Billions of tiny particles packed into rechargeable lithium-ion battery electrodes are responsible for storing charge and making it available when it’s needed to do work. X-ray movies of this process show the particles absorbing and releasing lithium ions as the battery charges and discharges. Now, in an important step forward, researchers have used a type […]
Magnons or spin waves are elementary quasiparticles, which represent a collective motion of magnetic moments in ordered systems. Spin waves can propagate in materials and therewith transport a spin current. This spin flow requires no electrical charge transport and therefore no electrical losses creating Joule heating. Spin waves enclose a wide frequency range, from gigahertz […]
As the Earth’s human population grows, greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s food system are on track to expand. A new study demonstrates that state-of-the-art agricultural technology and management can not only reduce that growth but eliminate it altogether by generating net negative emissions – reducing more greenhouse gas than food systems add. Employing additional […]
Computer science • Language • Linguistics • Medicine • Robotics
At a time when the mass media are full of predictions about the apocalyptic effect that AI will have on humanity, it is comforting to read two essays that show that the reality, for the moment, points in the opposite direction. The first of these reveals the excellent results that the application of natural language […]
We all know what glass is, don’t we? We just point to the nearest window and it is that transparent sheet. Humans have been producing glass for at least 6,000 years, way before they knew how to smelt iron. Actually, the chemistry is well known: to produce window glass we just heat a mixture of […]
Health • Medicine • Physiology • Psychology
gender gap Sleep experts recommend that adults sleep 7-9 h per night (7-8 h for older adults). However, about 30-35% of adults sleep less than 7 h and prevalence rates of short or insufficient sleep are increasing. Insufficient sleep is not in itself a diagnosable disorder; however, its high prevalence highlights a key target for […]
Biochemistry • Biomedicine • Health • Medicine • Neuroscience
Recent research has demonstrated that obesity impairs the mechanisms that allow our brains to realize when our stomachs are full and that these changes are maintained despite dieting, giving insights into why it is difficult for obese people to avoid excessive eating and why there is often a yo-yo effect after dieting. It has been […]
pair-density-wave Scientists have revealed a new phase of matter in candidate topological superconductors that could have significant consequences for condensed matter physics and for the field of quantum computing and spintronics. Researchers at the Macroscopic Quantum Matter Group at Cornell University have discovered and visualized a crystalline yet superconducting state in a new and unusual […]
Spurred by outstanding optical properties, chemical stability, and facile bioconjugation, plasmonic metals have become the first-choice materials for optical signal transducers in biosensing. While the design rules for surface-based plasmonic sensors are well-established and commercialized, there is limited knowledge of the design of sensors based on nanoparticle aggregation. The working principle of biosensors built around […]
amorphous Scientists have dedicated their efforts to studying topological materials, focusing on the shape, or topology, of their electronic structures. These materials exhibit unique properties that have the potential to be harnessed for next-generation devices, despite their invisible nature in real space. Initially, it was believed that only crystalline materials, characterized by highly ordered atoms […]