
On the line: Watching nanoparticles get in shape
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Berkeley Lab scientists have captured real-time, high-resolution videos of liquid structures taking shape as nanoparticles form a solid-like layer at the interface between oil and water. Their findings could help advance all-liquid robotics for targeted cancer drug delivery and other applications.
Accelerator experts from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the German federal metrology institute Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), and Tsinghua University in Beijing have used a laser to manipulate electron bunches at PTB's Metrology Light Source so that they emitted intense light pulses having a laser-like character. Using this method, specialised synchrotron radiation sources would potentially be able to fill a gap in the arsenal of available light sources and offer a prototype for industrial applications.
Having a memory of past events enables us to take smarter decisions about the future. Researchers at the Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now identified how the slime mold Physarum polycephalum saves memories - although it has no nervous system.
The working group led by Prof. Stephan Schiller, Ph.D. from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has used a novel, high-precision laser spectroscopic experiment to measure the internal vibration of the simplest molecule. This allowed the researchers to investigate the wave character of the motion of atomic nuclei with unprecedented accuracy. They present their findings in the current edition of Nature Physics.
POSTECH Professor Geunbae Lim Develops a Multiscale-Porous Anion Exchange Membrane.
University of Tsukuba researchers calculated the electronic structure of topological insulators excited by laser beams and found that massless states can be generated. This work may lead to a major advance in computer technology with circuits that generate less heat.
Plastics belong to the most widely used materials, and they are vital components of all modern technologies. So far, it has been possible to recycle these valuable materials only to a limited extent. In order to offer novel solutions, chemists of Professor Stefan Mecking´s group at the University of Konstanz developed a more sustainable method for chemically recycling polyethylene-like plastics. The researchers use "breaking-points" on a molecular level to disassemble the plastic back to its molecular components.
Materials having excess electrons are typically conductors. However, moiré patterns -- interference patterns that typically arise when one object with a repetitive pattern is placed over another with a similar pattern -- can suppress electrical conductivity, a study led by physicists at the University of California, Riverside, has found.
In Huntington's disease, a faulty protein aggregates in brain cells and eventually kills them. Such protein aggregates could, in principle, be prevented with a heat shock protein. However, it is not well known how these proteins interact with the Huntington's disease protein. New research by Patrick van der Wel (University of Groningen) and colleagues at the University of Texas has partially resolved the structure of heat shock proteins that bind to such aggregating proteins.
Skoltech scientists have proposed a Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) method leveraging the unique features of human vision