A team of researchers from India have created a model to explain how liquid diffuses through paper which has applications in medical testing and perfume manufacturing
A collaborative effort between research groups at the Technical University of Freiberg and the University of Siegen in Germany demonstrates that the physical properties of SrTiO3, or strontium titanate, in its single crystal form can be changed by a relatively simple electrical treatment.
Fluorescence is an incredibly useful tool for experimental biology and it just got easier to tap into, thanks to the work of a group of University of Chicago researchers.
Nucleation processes are a first step in the structural rearrangement involved in the phase transition of matter: a liquid morphing into a gas, a gas becoming a liquid and so on. Understanding this process is critical for preventing, halting or treating cases of nucleation processes gone wrong -- such as in human disease. Now, a team of researchers have made headway toward understanding this problem from a molecular point of view in a new study, which they discuss in this week’s The Journal of Chemical Physics.
Excessive vibrations – excessive to the point of injury – have been prominent in the news recently, but researchers have developed an algorithm that could help machines avoid getting trapped in resonant motion. Using a combination of computer simulations and experiments, they found that by carefully increasing and decreasing the speed of a rotor, they could nudge it past its resonant frequency. The rotor doesn't get stuck in resonance like the faulty washing machine. The researchers describe their work in this week’s Chaos.
The quest to develop a wireless micro-robot for biomedical applications requires a small-scale “motor” that can be wirelessly powered through biological media. While magnetic fields can be used to power small robots wirelessly, they do not provide selectivity since all actuators (the components controlling motion) under the same magnetic field just follow the same motion. To address this intrinsic limitation of magnetic actuation, a team of German researchers has developed a way to use microbubbles to provide the specificity needed to power micro-robots for biomedical applications.
A big challenge in cognitive or rehabilitation neurosciences is the ability to design a functional hybrid system that can connect and exchange information between biological systems, like neurons in the brain, and human-made electronic devices. A large effort of researchers in Italy brought together scientists across disciplines to analyze the biocompatibility of the substrate used to connect these biological and human-made components, and investigate the functionality of the adhering cells, creating a living biohybrid system.
In 2014, the 74,763 new energy vehicles sold accounted for only 0.3 percent of total automobile sales in China that year. So a group of researchers set out to find out what motivates or influences consumer to purchase electric vehicles within seven cities in China. They report their findings this week in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.
Order and disorder might seem dichotomous conditions of a functioning system, yet both states can, in fact, exist simultaneously and durably within a system of oscillators, in what’s called a chimera state. Taking its name from a composite creature in Greek mythology, this exotic state still holds a lot of mystery, but its fundamental nature offers potential in understanding governing dynamics across many scientific fields. Researchers discuss this work in the journal Chaos this week.
A team of Italian scientists have built on previous work in this field using pectin with a high degree of methylation as the medium to create a new architecture of hybrid device with a double-layered polyelectrolyte that alone drives memristive behavior. They discuss their work in this week’s AIP Advances.
Researchers have shed new light on the heterogeneous nature of a polar organic liquid mixed with water. They used laser light as a tool that allowed them to demonstrate the existence of stable nanodroplets of tetrahydrofuran in the bulk of aqueous electrolyte solutions and to develop a new theory that explains the spontaneous generation of heterogeneous nanoparticles in aqueous solutions of polar organic solutes in terms of nanodroplet formation due to “twinkling” hydrogen bonds.
Carbon, silicon, germanium, tin and lead are all part of a family that share the same structure of their outermost electrons, yet range from acting as insulators to semiconductors to metals. Is it possible to understand these and other trends within element families? In this week’s The Journal of Chemical Physics, researchers describe probing the relationship between the structure (arrangement of atoms) and function (physical properties) of a liquid metal form of the element bismuth.
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a complex condition that requires a lifetime of care and increases a person's cancer risk. But its origins are still a mystery. Now, a team of researchers have created a new culture model of the human intestine where living tissue from a patient biopsy can be preserved and studied for days. They describe their work in this week’s Biomicrofluidics.
In the cover article appearing this week in Applied Physics Letters, researchers at Louisiana State University discuss how they have developed a new fiber that offers higher tensile stroke and is triggered -- or actuated -- at temperatures more than 100 degrees Celsius cooler than its predecessors.
AIP Publishing has announced that Gregory Howes, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa, is the winner of the inaugural 2016 Ronald C. Davidson Award for Plasma Physics. The award will be presented annually in collaboration with the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Plasma Physics, recognizing outstanding plasma physics research by a Physics of Plasmas author.
Researchers have 3-D printed a new kind of device that can harness high-pressure ultrasound to move, manipulate, or destroy tiny objects like particles, drops or biological tissue at scales comparable with cells. By providing unprecedented control of photoacoustic waves, such a device can be helpful for performing precise surgery, analyzing the properties of materials, and for scientific research in the lab. They discuss their work in this week’s Applied Physics Letters.
Wearable “robot-assisted training” is quickly emerging as a method that helps improve gait rehabilitation. In a major advance, researchers from Beihang University in China and Aalborg University in Denmark have designed a lower-limb robot exoskeleton -- a wearable robot -- that features natural knee movement to greatly improve patients’ comfort and willingness to wear it for gait rehab. They describe their work in this week’s Review of Scientific Instruments.
By combining a number of tools and techniques, a team of researchers from the U.S., Italy and China was able to find a more complete picture of the glass transition phenomenon in polymers and to point out where the polymers differ from small molecular liquids. The researchers explain their findings this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
Astronauts frequently encounter huge droplets in space, and Scott Kelly recently demonstrated their unusual behavior aboard the International Space Station (ISS) via water balls and a hydrophobic (water repellant) ping pong paddle. To explore the dynamics of these gigantic droplets, a group of researchers led by Mark Weislogel, a professor within the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering at Portland State University in Oregon, is generating and studying them right here on Earth.
Intrigued by the floating mechanisms of water striders and the updated Archimedes’ principle, which states that floating force equals the expelled liquid volume, researchers in China sought to discover how the pressed depth and supporting force of water surface acted upon a water strider’s six legs. Now, they report this week in Applied Physics Letters that they have developed a “shadow method” based on the refraction of light to make these measurements.
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) and the American Physical Society (APS) announced today, on behalf of the Heineman Foundation for Research, Educational, Charitable, and Scientific Purposes, that Carl M. Bender of Washington University in St. Louis is the recipient of the 2017 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, which is awarded annually to honor significant contributions to the field.
A team of Shanghai Jiao Tong University researchers has used the shape of cicada wings as a template to create antireflective structures fabricated with one of the most intriguing semiconductor materials, titanium dioxide (TiO2). The antireflective structures they produced are capable of suppressing visible light -- 450 to 750 nanometers -- at different angles of incidence. The team discusses their work in this week's Applied Physics Letters.
James Clerk Maxwell conducted some of the first documented studies of free-falling objects during the mid-1800s, when the physicist analyzed the tumbling motion of a freely falling plate. But much remains unknown about the phenomena. Maxwell's work inspired a team of researchers in China to conduct a numerical study to explore the patterns made by 2-D rectangular plates falling freely within water. They report their findings this week in Physics of Fluids.
An international team of researchers, led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has advanced their work with synchronizing a remote optical clock with a master clock by exploring what happens to time signals that need to travel through 12 kilometers (km) of turbulent air. As the team reports this week in Applied Physics Letters, they were able to demonstrate real-time, femtosecond-level clock synchronization across a low-lying, strongly turbulent, 12-km horizontal air path by optical two-way time transfer.
The American Institute of Physics announced today the winners of its 2016 Science Writing Awards for Books, Articles, Writing for Children, and Broadcast and New Media. - Chris Woodford for Atoms Under the Floorboards (Bloomsbury Sigma) - Ron Cowen for “The quantum source of space-time" (Nature) - David Macaulay for How Machines Work: Zoo Break!, (Dorling Kindersley Limited); and - Jennifer Lauren Lee for “How to Build Your NIST D.I.Y. Watt Balance,” by the NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory.
Many peptides and proteins have an innate ability to assemble into long, slender fibers called fibrils and other shapes. Now researchers have found a way to harness this property to create tubular structures of diphenylalanine that have the ability to convert thermal energy into electrical energy, also called a pyroelectric effect. Their results, published this week in Applied Physics Letters, report that these nanoscale polymers, which are biocompatible, could have a wide range of biological applications such as for drug delivery scaffolds or miniature implantable sensors.
Researchers in Japan have used a new Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulator to understand how magnetic reconnection works for the tenuous plasma surrounding our Earth and have identified new classes of electron orbits that help scientists understand the characteristics of the fast jets of electrons that stream from the reconnection region. The researchers explain their results this week in Physics of Plasmas.
Beneath the surface of rivers and streams, aquatic plants sway with the current, playing an unseen but vital role in the life of the waterway. Through a new series of experiments that model these underwater undulations, researchers have measured how the current bends simulated plants and the drag forces exerted on them. The analysis is important for better management and understanding of these aquatic systems, and potentially even for energy-harvesting devices. The researchers report their work in this week's Physics of Fluids.
Intriguing calculations from a research team at the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS), and reported this week in Physics of Plasmas, explain the production and dynamics of electrons and positrons from ultrahigh-intensity laser-matter interactions. In other words: They’ve calculated how to create matter and antimatter via lasers.
Using laser light, a team of scientists in Japan have developed a precise, continuous control technology giving 60 times more success than previous efforts in sustaining the lifetime of “qubits,” the unit that quantum computers encode. In particular, the researchers have shown that they can continue to create a quantum behavior known as the entangled state -- entangling more than one million different physical systems, a world record that was only limited in their investigation by data storage space.
Besides providing substantive information about the atmospheres of other planets, cosmic dust particles can impact radio communications, climate and even serve as fertilizer for phytoplankton in the oceans. A team of researchers has developed a new experimental Meteoric Ablation Simulator (MASI) that can help answer questions about cosmic dust and how it impacts Earth and everything on it.
A group of researchers at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas has built a much smaller ring laser interferometer to explore how it could detect geophysical effects such as earthquake-generated ground rotation and infrasound from convective storms and have demonstrated the technology's potential as an early-warning system for natural disasters.
When it comes to low-frequency sound waves, traditional sound-absorbing materials tend to be undesirably bulky, heavy or thick. This challenge inspired researchers at the French National Center for Scientific Research to design subwavelength absorbers specifically for low-frequency sound waves. As they report in Applied Physics Letters, recent physical advances showed that the speed of sound can be strongly reduced in a structured medium, while increasing the material's ability to attenuate or reduce the sound.
Understanding the many forces that affect product placement, price and competition in the local and global marketplace is a significant challenge. A team of Italian researchers have tackled the subject using a multidisciplinary approach that combines dynamical systems theory with economic findings to provide new economic insights that can be applied in real market conditions in this week’s Chaos, from AIP Publishing.
Clinking your glass of beer often leaves its contents sloshing back and forth. Soon, though, the motion stops, your drink settles, and you can sip without getting foam on your nose. The foam helps stop the sloshing, and now, physicists have figured out why. The analysis, published in Physics of Fluids, reveals a surprising effect on the surface of the water that contradicts conventional thought and deepens our understanding of the role of capillary forces.
By leveraging molecular beam epitaxy deposition and high-quality materials with large dielectric constants, University of California, Santa Barbara researchers pursue future radio-frequency materials and devices capable of being “tuned” to adapt to changing environments.
Scientists at Iowa State University have developed a new formulation that helps to explain the self-assembly of atoms into nanoclusters and to advance the scientific understanding of related nanotechnologies. Their research offers a theoretical framework to explain the relationship between the distribution of “capture zones,” the regions that surround the nanoscale “islands” formed by deposition on surfaces, and the underlying nucleation or formation process.
When a river narrows or two rivers run into each other and merge, the water flow’s speed increases and it becomes much stronger. Water flow and light flow are similar in many ways, and this inspired a group of researchers to explore whether light flow within a waveguide -- a linear structure that transports electromagnetic waves between endpoints -- behaves in the same manner.
Large quantities of fish are consumed in India on a daily basis, which generates a huge amount of fish “biowaste” materials. In an attempt to do something positive with this biowaste, a team of researchers at Jadavpur University in Koltata, India explored recycling the fish byproducts into an energy harvester for self-powered electronics.
A recent discovery in the study of landslides, using annular shear cell measurements of granular flows, confirms that two flow regimes – an “elastic régime” and an “inertial régime” exist. The researchers discuss their findings in this week’s Physics of Fluids.
Though cumbersome, the flat plate impact is the only way to precisely recreate the conditions inside a detonating explosive -- and now researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have recreated this in miniature on a tabletop. In the process, they have made important new contributions to the field of energetic materials by precisely recreating conditions inside a bomb and achieving new levels of accuracy in measuring them.
Patterns abound in nature, from zebra stripes and leopard spots to honeycombs and bands of clouds. Somehow, these patterns form and organize all by themselves. To better understand how, researchers have now created a new device that may allow scientists to study patterns in 3-D like never before.
A team of researchers at the Xian University of Technology in China and the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom have demonstrated that chaos can be used to transmit information over a wireless physical channel offering wide-ranging advantages from enhanced communications security. The researchers explain their findings this week in Chaos.
A research team at New York University (NYU) and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) collaborated on merging the domains of heath policy with network science and dynamical systems to help understand the mechanisms of policy diffusion in the same way we understand the diffusion of one substance into another. Their findings are discussed in Chaos.
New research from a fluid mechanics team in Greece reveals how blood flow dynamics within blood vessels may influence where plaques develop or rupture this week in Physics of Fluids. The findings could one day help doctors identify weak spots on a vessel wall that are likeliest to fail, and lead to early interventions in treating heart disease.
A group of Texas Tech University researchers led by Professors Hongxing Jiang and Jingyu Lin report this week in Applied Physics Letters that they have developed an alternative material -- hexagonal boron nitride semiconductors -- for neutron detection. This material fulfills many key requirements for helium gas detector replacements and can serve as a low-cost alternative in the future.
Controlling bubbles is a difficult process and one that many of us experienced in a simplistic form as young children wielding a bubble wand, trying to create bigger bubbles without popping them. A research team in CINaM-CNRS Aix-Marseille Université in France has turned child’s play into serious business.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a technique that allows researchers to analyze surfaces at the atomic scale, and it’s based on a surprisingly simple concept: A sharp tip on a cantilever “senses” the topography of samples. Now, a group of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology researchers report, in this week’s Applied Physics Letters, that they have developed a method to tailor tips for specific applications via 3-D direct laser writing based on two-photon polymerization.
Concrete is everywhere -- a ubiquity owed to its strength as a building material. Despite its strength, however, it has a pernicious but inescapable tendency to “creep,” or deform progressively under mechanical stress, which leads to crumbling bridges and cracked roads. Despite the obvious relevance this holds for the safety of infrastructure, however, the physical origin of the mechanism has remained poorly understood, and even scientifically contested.
Invisibility cloaks have less to do with magic than with metamaterials. These human-engineered materials have properties that don’t occur in nature, allowing them to bend and manipulate light in weird ways. For example, some of these materials can channel light around an object so that it appears invisible at a certain wavelength. Now researchers have designed a new kind of metamaterial whose properties can be changed with a flick of a switch.
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