Matter and energy from Science Daily Feed

Building upon recent findings showing the promise of coating the inner surface of the vessel containing a fusion plasma in liquid lithium, researchers have determined the maximum density of uncharged particles at the edge of a plasma before certain instabilities become unpredictable. The research includes observations, numerical simulations and analysis from their experiments inside a fusion plasma vessel called the Lithium Tokamak Experiment-Beta (LTX- ). This is the first time such a level has been established for LTX- , and knowing it is a big step in their mission to prove lithium is the ideal choice for an inner-wall coating in a tokamak because it guides them toward the best practices for fueling their plasmas.

A research team has addressed the long-standing challenge of creating artificial olfactory sensors with arrays of diverse high-performance gas sensors. Their newly developed biomimetic olfactory chips (BOC) are able to integrate nanotube sensor arrays on nanoporous substrates with up to 10,000 individually addressable gas sensors per chip, a configuration that is similar to how olfaction works for humans and other animals.

Engineers designed an 'architected' reef that can mimic the wave-buffering effects of natural reefs while providing pockets for marine life. The sustainable and cost-saving structure could dissipate more than 95 percent of incoming wave energy using a small fraction of the material normally needed.

What would you do if you walked up to a robot with a human-like head and it smiled at you first? You'd likely smile back and perhaps feel the two of you were genuinely interacting. But how does a robot know how to do this? Or a better question, how does it know to get you to smile back?

New multidisciplinary research could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting.

Researchers have developed an organic photovoltaic film that is both waterproof and flexible, allowing a solar cell to be put onto clothes and still function correctly after being rained on or even washed.

Focusing a tailored laser beam through transparent glass can create a tiny spot inside the material. Researchers have reported on a way to use this small spot to improve laser material processing, boosting processing resolution.

Conditions that usually accompany the kind of intense hot and cold weather that strains power grids may also provide greater opportunities to capture solar and wind energy. A study found that widespread, extreme temperature events are often accompanied by greater solar radiation and higher wind speeds that could be captured by solar panels and wind turbines. The research, which looked at extensive heat and cold waves across the six interconnected energy grid regions of the U.S. from 1980-2021, also found that every region experienced power outages during these events in the past decade. The findings suggest that using more renewable energy at these times could help offset increased power demand as more people and businesses turn on heaters or air conditioners.

Quantum simulators are quantum systems that can be controlled exceptionally well. They can be used to indirectly learn something about other quantum systems, which cannot be experimented on so easily. Therefore, quantum simulators play an important role in unraveling the big questions of quantum physics. However, they are limited by temperature: They only work well, when they are extremely cold. Scientists have now developed a method to cool quantum simulators even more than before: by splitting a Bose-Einstein-condensate in half, in a very special way.

Researchers are enhancing immunotherapy effects against malignant tumors by developing and validating patent-ending poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid), or PLGA, nanoparticles modified with adenosine triphosphate, or ATP.

From pacemakers to neurostimulators, implantable medical devices rely on batteries to keep the heart on beat and dampen pain. But batteries eventually run low and require invasive surgeries to replace. To address these challenges, researchers have devised an implantable battery that runs on oxygen in the body. The study shows in rats that the proof-of-concept design can deliver stable power and is compatible with the biological system.

Engineers have uncovered an unexpected pattern in how neural networks -- the systems leading today's AI revolution -- learn, suggesting an answer to one of the most important unanswered questions in AI: why these methods work so well. The result not only illuminates the inner workings of neural networks, but gestures toward the possibility of developing hyper-efficient algorithms that could classify images in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the cost.

Super wearable electronics that are lightweight, stretchable and increase sweat permeability by 400-fold have been developed by scientists, enabling reliable long-term monitoring of biosignals for biomedical devices.

Researchers have now developed standards and calibrations for optical microscopes that allow quantum dots to be aligned with the center of a photonic component to within an error of 10 to 20 nanometers (about one-thousandth the thickness of a sheet of paper). Such alignment is critical for chip-scale devices that employ the radiation emitted by quantum dots to store and transmit quantum information.

Researchers have conducted a series of participatory deliberation workshops in which the participants were asked to consider issues of future society and manufacturing, in general, and as they relate to hydrothermally produced porous glass. In workshops where the perspective of 'imaginary future generations' was adopted, participants' perceptions of the technology's feasibility and future potentiality changed significantly.

Entropy, the amount of molecular disorder, is produced in several systems but cannot be measured directly. A new equation sheds new light on how entropy is produced on a very short time scale in laser excited materials.

An international research team has designed and manufactured a virus-killing surface that could help control disease spread in hospitals, labs and other high-risk environments.

High-power lasers are often used to modify polymer surfaces to make high-tech biomedical products, electronics and data storage components. Now researchers have discovered a light-responsive, inexpensive sulfur-derived polymer is receptive to low power, visible light lasers -- promising a more affordable and safer production method in nanotech, chemical science and patterning surfaces in biological applications.

An Antarctic large-scale experiment is striving to find out if gravity also exists at the quantum level. An extraordinary particle able to travel undisturbed through space seems to hold the answer.

Researchers have successfully transformed CO2 into methanol by shining sunlight on single atoms of copper deposited on a light-activated material, a discovery that paves the way for creating new green fuels.