Category Archives: Technology
Excited-state aromaticity

We usually take for granted that aromaticity is something that belongs to the ground state of a molecule; but the fact is that nothing forbids aromaticity appearing in an excited state. In the same way that molecular properties are largely […]
Cardiac glycosides are a novel family of senolytic compounds

Authors: Pilar Picallos-Rabina and Manuel Collado are researchers at the Laboratory of Stem Cells in Cancer and Aging, Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS), Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Wouldn´t it be great to have a drug that could […]
Direct observation of dynamic tube dilation in entangled polymer blends

One of the unique features of the chemistry of carbon (and, to some extent, silicon) is its ability to form long chains of atoms. Polymers are substances that have macromolecules composed of many repeating units (known as ‘mers’). Many naturally […]
The attosecond dynamics underlying the photoelectric effect

In 1882, Heinrich Hertz devoted himself to the study of electromagnetism, including the recent and still generally unappreciated work of Maxwell. Two years later he began his famous series of experiments with electromagnetic waves. During the course of this work, […]
Atomic-scale spin sensing with a single molecule

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is a technique in which a fine conducting probe is held close to the surface of a sample. Electrons tunnel between the sample and the probe, producing an electrical signal. The probe is slowly moved across […]
A theory of spin hall magnetoresistance to study magnetism at interfaces

The interactions between moving charges and magnetic fields can be quite complicated; more if we consider the quantum effects. One example is the collection of Hall effects.
Imagine that we have a conductor or a semiconductor through which a current […]
Soft robots of the future may depend on new materials that conduct electricity, sense damage and self-heal

Author: Michael Ford is a postdoctoral research associate in materials engineering at the Carnegie Mellon University Interactions between people and machines continue to increase.Tecnalia/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND
Robots used to be restricted to heavy lifting or fine detail work […]
Cost of energy and its variability can be reduced in tidal power

Tides are more predictable than winds or sunshine. Then, why are not they already widely used as a source of renewable energy? The simple answer is that designing and building an ocean energy array is quite complex. This complexity has […]
Terminator: self-healing does no longer belongs to fiction only

About the author: Mikel Irigoyen is a PhD candidate at POLYMAT (UPV/EHU); his research is focused on the theoretical modelling of self-healing polymers.
As beautiful as it is, the natural world has always been a tough place to […]
How to identify a point defect in 2D transition metal dichalcogenides

A crystal lattice is formed by a repeated arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules. Due to the enormous amount of atoms involved it is extremely unlikely that all these will be arranged in perfect order. Some atoms will not be […]