Jan 11, 2023 (Nanowerk News) By their own admission, Anastasios “Andy” Tzanidakis and James Davenport are interested in unusual stars. The University of Washington astronomers were on the lookout for “stars behaving strangely” when an automated alert from the Gaia survey pointed them to Gaia17bpp. Survey data indicated that this...
Astronomers find the most distant stars in our galaxy halfway to Andromeda
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Astronomers have discovered more than 200 distant variable stars known as RR Lyrae stars in the Milky Way’s stellar halo. The most distant of these stars is more than a million light years from Earth, almost half the distance to our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, which...
Humidity may be the key to super-lubricity ‘switch’
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Sometimes friction is good, such the friction between a road and a car’s tires to prevent the vehicle from skidding. But sometimes friction is bad – if you did not put oil in that very same car, there would be so much friction in the...
The thermodynamics of quantum computing
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) In research on quantum computers, one aspect that has been mostly neglected until now is the generation of heat. Physicists from Konstanz, Grenoble and Helsinki now focus their attention on heat as an interference factor – and have developed a method to experimentally measure the...
A new antimicrobial cotton textile with copper ions in nanofibers
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Cotton textiles are ubiquitous in daily life, and they are also one of the primary mediums for transmitting viruses and bacteria. Conventional approaches to fabricating antiviral and antibacterial textiles generally load the functional additives onto the surface of the fabric and/or their microfibers. However, such...
New nanotransporter for drug delivery inside cells
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) A new study by the University of Barcelona has analyzed the viability of a new nanomolecule as drug delivery vehicle. The results, published in the journal Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces ("On the uptake of cationic liposomes by cells: From changes in elasticity to internalization"),...
Nanopore-based sensing device explores neurodegenerative diseases
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Tau and tubulin proteins are one of the leading causes of many neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Most of neurodegenerative disease progression is related to the aggregation of these proteins in the brain. Inspired by one of her doctoral students who wanted to...
The optical fibre that keeps data safe even after being twisted or bent
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Optical fibres are the backbone of our modern information networks. From long-range communication over the internet to high-speed information transfer within data centres and stock exchanges, optical fibre remains critical in our globalised world. Fibre networks are not, however, structurally perfect, and information transfer can...
Milestone for light-driven electronics
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) An international team of scientists collaborating within the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat has achieved a breakthrough in quantum research – the first detection of excitons (electrically neutral quasiparticles) in a topological insulator. This discovery paves the way for a new generation of light-driven computer...
Astronomers spotted unusual stellar explosion rich in oxygen and magnesium
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) A study led from the University of Turku, Finland, discovered a supernova explosion that expands our understanding of the later life stages of massive stars (Astrophysical Journal Letters, "Late-time H/He-poor Circumstellar Interaction in the Type Ic Supernova SN 2021ocs: An Exposed Oxygen–Magnesium Layer and Extreme...