Researchers from Canada, the U.K. and Germany have developed a new experimental technique to take 3-D images of molecules in action. This tool can help scientists better understand the quantum mechanics underlying bigger and more complex molecules. They describe their work in this week’s The Journal of Chemical Physics.
While bigger nanowires can improve light confinement and performance, it increases both energy consumption and device footprint -- both of which are considered “fatal” when it comes to integration. Addressing this problem, researchers came up with an approach that involves combining a sub-wavelength nanowire with a photonic crystal platform, which they report this week in the journal APL Photonics.
The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), a professional nonprofit organization supporting medical physicists, has released a statement calling on Congress to reverse President Trump’s proposed cuts to FY 2018 funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The “extraordinarily" steep cut of 18.3 percent, approximately $5.8 billion, would bring NIH’s budget back below 2003-level funding and would threaten the United States’ preeminence in the medical research arena, resulting in the loss of life-saving discoveries that otherwise would benefit Americans, according to the statement.
High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a breakthrough therapeutic technique used to treat tumors. The principle of this noninvasive, targeted treatment is much like that of focusing sunlight through a lens, using an ultrasonic transducer like a convex lens to concentrate ultrasound into a small focal region. In this week’s Journal of Applied Physics, researchers have now designed a transducer for potential application in HIFU that can generate a steady, standing-wave field with a subwavelength-scale focal region and extremely high ultrasound intensity.
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) and the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) are both accepting submissions for their respective 2017 science writing awards. The deadline for entries for each award is March 31, 2017.
When tilling soil, the blade of the tool cuts through dirt, loosening it in preparation for seeding. The dirt granules are pushed aside in a way that looks random -- but might not be. Now, researchers have found a way to distinguish whether such a process is truly random, or is actually deterministic -- which can lead to deeper understanding and the ability to control the process. They describe the analysis in the journal Chaos.
The 2016 election year highlighted the growing problem of wealth inequality and finding ways to help the people who are falling behind. This human urge of compassion isn’t new, but the big question that remains to be addressed is why inequality is so difficult to erase. This inspired Adrian Bejan at Duke University, who in 1996 discovered the Constructal Law, to provide an answer.
Proton therapy is a promising form of radiation treatment used to kill cancerous cells and effectively halt their rapid reproduction, and the fundamental understanding for it is contained in the radiation induced water chemistry that occurs immediately after the interaction. The ensuing processes are therefore a subject of considerable scientific interest. Researchers describe their work exploring this ionization with an experimental setup, with enhanced temporal resolution, in this week’s Applied Physics Letters.
While the ability to easily control the magnetic properties of small electronic systems is highly desirable for future small electronics and data storage, an effective solution has proven to be extremely elusive. But now, a group of researchers from universities in Chile and Brazil are reporting this week in the Journal of Applied Physics, a simple way to gain control of magnetism that starts by controlling the shape of the systems.
Polystyrene has a glass transition temperature of about 100 C -- at room temperature it behaves like a solid material. But as its temperature approaches the glass transition temperature, polystyrene’s mechanical properties change drastically. This makes the ability to approximate glass transitions for confined geometries in polymers highly desirable. And now, as researchers report in this week's issue of The Journal of Chemical Physics, they’ve developed a simple formula to do just that.
In just a few years, researchers have achieved remarkable power conversion efficiency with materials with perovskite crystal structure, comparable with the best photovoltaic materials available. Now, researchers have revealed the physics for how an important component of a perovskite solar cell works -- a finding that could lead to improved solar cells or even newer and better materials. They describe their experiments in this week's issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters.
Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) have played a central role in spintronic devices, and researchers are working to improve their performance. A prominent achievement that accelerated the technology's practical applications was the realization of giant tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratios by using rock-salt type MgO crystalline barrier. In this week's Applied Physics Letters, researchers have succeeded in applying MgGa2O4 to a tunnel barrier, the core part of an MTJ, as an alternative material to more conventional insulators.
With fracking, scientists have calculated the expected level of capillary rise with the Lucas-Washburn equation, a mathematical model whose earliest parameters were first devised nearly a century ago. The challenge, however, is that that the equation has not been completely accurate in predicting the actual rise observed in nano-capillary laboratory experiments. Researchers studying this deviation describe their findings this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
Researchers in Jülich, Germany have adapted an instrument used for High Resolution Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (HREELS) with new components so that the phonon dispersion of a given material can be measured in a matter of minutes. They describe their device this week in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments.
Researchers in Italy hope to measure Earth’s rotation using a laser-based gyroscope housed deep underground, with enough experimental precision to reveal measurable effects of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. The ring laser gyroscope technology enabling these Earth-based measurements provide, unlike those made by referencing celestial objects, inertial rotation information, revealing fluctuations in the rotation rate from the grounded reference frame. The group discusses their work in this week’s Review of Scientific Instruments.
A team of researchers at the University of Barcelona have demonstrated a new bonding technique for surface mounted devices that uses an inkjet printer with ink that incorporates silver nanoparticles. The technique, described this week in the Journal of Applied Physics, was developed in response to the industrial necessity for a fast, reliable and simple manufacturing process, and with an eye to reducing the environmental impact of the standard fabrication processes.
Researchers in Japan noticed that acetone droplets not mixing with the water, because of their own form of the Leidenfrost effect, more commonly observed in water droplets on solid hot surfaces. They studied the fluid dynamics of this interaction, and of the self-propulsion common to the Leidenfrost effect (which has its own name, Marangoni effect) to learn more about the underlying mechanics. Their surprising results appear this week in the journal Physics of Fluids.
An international collaboration of computational physicists and chemists have shed new light on how the polymer structure bears on the glass-transition temperature in the forming of glass in atactic polystyrene (PS), a commonly used glass substance. Their work is reported this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
Almost all information that exists in contemporary society is recorded in magnetic media, like hard drive disks. Researchers are studying the motion of vortex domain walls -- local regions of charge that collectively store information via their configuration -- driven by magnetic fields in ferromagnetic nanowires, which are configured in a straight line with an asymmetric Y-like branch. They discuss their work in this week’s Journal of Applied Physics.
Carbonate, bicarbonate, and carbonic acid emerge when atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in the oceans, which is the largest sink for this greenhouse gas. Researchers are interested in better understanding the carbonate system to potentially help facilitate carbon sequestration schemes, to help mitigate climate change. Recently, researchers made breakthrough discoveries about the carbonate species’ behavior at saltwater surfaces, like that of the ocean. They report their findings this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
As transistor dimensions within integrated circuits continue to shrink, smooth metallic lines are required to interconnect these devices. If the surfaces of these tiny metal lines aren’t smooth enough, it substantially reduces their ability to conduct electrical and thermal energy -- decreasing functionality. Engineers report an advance this week in Applied Physics Letters, in modeling results that establish electrical surface treatment of conducting thin films as a physical processing method for reducing surface roughness.
“The laws of life,” a feature article in the March issue of Physics Today, available at http://physicstoday.scitation.org/journal/pto, is a stimulating exploration of how fundamental and universal principles of physics shape life and its success. In addition, an extraordinary tribute to the life of Mildred "Millie" Dresselhaus -- the renowned MIT physicist celebrated for her discoveries of the physics and chemistry of carbon -- appears on the magazine’s website.
Despite its omnipresence, water has many physical properties that are still not completely understood by the scientific community. One of the most puzzling relates to the activity of water molecules after they undergo a process called “supercooling.” Now, new findings from Roma Tre University, in Rome, Italy, on the interactions of water molecules under these exotic conditions appear this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
Often grouped in wind farms, horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs) provide significant amounts of energy for local communities, but they can take up a lot of space. If placed too close together, one HAWT can make a neighboring HAWT output much less power. To address this, researchers are looking at vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs), which could be either arranged in groups or interspersed within HAWT arrays. They report their work this week in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.
Limitations of the piezoelectric array technologies conventionally used for ultrasonics inspired a group of University College London researchers to explore an alternative mechanism for generating ultrasound via light, also known as the photoacoustic effect. Coupling this with 3-D printing, the group was able to generate sounds fields with specific shapes for potential use in biological cell manipulation and drug delivery. As the group reports in this week’s Applied Physics Letters, their work focuses on using the photoacoustic effect to control ultrasound fields in 3-D.
Display manufacturers can account for a certain level of relaxation in the glass, referring to the intermolecular rearrangement, if it’s known and reproducible. But fluctuations in this relaxation behavior tend to introduce uncertainty into the manufacturing process, possibly leading to misalignment of pixels within displays. Now, researchers reports on a new modeling technique to quantify and predict glass relaxation fluctuations, important for next-generation displays.
A group of researchers from the Czech Republic were intrigued that living organisms emit small amounts of light resulting during oxidative metabolism, when oxygen is used to create energy by breaking down carbohydrates. The researchers began to think about how detecting this light could have potential for biomedical diagnostics. At the Biophysical Society’s meeting, Feb. 11-15, 2017, Michal Cifra will present the group’s work within this realm.
Allura Red, a synthetic food and pharmaceutical color widely used within the U.S., boasts special properties that may make it and other food dyes appropriate as sensors or edible probes to monitor foods and pharmaceuticals. A team of researchers -- from Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Massachusetts -- recently made this discovery during an extension of their work identifying and characterizing molecules in foods or food ingredients that might provide signals of food quality, stability or safety.
In an effort to one day eliminate the need for an annual flu shot, a group of researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are exploring the surface of influenza viruses, which are covered by a protein called “hemagglutinin” (HA). This particular protein is used like a key by viruses to open cells and infect them, making it an ideal target for efforts to help the body's immune system fight off a wide range of influenza strains.
Climate change will bring worsening droughts that threaten crops. One potential way to protect crops is by spraying them with a compound that induces the plants to become more drought resistant. Now, by identifying the key molecular mechanism that enables a plant to minimize water loss, researchers may be one step closer to that goal.
Calcium in the mitochondria -- the energy factory of cells -- may be one of the keys to understanding and treating Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Researchers at Temple University have now identified how an imbalance of calcium ions in the mitochondria may contribute to cell death and, specifically, neurodegeneration in brain cells during Alzheimer's and dementia. The findings could eventually point to new therapies for preventing or delaying these diseases. The team will present its work during the 61st Meeting of the Biophysical Society.
Life can thrive in some of the most extreme environments on the planet. Microbes flourish inside hot geothermal vents, beneath the frigid ice covering Antarctica and under immense pressures at the bottom of the ocean. For these organisms to survive and function, so must the enzymes that enable them to live and grow. Now, researchers from Georgetown University have homed in on what allows particular enzymes to function under extreme pressures. The team will present its work during the Biophysical Society meeting held Feb. 11-15, 2017.
Currently, the predominant theory behind Alzheimer’s disease is the “amyloid hypothesis,” which states that abnormally increased levels of amyloid beta (Aβ) peptides outside of brain cells produce a variety of low molecular weight Aβ aggregates that are toxic to the nervous system. These Aβ aggregates interact directly with target cells and lead to cell death. During the Biophysical Society’s meeting, being held Feb. 11-15, 2017, Antonio De Maio will present his work hunting for the specific mechanisms behind Aβ-induced toxicity to cells, or cytoxicity.
The 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded the for discoveries of mechanisms of autophagy, a cellular process much like recycling, where new cellular components are generated from old and damaged ones. Though a relatively simple process conceptually, autophagy plays an important role in many physiological processes and genes essential to the process could be a key component for treating diseases. Now, researchers have reported the first bacterial creation and functional analysis of a protein essential to initiate autophagy: a human homologous gene of Beclin-1. The researchers will present their findings during the Biophysical Society meeting, Feb. 11-15, 2017.
There are several important gases that are detectable with mid-infrared light, having wavelengths between 3-4 micrometers. Application-grade Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), however, aren’t yet available for this wavelength range, but the increasing need for compact, portable and affordable gas sensors is spurring demand for energy-efficient semiconductor sources of mid-IR light. Addressing this demand, a group of researchers set out to develop a concept to extend the wavelength coverage of VCSELs into this important regime.
For use in quantum sensing, the bulk nanodiamond crystal surrounding the point defect must be highly perfect. Any deviation from perfection will adversely affect the quantum behavior of the material. Highly perfect nanodiamonds are also quite expensive and difficult to make. A cheaper alternative, say researchers, is to take defect-ridden, low-quality, commercially manufactured diamonds, and then “heal” them. In APL Materials, they describe a method to heal diamond nanocrystals under high-temperature conditions.
One big challenge targeted drug delivery faces today is efficiently “loading” a drug into a carrier without compromising the carrier’s structural integrity. A promising method is to deform a carrier by squeezing it through a narrow, microscale constriction. This mechanical deformation creates transient pores in the carrier membrane to enhance the membrane’s permeability to macromolecules and promote the efficient uptake of drugs. During the Society of Rheology meeting, being held Feb. 12-16, Joseph Barakat will present his work to develop a model for vesicle squeezing that can be used to predict and optimize drug loading procedures.
While several circulatory system models are used today in an attempt to better understand blood flow, they still don’t account for the complex rheological behavior of blood. Because blood is a complex suspension of red and white blood cells and platelets suspended within a plasma that contains various proteins, it can exhibit complex flow behavior. Many of the models currently used ignore these complexities and assume a Newtonian behavior or a constant thickness. During a Society of Rheology meeting, being held Feb. 12-16, Jeffrey S. Horner will present a new approach.
Nicotine -- the primary compound found within tobacco smoke -- is known to change the grouping of some subtypes of nicotine receptors, but the mechanisms for nicotine addiction remain unclear. This inspired a group of University of Kentucky researchers to explore the role nicotine plays in the assembly of nicotine receptors within the brain. During the Biophysical Society meeting, Feb. 11-15, 2017, Faruk Moonschi will present the group’s work, which centers on a fluorescence-based “single molecule” technique they developed.
Symptoms of dry eye syndrome -- dry, red, itchy, gritty, sore eyes -- are more common among contact lens wearers. But relief may be on the horizon, thanks to a group of Stanford University researchers and their work exploring the mechanical interactions between the eye surface, the cornea and contact lenses. Ultimately, the group’s goal is to create better contact lenses that maximize comfort and alleviate dry eye symptoms, and their work will be presented at the Society of Rheology meeting being held Feb. 12-16, in Tampa, Florida.
Hagfish are marine fish shaped like eels, famous for releasing large quantities of “slime” that unfolds, assembles and expands into the surrounding water in response to a threat. Gaurav Chaudhary, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will present his work on hagfish slime during the 88th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology, being held Feb. 12-16, in Tampa, Florida. The research explores the hagfish’s slime formation and the special properties allowing it to assemble into a solid gel without dissolving into the surrounding water.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a largely silent epidemic that affects roughly two million people each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the scale at which blast TBI (bTBI) injuries -- in the spotlight as the signature wound of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- occur and manifest is unknown. Recent studies within this realm suggest that rapid cavitation bubble collapse may be a potential mechanism for studying bTBI, and during the Biophysical Society’s meeting, Feb. 11-15, 2017, Jonathan Estrada will present his work exploring the mechanics of cavitation-induced injury -- with a goal of better understanding bTBIs.
Researchers in Singapore and China have collaborated to develop a self-powered photodetector that can be used in a wide range of applications such as chemical analysis, communications, astronomical investigations and much more.
A research team of physicists from Harvard University has developed new hand-held spectrometers capable of the same performance as large, benchtop instruments. The researchers’ innovation, explained this week in APL Photonics, derives from their groundbreaking work in meta-lenses. The hand-held spectrometers offer real promise for applications ranging from health care diagnostics to environmental and food monitoring.
Many forms of energy surround you: sunlight, the heat in your room and even your own movements. All that energy -- normally wasted -- can potentially help power your portable and wearable gadgets, from biometric sensors to smart watches. Now, researchers from the University of Oulu in Finland have found that a mineral with the perovskite crystal structure has the right properties to extract energy from multiple sources at the same time.
Superconductivity is one of modern physics’ most intriguing scientific discoveries. However, practical exploitation of superconductivity also presents many challenges. The challenges are perhaps greatest for researchers trying to integrate superconductivity in small, portable systems. Researchers demonstrate this week in Applied Physics Letters, that a portable superconducting magnetic system, which is, in essence, a high performance substitute for a conventional permanent magnet, can attain a 3-tesla level for the magnetic field.
A light-sensing protein from a salt-loving, sulfur-forming microbe has proved key to developing methods essential to advanced drug discovery, understanding human vision and other biomedical applications. In a review published this week in Structural Dynamics, by AIP Publishing, physicist Marius Schmidt of the University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee presents a history of decades of research of this microbe and the many new technologies that have enabled these applications.
Spider silk offers new inspiration for developments in artificial muscle technology thanks to research from a collaboration of scientists in China and the U.S., the results of which are published today in Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing.
As interest and demand for nanotechnology continues to rise, so will the need for nanoscale printing and spraying, which relies on depositing tiny drops of liquid onto a surface. Now researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing have developed a new theory that describes how such a nanosized droplet deforms and breaks up when it strikes a surface.
For years, B. Ubbo Felderhof, RWTH Aachen University, has explored the mechanisms fish and microorganisms rely on to propel themselves. He has created mechanical models to support the theory behind the “swimming” of microorganisms, consisting of linear chains of spheres connected by springs and immersed in fluid, and he’s just pushed this work even further by addressing what happens when adding one sphere to the chain that’s much larger than the others.
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