/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The ability to move electron-hole pairs—called excitons—in desired directions is important for generating electricity and creating fuels. This happens naturally in photosynthesis, making it a source of inspiration to researchers innovating optoelectronic devices. /news/2025-08-evidence-hyperbolic-exciton-polaritons.html Condensed Matter Optics & Photonics Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:14:44 EDT news674392475 Most people picture a doctor checking for a broken bone when they think of an X-ray. But the technology is just as important in places like airport security, manufacturing, quality control and scientific research, each with its own criteria for size and shape. /news/2025-08-thin-big-science-chemists-imaging.html Materials Science Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:12:05 EDT news674392322 Researchers have captured the first clear view of the hidden architecture that helps shape a simple multicellular organism, showing how cells work together to build complex life forms. /news/2025-08-algae-reveal-geometry-life.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:09:03 EDT news674392141 Researchers have developed a novel way for liquid crystals to retain information about their movement. Using this method could advance technologies like memory devices and sensors, as well as pave the way to future soft materials that are both smart and flexible. /news/2025-08-method-liquid-crystals-recall.html Soft Matter Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:07:04 EDT news674392022 An international team of scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a new type of ultracompact laser that is more energy efficient and consumes less power. /news/2025-08-energy-efficient-ultracompact-laser-loss.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 14 Aug 2025 11:34:04 EDT news674390042 A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have generated a highly exotic type of light beam, called a Poincaré beam, using the FERMI free-electron laser (FEL) facility in Italy, marking the first time such a beam has been produced with a FEL. /news/2025-08-laser-advance-stage-ray-science.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 14 Aug 2025 11:15:03 EDT news674388901 In a new study published in Nature Â鶹ÒùÔºics, scientists have achieved the first experimental observation of phonon angular momentum in chiral crystals. /news/2025-08-scientists-phonon-angular-momentum-chiral.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 14 Aug 2025 11:00:09 EDT news674383921 In Associate Professor Jonathan Boreyko's Nature-Inspired Fluids and Interfaces Lab, Ph.D. student Jack Tapocik watched a disk-shaped chunk of ice resting on an engineered metal surface. As the ice melted, the water formed a puddle beneath. /news/2025-08-death-valley-mimic-mystery-nature.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Soft Matter Thu, 14 Aug 2025 09:00:03 EDT news674302163 Astronomers have discovered what may be a massive star exploding while trying to swallow a black hole companion, offering an explanation for one of the strangest stellar explosions ever seen. /news/2025-08-astronomers-supernova-triggered-black-hole.html Astronomy Thu, 14 Aug 2025 08:59:16 EDT news674380752 When two mesh screens or fabrics are overlapped with a slight offset, moiré patterns emerge as a result of interference caused by the misalignment of the grids. While these patterns are commonly recognized as optical illusions in everyday life, their significance extends to the nanoscale, such as in materials like graphene, where they can profoundly influence electronic properties. /news/2025-08-customized-moir-patterns-stacked-metal.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 13 Aug 2025 15:23:03 EDT news674317381 In the world of nanotechnology, seeing clearly isn't easy. It's even harder when you're trying to understand how a material's properties relate to its structure at the nanoscale. Tools like piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) help scientists peer into the nanoscale functionality of materials, revealing how they respond to electric fields. But those signals are often buried in noise, especially in instances where the most interesting physics happens. /news/2025-08-clarity-noise-approach-recovers-hidden.html Nanomaterials Wed, 13 Aug 2025 14:58:05 EDT news674315881 Analytical chemists from Stellenbosch University (SU) have provided the first evidence of a rare class of phenolics, called flavoalkaloids, in cannabis leaves. /news/2025-08-dont-cannabis-theyre-rare-compounds.html Biochemistry Analytical Chemistry Wed, 13 Aug 2025 14:24:03 EDT news674313841 Aluminum oxide or alumina is the fruit fly of materials science: thoroughly researched and well-understood. This compound, with the simple chemical formula Al2O3, occurs frequently in Earth's crust in the form of the mineral corundum and its well-known color variants sapphires and rubies—and is used for a wide variety of purposes, whether in electronics, the chemical industry, or technical ceramics. /news/2025-08-machine-reveals-mysteries-amorphous-alumina.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 13 Aug 2025 13:13:03 EDT news674309581 Interactions between atoms and molecules are facilitated by electromagnetic fields. The bigger the distance between the partners involved, the weaker these mutual interactions are. In order for the particles to be able to form natural chemical bonds, the distance between them must usually be approximately equal to their diameter. /news/2025-08-molecular-hybridization-quantum-vacuum.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:06:03 EDT news674305561 In a significant leap toward next-generation lithium battery design, researchers from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Peking University, led by Professor Xia Dingguo, have discovered a previously unknown anionic redox mechanism in an amorphous Li-V-O-F cathode featuring tetrahedral coordination. /news/2025-08-amorphous-cathode-reveals-voltage-oxygen.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 13 Aug 2025 11:50:03 EDT news674304602 On May 12, 2008, the magnitude 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake shook central China, its destructive tremors spreading from the flank of the Longmen Shan, or Dragon's Gate Mountains, along the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. /news/2025-08-sediment-surge-years-earthquake-rivers.html Earth Sciences Wed, 13 Aug 2025 11:00:12 EDT news674292241 Between 50 and 100 kilometers (30–60 miles) above the Earth's surface lies a largely unstudied stretch of the atmosphere, called the mesosphere. It's too high for airplanes and weather balloons, too low for satellites, and nearly impossible to monitor with existing technology. But understanding this layer of the atmosphere could improve the accuracy of weather forecasts and climate models. /news/2025-08-sunlight-powered-window-earth-upper.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 13 Aug 2025 11:00:07 EDT news674214119 Skyrmions are localized, particle-like excitations in materials that retain their structure due to topological constraints (i.e., restrictions arising from properties that remain unchanged under smooth deformations). These quasiparticles, first introduced in high-energy physics and quantum field theory, have since attracted intense interest in condensed matter physics and photonics, owing to their potential as robust carriers for information storage and manipulation. /news/2025-08-experimental-quantum-optical-skyrmions-semiconductor.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 13 Aug 2025 08:30:01 EDT news674226132 Researchers with the schools of science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) are exploring new ways to manipulate matter with light to unlock a new generation of computer chips, photovoltaic cells and other advanced materials. /news/2025-08-material-properties-reveals-atomic-nanocrystals.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Tue, 12 Aug 2025 15:19:04 EDT news674230741 During the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical companies produced unprecedented quantities of vaccines. This helped save millions of lives, but on the other hand, many vaccines remained unused, expired, and had to be thrown away. To avoid such problems in the future, Lithuanian researchers at the Center for Â鶹ÒùÔºical Sciences and Technology (FTMC) are proposing an environmentally friendly solution as part of a project. Perhaps expired vaccines could be repurposed for another task: the development of new biosensors? /news/2025-08-unused-covid-vaccines-life-biosensors.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 12 Aug 2025 14:49:05 EDT news674228933 Advances in artificial intelligence for porous materials design could impact a wide variety of fields, from orthopedic implants to next-generation batteries. /news/2025-08-pressure-ai-porous-materials.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 12 Aug 2025 10:42:20 EDT news674214133 Graphite has attracted global interest due to its unique anisotropic properties, including excellent electrical and thermal conductivity. Widely used as a battery anode material and in applications such as electromagnetic shielding, catalysis, and nuclear technology, graphite remains a critical material in both industrial and research fields. /news/2025-08-mirror-graphite-strength.html Nanomaterials Tue, 12 Aug 2025 09:41:02 EDT news674210457 Just as overlapping ripples on a pond can amplify or cancel each other out, waves of many kinds—including light, sound and atomic vibrations—can interfere with one another. At the quantum level, this kind of interference powers high-precision sensors and could be harnessed for quantum computing. /news/2025-08-powerful-quantum-paves-phonon-based.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 11 Aug 2025 14:39:04 EDT news674141941 Sliding ferroelectrics are a type of two-dimensional (2D) material realized by stacking nonpolar monolayers (atom-thick layers that lack an electric dipole). When these individual layers are stacked, they produce ferroelectric materials with an intrinsic polarization (i.e., in which positive and negative charges are spontaneously separated), which can be switched using an external electric field that is perpendicular to them. /news/2025-08-domain-walls-polarization-ferroelectrics.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 11 Aug 2025 13:10:01 EDT news674133369 In materials science, defects are usually seen as problems, unwanted microscopic features that degrade performance, reduce efficiency or shorten the lifespan of devices. But a recent breakthrough published in Advanced Materials is challenging that mindset. The study reveals that a specific structural "flaw" in crystals, known as the Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) fault, could be the key to developing brighter and more robust light-emitting materials. /news/2025-08-rethinking-imperfections-defects-powering-brighter.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Mon, 11 Aug 2025 12:19:48 EDT news674133578 Researchers at Kyushu University have developed a novel organic molecule that simultaneously exhibits two highly sought-after properties: efficient light emission suitable for advanced displays and strong light absorption for deep-tissue bioimaging. This breakthrough addresses a long-standing challenge in molecular design, paving the way for next-generation multifunctional materials. /news/2025-08-molecule-strong-emission-absorption-displays.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:08:04 EDT news673873681 Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have upended assumptions about how water behaves when squeezed into atom-scale spaces. By applying spectroscopic tools together with the machine learning simulation technique to water confined in a space of only a few molecules thick, the team, led by Mischa Bonn, found that water's structure remains strikingly "normal" until confined to below a nanometer, far thinner than previously believed. /news/2025-08-nanospace-surfaces-confinement-thinnest-limits.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Fri, 08 Aug 2025 11:50:03 EDT news673872601 The endangered South African cycad Encephalartos horridus may resemble a relic from the Jurassic age, but the species itself evolved long after dinosaurs disappeared. Still, it carries a biochemical legacy inherited from its distant ancestors—plants that once thrived alongside Jurassic fauna. A team led by Hiroshima University (HU) researchers found that its spiky, silvery-blue leaves owe their color not to pigment, but to a wax-based optical effect produced by a lipid compound that may date back to the dawn of land plants. /news/2025-08-rare-cycad-wax-crystals-conjure.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Fri, 08 Aug 2025 11:15:32 EDT news673870526 In a study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, an international team of astronomers has uncovered for the first time the coexistence of dual fragmentation modes and multi-scale dynamic material accretion within a "hub-filament system" (HFS) molecular cloud. /news/2025-08-alma-reveal-dual-fragmentation-modes.html Astronomy Fri, 08 Aug 2025 09:30:03 EDT news673864201 Hydrogen fuel cells, which produce electricity with high efficiency and zero greenhouse gas emissions, are gaining attention as a next-generation clean energy technology. However, their commercialization has been limited by performance degradation during prolonged operation and the high cost of catalyst replacement. /news/2025-08-room-temperature-synthesis-hollow-nanodome.html Nanomaterials Fri, 08 Aug 2025 09:07:04 EDT news673862822