To find ways to improve man-made active sensing, scientists worldwide study the sonar systems of bats and dolphins. During the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9, Laura Kloepper will compare bat and dolphin sonar systems, describing her work on how the two animals cope with acoustic interference. She'll use her findings to argue why bats have the superior system.
Here's another reason you might be exhausted after that preschool birthday party: Your brain had to work to figure out who actually asked for more ice cream. "What we found with two-and-a-half-year-olds is that it's amazingly hard for adults to identify who's talking," said Angela Cooper, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto. Cooper's co-authored research will be presented in the poster session at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9.
Computer algorithms are playing a growing role in analyzing hydrophone audio data when monitoring marine life, but human listeners can complement and enhance these algorithms. A project known as Orcasound has produced a web application that will enable citizen scientists to listen to livestreaming audio from hydrophones near the San Juan Islands. Researchers will describe the new web app and the value of citizen science at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9.
Landfill gases contain numerous contaminants, but one group has demonstrated a promising new application of plasma technology capable of removing such compounds. Researchers have demonstrated an experimental plasma device capable of cleaning gas samples of D4, one of the most common siloxanes. Drawing on a technique for creating plasma called dielectric barrier discharge, the group was able to significantly reduce the amount of D4 samples after treating it with a helium-based plasma. They will present at the APS 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Nov. 5-9.
Many of today’s methods of purifying water rely on filters and chemicals that need regular replenishing or maintenance. Millions of people, however, live in areas with limited access to such materials, leading the research community to explore new options of purifying water in using plasmas. Many plasma-based approaches are expensive, but a new class of plasma devices may change that. Researchers at the have been studying a new type of plasma generator for water purification. They will present the research next week at the APS 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and the 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Nov. 5-9.
Moths are a mainstay food source for bats, which use echolocation to hunt their prey. Scientists are studying how moths have evolved passive defenses over millions of years to resist their primary predators. While some moths have evolved ears that detect the ultrasonic calls of bats, many types of moths remain deaf. In those moths, researchers have found that the insects developed types of “stealth coating” that serve as acoustic camouflage to evade hungry bats. Neil will describe his work during the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9.
A whiff of plasma, when combined with a nanosized catalyst, can cause chemical reactions to proceed faster, more selectively, at lower temperatures, or at lower voltages than without plasma. Using computer modeling, researchers investigated the interactions between plasmas and metal catalysts embedded into ceramic beads in a packed bed reactor. They discovered that together, the metals, beads and gas create plasma that intensifies electric fields and locally heats the catalyst, which can then accelerate reactions. They will present at the APS 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Nov. 5-9.
With thousands of fans, college basketball games can be almost deafeningly loud. Some arenas have decibel meters, which can provide some indication of the noise generated. Researchers at Brigham Young University wanted to see whether machine learning algorithms could pick out patterns within the raw acoustical data that indicated the crowd’s mood, thereby providing clues as to what was happening in the game itself. They’ll present at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9.
Some conversations are forgotten as soon as they are over, while other exchanges may leave lasting imprints. Researchers want to understand why and how listeners remember some spoken utterances more clearly than others. They’re specifically looking at ways in which clarity of speaking style can affect memory. They will describe their work at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9.
Next month, Rodney Rountree, “The Fish Listener,” will talk about his work with Francis Juanes of the University of Victoria, to document calls made by fish in the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve in Peru in a presentation at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9. These calls may be useful for tracking piranha populations through passive acoustic monitoring.
One concern with the increase vessel transits in the western Canadian Arctic is how noise pollution can detrimentally affect marine animals -- including Arctic cod -- given the critical importance of these fish in the arctic food web. Researchers at the University of Victoria, WCS Canada and JASCO Applied Sciences have found that the negative impact of noise from shipping vessels can be mitigated by reducing the ship's speed. They will present their research at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9.
AIP Publishing has announced its selection of Daniel S. Clark, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and leader of the National Ignition Facility’s (NIF) Capsule Modeling Working Group within the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) Program, as the winner of the 2018 Ronald C. Davidson Award for Plasma Physics.
Scientists are working to dramatically speed up the development of fusion energy in an effort to deliver power to the electric grid soon enough to help mitigate impacts of climate change. The arrival of a breakthrough technology
The Plasma Sciences Expo—planned as the biggest celebration of plasma physics in the country—presents teachers, students and the public with a free opportunity to explore what scientists call “the fourth state of matter.”
Fusion offers the potential of near limitless energy by heating a gas trapped in a magnetic field to incredibly high temperatures where atoms are so energetic that they fuse together when they collide. But if that hot gas, called a plasma, breaks free from the magnetic field, it must be safely put back in place to avoid damaging the fusion device—this problem has been one of the great challenges of magnetically confined fusion.
We all know microwaves are good for cooking popcorn, but scientists have recently shown they can also prevent dangerous waves in plasmas and help produce clean, nearly limitless energy with fusion.
As you walk away from a campfire on a cool autumn night, you quickly feel colder. The same thing happens in outer space. As it spins, the sun continuously flings hot material into space, out to the furthest reaches of our solar system.
The cosmos is a void dotted with stars and an ever-increasing number of newly-observed planets beyond our solar system. Yet, how these stars and planets formed out of clouds of interstellar dust and gas remains mysterious.
Scientists have produced an extremely bright spot of light that can travel at any speed—including faster than the speed of light. Researchers have found a way to use this concept, called “flying focus,” to move an intense laser focal point over long distances at any speed. Their technique includes capturing some of the fastest movies ever recorded.
New insights have been gained about stellar winds, streams of high-speed charged particles called plasma that blow through interstellar space. These winds, created by eruptions from stars or stellar explosions, carry with them strong magnetic fields which can interact with or effect other magnetic fields
Imagine building a machine so advanced and precise you need a supercomputer to help design it. That’s exactly what scientists and engineers in Germany did when building the Wendelstein 7-X experiment.
Antimatter is an exotic material that vaporizes when it contacts regular matter. If you hit an antimatter baseball with a bat made of regular matter, it would explode in a burst of light. It is rare to find antimatter on Earth, but it is believed to exist in the furthest reaches of the universe.
Imagine looking under your couch and instead of finding fluffy dust bunnies, you see the dust is arranged in straight lines—you might wonder what caused this order.
AIP Publishing has announced its selection of Daniel S. Clark, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and leader of the National Ignition Facility’s Capsule Modeling Working Group within the inertial confinement fusion Program, as the winner of the 2018 Ronald C. Davidson Award for Plasma Physics. The annual award is presented by AIP Publishing in collaboration with the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics, to recognize outstanding plasma physics research by an author published in the journal Physics of Plasmas.
The American Physical Society (APS) 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics will take place next week, Nov. 5-9, at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. These two co-located meetings will form one of the largest gatherings of their kind anywhere in the world this year, with more than 2,000 attendees expected from around the world to convene and discuss the basic understanding and groundbreaking applications of different types of plasma science.
The Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, to be held in conjunction with the Canadian Acoustical Association's 2018 Acoustics Week in Canada, will take place next month, Nov. 5-9, 2018, at the Victoria Conference Centre in Victoria, Canada. It will be largest gathering of acoustical experts anywhere in the world this year and the premiere meeting on the science of sound.
Fuel cell efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells decreases as the Nafion membrane, used to separate the anode and cathode within a fuel cell, swells as it interacts with water. Russian and Australian researchers have now shown that this Nafion separator membrane partially unwinds some of its constituent fibers, which then protrude away from the surface into the bulk water phase for hundreds of microns. Their results were published in this week’s Journal of Chemical Physics.
Electrical engineer Koichi Takaki has used nanosecond-long pulses of high-voltage electricity and discharge plasma -- like that found in lightning -- to promote the growth of fruits, vegetables and edible fungi and to preserve the freshness of a variety perishable foods. Takaki will describe his findings at the AVS 65th International Symposium and Exhibition, Oct. 21-26.
The scientific community is gearing up for the ultimate challenge -- to race the speed of light. In this quest, they are tinkering with the electronic and magnetic properties of new materials to improve the performance and capabilities of logic, memory and energy devices for next-generation technology. During the 65th AVS International Symposium and Exhibition, being held Oct. 21-26, Alexander Gray will discuss his work using soft and hard X-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to explore the depth- and momentum-resolved electronic structure of quantum materials and nanostructures.
The American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society announced today that Bill Sutherland of the University of Utah, Francesco Calogero of the Sapienza University of Rome and Michel Gaudin of the Commissariat à l’énergie atomique Saclay are the winners of the 2019 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics.
The American Institute of Physics announced today the four winners of its 2018 Science Communication Awards for works on planetary astronomy, cutting-edge quantum technology and the detritus of human society. The awards carry a $3,000 prize, an engraved Windsor chair and a certificate of recognition for each category. The 2018 winners are David Baron, Jason Palmer, Claire Eamer and Wyatt Channell.
Researchers have developed a new class of molecular layer deposition chemistry that paves the way for a new photoactivated molecular layer deposition technique. They report that their new method will expand the tool kit for forming covalently bound organic multilayers at surfaces. These emerging deposition techniques have enabled engineers to produce organic thin films with improved conformality. Richard Closser, Stanford University, will present the findings at the AVS 65th International Symposium and Exhibition, Oct. 21-26, 2018.
The next generation of phones, computers and wearable devices requires materials that can meet extraordinary demands. Engineers and physicists aim to meet these needs by developing new materials that can perform faster while using less energy. During the 65th AVS International Symposium and Exhibition, being held Oct. 21-26, researchers will discuss different techniques, from evaporating germanium to creating strategic voids, to improve the electrical performance of succeeding technologies.
Imagine a coating as hard as a diamond and a fraction the thickness of a human hair. Researchers are exploring new approaches to create resilient thin films that could be used in a variety of electronic applications from cutting tools to the aerospace industry. During the 65th AVS International Symposium and Exhibition, being held Oct. 21-26, Grzegorz Greczynski will present a new deposition method that improves the thermal and chemical stability of transition-metal nitride thin-film layers.
As the phones get slimmer, the optics crisper and the processors faster, have you ever wondered what is happening behind the scenes that make these remarkable achievements possible? During the AVS 65th International Symposium and Exhibition, Oct. 21-26, Svetlana Radovanov will discuss the research and development that ultimately are used to create the particle accelerators driving these technological advances.
Researchers are finding new ways to use artificial intelligence and nanotechnology to enhance treatments, from routine dental techniques to attacking cancerous tissue. At the AVS 65th International Symposium and Exhibition, Oct. 21-26, Dean Ho will present the results of two clinical trials that show how AI-enabled personalized medical treatment for a prostate cancer patient and nanotechnology improved recovery for patients after a root canal.
Hardware that mimics the neural circuitry of the brain requires building blocks that can adjust how they synapse. One such approach, called memristors, uses current resistance to store this information. New work looks to overcome reliability issues in these devices by scaling memristors to the atomic level. Researchers demonstrated a new type of compound synapse that can achieve synaptic weight programming and conduct vector-matrix multiplication with significant advances over the current state of the art. They discuss their work in this week’s Journal of Applied Physics.
Doctors use invasive procedures to decide whether an ablation procedure to remove heart tissue is likely to have a positive outcome. CT scans or ultrasounds are useful in determining the structure of a patient’s heart, but invasive electrical procedures are used to identify and localize the source of the atrial fibrillation. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara have developed new algorithms to localize the source of an atrial fibrillation. They report their findings in APL Bioengineering.
A group of researchers in Canada reports the construction of the first reservoir computing device built with a microelectromechanical system. Published in the Journal of Applied Physics, the neural network exploits the nonlinear dynamics of a microscale silicon beam to perform its calculations. The group’s work looks to create devices that can act simultaneously as a sensor and a computer using a fraction of the energy a normal computer would use.
To forge nanodiamonds, which have potential applications in medicine, optoelectronics and quantum computing, researchers expose organic explosive molecules to powerful detonations in a controlled environment. These explosive forces, however, make it difficult to study the nanodiamond formation process. To overcome this hurdle, researchers recently developed a procedure and a computer model that can simulate the highly variable conditions of explosions on phenomenally short time scales. They report their work in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
A new method enables researchers to directly observe and capture atomic motions at surfaces and interfaces in real time.
Researchers experimentally observed the ionization-induced channeling of an intense microwave beam propagating through a neutral gas (>103 Pa).
In the world of catalytic reactions, polymers created through electropolymerization are attracting renewed attention. A group of Chinese researchers recently provided the first detailed characterization of the electrochemical properties of polyaniline and polyaspartic acid (PASP) thin films. In AIP Advances, the team used a wide range of tests to characterize the polymers, especially their capacity for catalyzing the oxidation of popularly used materials, hydroquinone and catechol.
IBM researchers are developing a new computer architecture, better equipped to handle increased data loads from artificial intelligence. Their designs draw on concepts from the human brain and significantly outperform conventional computers in comparative studies. They report on their recent findings in the Journal of Applied Physics.
Silicon carbide has enjoyed renewed interest for its potential in quantum technology. Its ability to house optically excitable defects, called color centers, has made it a strong candidate material to become the building block of quantum computing. Now, researchers have created a list of “recipes” physicists can use to create specific types of defects with desired optical properties in SiC. The team reports their findings in Applied Physics Letters.
The Coriolis effect impacts global wind patterns and ocean currents and its magnitude, relative to the magnitude of inertial forces, is expressed by the Rossby number. For over 100 years, scientists have believed that the higher this number, the less likely Coriolis effect influences oceanic or atmospheric events. Recently, researchers found that even smaller ocean disturbances with high Rossby numbers, like vortices within submarine wakes, are influenced by the Coriolis effect. Their discovery challenges assumptions at the very foundation of theoretical oceanography and geophysical fluid dynamics. The team reports their findings in Physics of Fluids.
New work looks to understand how iron oxide nanoparticles age, and how aging may change their functional or safety profiles. By combining lab-based Mössbauer spectroscopy with “center of gravity” analysis, researchers can quantify the diffusive oxidation of magnetite into maghemite, and track the process. In Applied Physics Letters, the work is poised to help understand the aging mechanisms in nanomaterials, and how these effects change the way they interact with the human body.
Scientists at the University of Tokyo have recorded the largest magnetic field ever generated indoors -- a whopping 1,200 tesla, as measured in the standard units of magnetic field strength. The high magnetic field also has implications for nuclear fusion reactors, a tantalizing if unrealized potential future source of abundant clean energy. The experiments that set the new world record are described in this week’s Review of Scientific Instruments.
Printed electronics use standard printing techniques to manufacture electronic devices on different substrates like glass, plastic films, and paper. Interest in this area is growing because of the potential to create cheaper circuits more efficiently than conventional methods. A new study published in AIP Advances provides insights into the processing of copper nanoparticle ink with green laser light.
Scientists looking to hydrogen as a next-generation clean energy source are developing hydrogen-sensing technologies, the most common of which uses palladium-based thin films because palladium readily absorbs hydrogen gas. However, it also readily absorbs other gases, decreasing the overall efficiency of these sensors. Researchers conducted a systematic study of hydrogen detection using the Extraordinary Hall Effect to measure the hydrogen magnetization response in cobalt-palladium thin films, and reports in the Journal of Applied Physics.
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