Chronic diseases are already having and will continue to have not only profound economic, social and individual consequences but also a major impact on the use of health resources and design of new care processes. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a case on point. COPD is airflow limitation caused by an inflammatory response to […]
The most famous conjecture in condensed-matter physics was proposed in 1935, when Hillard Huntington and Eugene Wigner calculated the properties of hydrogen squeezed to high density and pressure. They predicted that under pressures above 25 gigapascals (GPa), hydrogen would undergo a density-driven transition from an insulating, molecular solid to a conducting, atomic solid . In […]
It has been almost a decade since the promises of urban autonomous goods deliveries with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) started. However, the reality came to claim that it was not so easy. Main problems are based on short battery life, low load capacity and high economical cost of the carriage. Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) appeared […]
Amyloid plaques are a hallmark of some neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Even though the exact role of amyloid protein in the disease is not clear, being able to follow amyloid protein misfolding and plaque formation could be a step forward for the study of the disease. Now, Matthew Lew’s lab has developed a […]
Light emission from emitters is a valuable piece of information in a variety of sensing and detection techniques, capable of labeling physical and biological processes which occur in the proximity of the emitter. Furthermore, quantum technologies are currently exploiting the statistics of single-emitters light emission aiming at turning particular emitters into fundamental units to sustain […]
“ The dose makes the poison!” This adage, attributed to Paracelsus, explains a basic principle of toxicology: a substance can produce a harmful effect only if it reaches a certain “toxic” concentration. [ 1 ] In reverse, it also means that a substance is not harmful below this toxic dose, and can even be vitally […]
The discovery of superconductivity in 2D films dates back over 80 years. Initially, these were 2D metallic films deposited on inert substrates, but in recent times more exotic 2D systems have exhibited superconducting properties, such as the surface of topological insulators or twisted bilayer graphene. Superconductivity is caused by the interactions between atomic vibrations (phonons) […]
Photo: Gary Bendig / Unsplash We have developed four-winged bird-like robots , called ornithopters, that can take off and fly with the agility of swifts, hummingbirds and insects. We did this by reverse engineering the aerodynamics and biomechanics of these creatures. Our ornithopters have the potential to outperform and outmanoeuvre existing drone configurations with static […]
An electric current can be visualized as a flow of electrons through a conducting piece of material. The less the resistance the material structure opposes to the flow of electrons the better a conductor it is. Part of this resistance appears at the surface, where electrons first encounter the material; as with electromagnetic radiation – […]
Future information and communication technologies will rely on the manipulation of not only electrons but also of light at the nanometer-scale. Squeezing light to such a small size has been a major goal in nanophotonics for many years. Particularly strong light squeezing can be achieved with polaritons, quasiparticles resulting from the strong coupling of photons […]