Researchers have made a significant breakthrough in developing efficient, cost-effective noble metal-free electro-catalysts for oxygen electrocatalysis in alkaline electrolytes, crucial for advancing energy conversion devices such as electrolyzers, fuel cells, and metal–air batteries.
Optical materials capable of dynamically manipulating electromagnetic waves are an emerging field in optics. However, the multispectral manipulation based on these materials is challenging due to their ubiquitous wavelength dependence. Scientist in China and Singapore cascaded VO2-based tunable optical cavities with selective-transparent layers, realizing the multispectral manipulation with reversible tunability covering wavelengths ranging from the visible to microwave regions. This work will provide a critical approach for expanding the multispectral manipulation ability of optical systems.
Magnesium alloys, known for their lightweight and high strength, face limitations due to poor corrosion resistance. The innovative Al/Mg/Al laminates combine the benefits of magnesium alloy and aluminum, offering a solution with enhanced mechanical properties and corrosion resistance, critical for aerospace, automotive, and electronic applications.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory are working on ways to improve thrusters for satellites operating in very low orbit around the Earth. The researchers believe they can make satellites that weigh less, last longer and cost less by creating thrusters that use the air around them instead of having to carry its own supply of fuel. PPPL’s diagnostics will be used to evaluate this innovative thruster concept and characterize key physical processes involved in its operation.
The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) successfully implemented an electrostatic environment that simulates the Moon's surface conditions, not in space but on Earth. The researchers also assessed its performance and effectiveness.
With fish stocks declining globally, more than 190 countries recently made a commitment to protect about a third of the world’s oceans within “Marine Protected Areas,” or MPAs by the year 2030.
Researchers have shown that inedible species of butterfly that mimic each others’ colour patterns have also evolved similar flight behaviours to warn predators and avoid being eaten.
How does listening to live music affect the emotional center of our brain? A study carried out at the University of Zurich has found that live performances trigger a stronger emotional response than listening to music from a device.
Among the vast expanse of Antarctica lies the Thwaites Glacier, the world’s widest glacier measuring about 80 miles on the western edge of the continent.
Empa researchers have extracted nanocellulose from a waste product of beer brewing and processed it into an aerogel. The high-quality biodegradable material could be used in food packaging.
Eight new Pacific bee species and new insights into Fijian bird behaviour on Viti Levu Island have been described in new scientific studies led by Flinders University.
The enigmatic Philistine culture, which flourished during the Iron Age (ca. 1200-604 BCE), profoundly affected the southern Levant's cultural history, agronomy, and dietary customs.
While the rise of artificial intelligence is proving to be a contentious issue, new research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) has found that the use of social robots in a commercial setting would likely be met with less resistance.
Deforestation, a critical consequence of human activity, has garnered significant attention due to its impact on environmental sustainability, biodiversity and climate change.
In response to the rapidly evolving landscape of data collection and analysis driven by advances in artificial intelligence, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have established a Research Coordination Network (RCN) dedicated to advancing privacy research and the development, deployment and scaling of privacy enhancing technologies (PETs). Fulfilling a mandate from the "Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence," the initiative advances the recommendations in the National Strategy to Advance Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing and Analytics to move towards a data ecosystem where the beneficial power of data can be unlocked while protecting privacy.
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has chosen Figshare from Digital Science's flagship products to support sharing, showcasing and managing UTS research reports and non-traditional research outputs.
To become carbon neutral by 2060, as mandated by President Xi Jinping, China will have to build eight to 10 times more wind and solar power installations than currently exist in the country. Reaching carbon neutrality will also require major construction of transmission lines.
Neutrinos from the Sun result from a chain of nuclear fusion reactions. Scientists use theoretical calculations to extrapolate the rate of these reactions using theory and data from experiments on Earth. A new evalution protocol dramatically reduces the uncertainty in these extrapolations. This will help scientists better understand neutrinos and the interior of the Sun.
With time scheduled to use a certain beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source-II (NSLS-II), scientists from NSLS-II and their partner institutions faced a challenge. They planned on researching a special type of region in magnetic materials that could be useful for next-generation computers. Regions in magnetic materials - called magnetic domains - determine a material's magnetic properties. The scientists wanted to study how these magnetic domains changed over time under the influence of an outside magnetic field.
To provide a clear picture of opioid manufacture and travel, the University of Notre Dame developed a user-friendly interface to enable public access to more than 10 years of national controlled substance transaction information. This platform makes querying easier and faster, providing transactional data on 14 different opioids including fentanyl, hydrocodone and oxycodone.
Nuclear physicists with Jefferson Lab have shattered a nearly 30-year-old record for precision in electron beam polarimetry. The groundbreaking result sets the stage for high-profile experiments that could open the door to new physics discoveries.
UNC Wilmington environmental sciences assistant professor Joni “Osku“ Backstrom and Mark Wilde-Ramsing, underwater archaeologist and former director of the Underwater Archaeology Branch of the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology, have traversed the lower Cape Fear and Brunswick rivers searching for archaeological evidence of the rice fields once situated along the rivers’ banks.
Fashioned from the same element found in sand and covered by intricate patterns, microchips power smartphones, augment appliances and aid the operation of cars and airplanes. Now, PPPL scientists are developing codes that will outperform current simulation techniques and aid the production of microchips using plasma.
Niobium has long been considered an underperformer in superconducting qubits. Scientists supported by Q-NEXT, a US DOE quantum center led by Argonne, have now engineered a high-quality niobium-based qubit, taking advantage of niobium’s superior qualities.
An interdisciplinary team of experts from the University of Notre Dame, in collaboration with the University of Maryland and University of Utah, have found a way to use artificial intelligence to analyze a household’s passive design characteristics and predict its energy expenses with more than 74 percent accuracy. By combining their findings with demographic data including poverty levels, the researchers have created a comprehensive model for predicting energy burden across 1,402 census tracts and nearly 300,000 households in Chicago.