May 23, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Nearly half of Sun-size stars are binary. According to University of Copenhagen research, planetary systems around binary stars may be very different from those around single stars. This points to new targets in the search for extraterrestrial life forms. Since the only known planet with...
Microparticles with feeling
May 23, 2022 (Nanowerk News) The surface of a coral is rugged. Its hard skeleton is populated by polyps that stretch their tentacles into the surrounding water to filter out food. But how exactly does the water flow over the coral surface, what eddies and flows develop, and what does...
One step closer to making terahertz technology usable in the real world
May 23, 2022 (Nanowerk News) A team of scientists at the Cavendish Laboratory together with colleagues at the Universities of Augsburg (Germany) and Lancaster has found a new physical effect when two-dimensional electron systems are exposed to terahertz waves. First of all, what are terahertz waves? “We communicate using mobile...
Novel DNA robots designed for swarming into nonlinear amplification
May 23, 2022 (Nanowerk News) A research team led by Prof. YANG Liangbao from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has recently proposed two conceptual models of smart DNA robots that can swarm into leakless nonlinear amplification when triggered. Results were published in...
Long-hypothesized ‘next generation wonder material’ created for first time
May 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) For over a decade, scientists have attempted to synthesize a new form of carbon called graphyne with limited success. That endeavor is now at an end, though, thanks to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder. Graphyne has long been of interest to scientists...
Researchers unveil a secret of stronger metals
May 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Forming metal into the shapes needed for various purposes can be done in many ways, including casting, machining, rolling, and forging. These processes affect the sizes and shapes of the tiny crystalline grains that make up the bulk metal, whether it be steel, aluminum or...
Unraveling a perplexing explosive process that occurs throughout the universe
May 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Mysterious fast radio bursts release as much energy in one second as the Sun pours out in a year and are among the most puzzling phenomena in the universe. Now researchers at Princeton University, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL)...
Researchers demonstrate organic crystals can serve as energy converters for emerging technologies
May 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) New research by a team of researchers at the NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Smart Materials Lab published in the journal Nature Communications ("Exceptionally High Work Density of a Ferroelectric Dynamic Organic Crystal around Room Temperature") demonstrates that organic crystals, a new class of smart engineering...
Mixing laser- and x-ray-beams
May 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Unlike fictional laser swords, real laser beams do not interact with each other when they cross – unless the beams meet within a suitable material allowing for nonlinear light-matter interaction. In such a case, wave mixing can give rise to beams with changed colors and...
Bacterial enzyme produces biodegradable polymer
May 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Researchers discovered a bacterial enzyme, structurally characterized at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), that synthesizes a biopolymer whose repeating units are linked together in a way that had not been previously observed (ACS Central Science, "A Synthetic Gene Library Yields a Previously Unknown Glycoside Phosphorylase...