Boomerang-like beams of light

Nov 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Researchers at the University of Warsaw's Faculty of Physics have superposed two light beams twisted in the clockwise direction to create anti-clockwise twists in the dark regions of the resultant superposition. The results of the research have been published in the journal Optica ("Azimuthal backflow...

Gold nanowire circuits enable smart wearables to monitor health signals and process information

Nov 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Wearable electronics that can monitor health and provide real-time feedback have long been envisioned as the future of personalized medicine. But most wearables today simply collect raw data to be processed later. Now, researchers have developed stretchable, multifunctional circuits made from gold nanowires that can...

For the first time, researchers observe the operating principle of so-called promoters in a catalytic reaction in real-time

Nov 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Catalysts are essential for numerous chemical technologies, ranging from exhaust gas purification to the production of valuable chemicals and energy carriers. Often, tiny traces of additional substances are used alongside catalysts to make them highly effective. These substances are referred to as "promoters." While playing...

What should replace the Turing test?

Nov 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) In a paper published in Intelligent Computing ("What Should Replace the Turing Test?"), Philip Nicholas Johnson-Laird of Princeton University and Marco Ragni of Chemnitz University of Technology propose a novel alternative to the Turing test, a milestone test developed by computing pioneer Alan Turing. The...

Bioengineered viruses enable quantum leaps in biopyroelectric sensing and energy harvesting

Nov 20, 2023 (Nanowerk Spotlight) For decades, researchers have sought to understand and harness the pyroelectric effect in biological materials. Pyroelectricity refers to the phenomenon where heating or cooling a material with a nonzero spontaneous electric polarization changes the polarization, generating a temporary voltage. Many biological substances like bone, tendon,...