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Flexible tactile sensor reads braille in real time
Braille is a tactile writing system that helps people who are blind or partially sighted acquire information by touching patterns of tiny raised dots. Braille uses combinations of six dots (two columns...
View ArticleAlternative building materials could store massive amounts of carbon dioxide
Replacing conventional building materials with alternatives that sequester carbon dioxide could allow the world to lock away up to half the CO2 generated by humans each year – about 16 billion tonnes....
View ArticleTheorists propose a completely new class of quantum particles
In a ground-breaking theoretical study, two physicists have identified a new class of quasiparticle called the paraparticle. Their calculations suggest that paraparticles exhibit quantum properties...
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Imaging reveals how microplastics may harm the brain
Pollution from microplastics – small plastic particles less than 5 mm in size – poses an ongoing threat to human health. Independent studies have found microplastics in human tissues and within the...
View ArticleAnomalous Hall crystal made from twisted graphene
A topological electronic crystal (TEC) in which the quantum Hall effect emerges without the need for an external magnetic field has been unveiled by an international team of physicists. Led by Josh...
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Filter inspired by deep-sea sponge cleans up oil spills
Oil spills can pollute large volumes of surrounding water – thousands of times greater than the spill itself – causing long-term economic, environmental, social and ecological damage. Effective methods...
View ArticleThermometer uses Rydberg atoms to make calibration-free measurements
A new way to measure the temperatures of objects by studying the effect of their black-body radiation on Rydberg atoms has been demonstrated by researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and...
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Elastic response explains why cordierite has ultra-low thermal expansion
Hot material The crystal structure of cordierite gives the material its unique thermal properties. (Courtesy: M Dove and L Li/Matter) The anomalous and ultra-low thermal expansion of cordierite results...
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Tissue-like hydrogel semiconductors show promise for next-generation...
Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have created a groundbreaking hydrogel that doubles as a semiconductor. The material combines the soft, flexible...
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Asteroid Bennu contains the stuff of life, sample analysis reveals
A sample of asteroid dirt brought back to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission contains amino acids and the nucleobases of RNA and DNA, plus brines that could have facilitated the formation of organic...
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Two-faced graphene nanoribbons could make the first purely carbon-based...
A new graphene nanostructure could become the basis for the first ferromagnets made purely from carbon. Known as an asymmetric or “Janus” graphene nanoribbon after the two-faced god in Roman mythology,...
View ArticleSupermassive black hole displays ‘unprecedented’ X-ray outbursts
An international team of researchers has detected a series of significant X-ray oscillations near the innermost orbit of a supermassive black hole – an unprecedented discovery that could indicate the...
View ArticleQuantum simulators deliver surprising insights into magnetic phase transitions
Unexpected behaviour at phase transitions between classical and quantum magnetism has been observed in different quantum simulators operated by two independent groups. One investigation was led by...
View ArticleNew class of quasiparticle appears in bilayer graphene
A newly-discovered class of quasiparticles known as fractional excitons offers fresh opportunities for condensed-matter research and could reveal unprecedented quantum phases, say physicists at Brown...
View ArticleThousands of nuclear spins are entangled to create a quantum-dot qubit
A new type of quantum bit (qubit) that stores information in a quantum dot with the help of an ensemble of nuclear spin states has been unveiled by physicists in the UK and Austria. Led by Dorian...
View ArticleOrganic photovoltaic solar cells could withstand harsh space environments
Carbon-based organic photovoltaics (OPVs) may be much better than previously thought at withstanding the high-energy radiation and sub-atomic particle bombardments of space environments. This finding,...
View ArticleNanoparticles demonstrate new and unexpected mechanism of coronavirus...
The COVID-19 pandemic provided a driving force for researchers to seek out new disinfection methods that could tackle future viral outbreaks. One promising approach relies on the use of nanoparticles,...
View ArticleBacterial ‘cables’ form a living gel in mucus
Bacterial cells in solutions of polymers such as mucus grow into long cable-like structures that buckle and twist on each other, forming a “living gel” made of intertwined cells. This behaviour is very...
View ArticleSchrödinger’s cat states appear in the nuclear spin state of antimony
Physicists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) are the first to succeed in creating and manipulating quantum superpositions of a single, large nuclear spin. The superposition involves spin...
View ArticleModelling the motion of confined crowds could help prevent crushing incidents
Researchers led by Denis Bartolo, a physicist at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) of Lyon, France, have constructed a theoretical model that forecasts the movements of confined, densely packed...
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