KIT scientists now present the smallest lattice structure made by man in the Nature Materials journal. Its struts and braces are made of glassy carbon and are less than 1 µm long and 200 nm in diameter. They are smaller than comparable metamaterials by a factor of 5. The small dimension results in so far unreached ratios of strength to density. Applications as electrodes, filters or optical components might be possible. (DOI: 10.1038/nmat4561)
Tech
Scientists at the University of Birmingham are calling on drought researchers and managers around the world to consider both human activity and natural phenomena in their battle to preserve increasingly scarce global water supplies.
The experts say that severe droughts experienced recently in countries such as China, Brazil and the United States can no longer be seen as purely natural hazards. Changes to the way people use the water and the landscape contribute to extreme water shortages.
Inventory inaccuracy is common for many businesses. While cash registers track incoming orders and outgoing sales, inaccuracy arises because of unrecorded issues including spoilage, damage and theft.
Three professors in the Naveen Jindal School of Management have researched inventory management for more than 10 years, and, in their latest study, published in the January issue of Production and Operations Management, they developed a new mathematical model to apply to inventory problems.
Laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs) got the nickname "tabletop" because, as shown by the unique BELLA accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), they can boost electron beams to multibillion electron-volt energies (GeVs) in a few centimeters--a distance thousands of times shorter than conventional accelerators.
Scientists at Aalto University, Finland, have made a breakthrough in physics. They succeeded in transporting heat maximally effectively ten thousand times further than ever before. The discovery may lead to a giant leap in the development of quantum computers.
Renewable, energy efficient and flexible electricity sources are being adopted by policy makers and investors across the globe and this is sign of optimism in the battle against climate change, a University of Exeter energy policy expert is suggesting.
Turn on a skillet and let it heat up until it is well above the boiling point of water. Then sprinkle a teaspoon of water on the skillet and watch. Water droplets will bounce up, form spheres and scurry across the surface.
What you have just observed is an example of the Leidenfrost effect, named for Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, an 18th-century German physician and scientist. The phenomenon occurs when a liquid, upon approaching an object that is much hotter than the liquid's boiling point, produces a vapor which insulates the liquid from the surface of the object.
Senior citizens would likely accept robots as helpers and entertainment providers, but are leery of giving up too much control to the machines, according to researchers.
Based on a study of senior citizens, the researchers said that mental models formed by seniors -- specifically, negative and positive notions about robots -- shape their comfort level with the machines.
The catalysts speed up heavy oil extraction under the conditions of in-situ combustion.
Projected heavy oil and viscous oil reserves in Russia are up to 40 - 50 billion barrels and a significant portion of that volume lies within Tatarstan. Heavy oil extraction warrants special technological processes, and research in that direction is currently becoming the center of attention in heavy oil-rich countries (USA, Canada, Venezuela, Russia).
COLUMBUS, Ohio--New tools for harvesting wind energy may soon look less like giant windmills and more like tiny leafless trees.
A project at The Ohio State University is testing whether high-tech objects that look a bit like artificial trees can generate renewable power when they are shaken by the wind--or by the sway of a tall building, traffic on a bridge or even seismic activity.
An international team of scientists - recently returned from a 47-day research expedition to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean - have collected an unprecedented sequence of rock samples from the shallow mantle of the ocean crust that bear signs of life, unique carbon cycling, and ocean crust movement. Led by Co-Chief Scientists Dr. Gretchen Früh-Green (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) and Dr.
Have you ever rubbed a balloon in your hair to make it stick to the wall? This electrostatic stickiness called electroadhesion may change robotics forever.
EPFL scientists have invented a new soft gripper that uses electroadhesion: flexible electrode flaps that act like a thumb-index duo. It can pick up fragile objects of arbitrary shape and stiffness, like an egg, a water balloon or paper.
A team of Korean researchers, affiliated with UNIST has recently pioneered in developing a new simple nanowire manufacturing technique that uses self-catalytic growth process assisted by thermal decomposition of natural gas. According to the research team, this method is simple, reproducible, size-controllable, and cost-effective in that lithium-ion batteries could also benefit from it.
HANOVER, N.H. - Forest soils across New England will store fewer nutrients and metals - some beneficial, some harmful -- as climate change prompts maples and other deciduous trees to replace the region's iconic evergreen conifers, a Dartmouth College study finds.
The study appears in the journal Plant and Soil. A PDF is available on request.
Menlo Park, Calif. -- Scientists have been trying for years to make a practical lithium-ion battery anode out of silicon, which could store 10 times more energy per charge than today's commercial anodes and make high-performance batteries a lot smaller and lighter. But two major problems have stood in the way: Silicon particles swell, crack and shatter during battery charging, and they react with the battery electrolyte to form a coating that saps their performance.