liquid crystals form exotic phases in which arrays of defects are organized into striking patterns. Confining these defect structures within droplets offers fine control that points to strategies—not possible in bulk phases—for assembly of responsive, adaptable materials.

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Movies of the nanoparticles in motion were obtained with world-leading electron microscopes. The results yielded insights into the structure and growth mechanisms of these materials.

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Tiny ribbons of graphene could move electricity and dissipate heat more efficiently than silicon in electronic circuits; however, creating the ribbons on traditional supports wasn’t possible. Scientists have discovered how to synthesize the nanoribbons directly on a semiconductor wafer.

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A new semiconducting material that is only three atomic-layers thick has emerged with more exotic, malleable electronic properties than those of traditional semiconductors.

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With a new technique, scientists can detect a few large grains in a sea of small grains and study the fatigue-induced phenomena of large grain growth.

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Researchers demonstrated that nanowires made from lead halide perovskite are the most efficient nanowire lasers known.

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Even though conducting missing electrons and transparency were considered mutually exclusive, this new material both efficiently conducts missing electrons and retains most of its transparency to visual light.

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Certain heavy barium nuclei have long been predicted to exhibit pear-like shapes. Scientists demonstrated the existence of this exotic shape by taking advantage of breakthroughs in the acceleration of radioactive beams and new detector technologies.

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Scientists found that the electronic arrangement and the small molecular separation distances give bacterial pili an electrical conductivity comparable to that of copper, valuable insights for those interested in eventually constructing non-toxic, nanoscale sources of electricity.

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Scientists devised a new type of imaging electron detector that records an image frame in 1/1000 of a second, and can detect from 1 to 1,000,000 electrons per pixel.

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New data from collisions of protons indicate that gluons, glue-like particles that bind the inner building blocks of each proton, play a substantial role in determining the proton’s spin, or intrinsic angular momentum.

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Two isotopes of a new element with atomic number 117 were created by an international collaboration.

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Physicists developed a mathematical technique that accurately orders collections of noisy snapshots of ultrafast phenomena that were recorded with extreme timing uncertainty.

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With an eye to learning from nature’s success, scientists characterized the orange-colored protein that protects cyanobacteria from overexposure to sunlight.

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You may have known lithium from its role in rechargeable batteries, but did you know it may be a vital in fusion reactors? These reactors require walls that don’t sputter out metals or overly cool the plasma at the heart of the reaction. Researchers showed that lithium-coated walls can handle heat.

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By more completely capturing the dynamics of plasma turbulence across an unprecedented range of spatial and temporal scales, researchers have reproduced experimental levels of heat loss observed experimentally where they previously could not.

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Scientists developed and demonstrated a new type of imaging electron detector. It records an image frame in 1/1000 of a second, and can detect from 1 to 1,000,000 electrons per pixel. This is 1000 times the intensity range and 100 times the speed of conventional electron microscope image sensors.

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Scientists discover a new design rule that controls the way in which polymer building blocks adjoin to form the backbones that run the length of tiny biomimetic sheets.

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Scientists found that the electronic arrangement and small molecular separation distances in electrically insulating, hair-like filaments on the surface of Geobacter bacteria give the structures an electrical conductivity comparable to that of copper.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Students from Montgomery Blair High School from Silver Spring, Md. won the 2016 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Science Bowl® (NSB) today in Washington D.C. This year's championship team in the middle school competition is Joaquin Miller Middle School from San Jose, Calif.

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Researchers built extremely small, thermally stable magnetic particles with magnetic properties comparable to some rare earth magnets, the strongest permanent magnets ever created. These tiny magnets are as small as 5 nanometers, a million times smaller than an ant.

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Catalytic nanocages, which are tiny, open structures with reactive surfaces that could boost key chemical processes, are notoriously difficult to synthesize. Scientists recently succeeded in a new approach.

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Invaluable as markers for monitoring photosynthesis and other energy-related processes in living cells, green fluorescent proteins are vital in high-resolution imaging studies. Scientists found that when water is added to the protein’s chromophore, the fluorescence is more stable.

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Scientists aligned nitrogen molecules with a laser pulse; they obtained atomic-resolution images of the subsequent motion of the molecules using femtosecond electron pulses.

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Too much sunlight can harm plants; with an eye to learning from nature’s success, scientists found that an orange-colored protein that protects cyanobacteria from overexposure to sunlight shifts to a reddish color that helps dissipate excess energy as heat.

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The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science has selected 49 scientists from across the nation – including 22 from DOE’s national laboratories and 27 from U.S. universities – to receive significant funding for research as part of DOE’s Early Career Research Program. The effort, now in its seventh year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work.

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Nuclear scientists at Texas A&M University devised a method that allows scientists to determine key reaction rates at stellar energies using conventional nuclear reactions.

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Mimicking the texture found on the surfaces of the eyes of moths, scientists have produced nanotextured designs across silicon-based solar cells. The texturing significantly enhanced the light-harvesting and, hence, overall performance of the solar cells.

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Silver ants can maintain stable body temperatures even while traversing the searing sands of the Sahara desert. Scientists have discovered how the ants regulate their body temperature. The ants’ mechanism could be used in technologies to cool buildings and vehicles.

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Two new federal interagency websites designed to connect undergraduate and graduate students with education and training opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields have been launched on Science.gov, the portal to U.S. government science information.

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Nanoparticles are known to self-assemble at the air-water interface into large 2D sheets. Researchers discovered that an organic coating on the nanoparticles differs slightly between the two sides of the membrane.

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Researchers demonstrated a new material, made from tiny carbon tubes, that emits the desired single photons (of interest for data encryption) at room temperature.