/ 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. As we witness the detrimental effects of climate change, the need for a rapid shift to renewable energy is only becoming more urgent. One of the most efficient forms of renewable energy, solar power, is generated by solar cells, which are the building blocks of solar panels. These electronic devices use semiconductors to convert the energy of light into electricity, a process called the photovoltaic effect. /news/2025-06-artificial-heterostructure-tunable-photovoltaic-effect.html Condensed Matter Optics & Photonics Tue, 24 Jun 2025 16:00:02 EDT news669999536 A research team from Penn State has broken a 165-year-old law of thermal radiation with unprecedented strength, setting the stage for more efficient energy harvesting, heat transfer and infrared sensing. /news/2025-06-rewriting-century-physics-law-thermal.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Optics & Photonics Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:03:04 EDT news669636181 Experiments lead to a greater understanding, deeper insights, and sometimes they even bear fruit. That was certainly the case last summer at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), where researchers nurtured a dozen tomato plants. /news/2025-06-solar-panels-edge-tomatoes-grown.html Biotechnology Agriculture Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:47:35 EDT news669480447 Researchers at Boise State University have developed a novel, environmentally friendly triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that is fully printed and capable of harvesting biomechanical and environmental energy while also functioning as a real-time motion sensor. The innovation leverages a composite of Poly (vinyl butyral-co-vinyl alcohol-co-vinyl acetate) (PVBVA) and MXene (Ti3C2Tx) nanosheets, offering a sustainable alternative to conventional TENGs that often rely on fluorinated polymers and complex fabrication. /news/2025-06-mxene-polymer-composite-enables-eco.html Nanomaterials Mon, 16 Jun 2025 17:10:06 EDT news669312601 Researchers at Boise State University have developed a stable, high-performance Ti3C2Tx MXene ink formulation optimized for aerosol jet printing—paving the way for scalable manufacturing of micro-supercapacitors, sensors, and other energy storage and harvesting devices. /news/2025-06-energy-storage-future-mxene-inks.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 16 Jun 2025 15:51:00 EDT news669307850 Â鶹ÒùÔºicists at Loughborough University have used cutting-edge nanotechnology to create what they believe may be "the world's smallest violin," which is small enough to fit within the width of a human hair. /news/2025-06-physicists-world-smallest-violin-nanotechnology.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Tue, 03 Jun 2025 11:26:29 EDT news668168779 In a world increasingly driven by high-speed communication and low-power electronics, a team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) has proposed a fundamentally new way of manipulating light using the geometry of matter itself. /news/2025-05-ballistic-electrons-gen-terahertz-devices.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Thu, 29 May 2025 10:15:03 EDT news667732501 Plants mastered the art of harvesting sunlight billions of years ago, using elegant rings of pigments in their leaves. Now, researchers from Osaka Metropolitan University have taken a major step toward mimicking that leafy architecture with human-made molecules that self-assemble into stacked rings where charge and energy can circulate freely—just like in photosynthesis. /news/2025-05-synthetic-molecular-energy.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 28 May 2025 09:58:04 EDT news667645082 A research team has discovered how to make a promising energy-harvesting material much more efficient—without relying on rare or expensive elements. The material, called β-Zn4Sb3, is a tellurium-free thermoelectric compound that can convert waste heat into electricity. /news/2025-05-smart-phonon-boosts-efficiency-eco.html Condensed Matter Mon, 26 May 2025 10:17:03 EDT news667473421 Throughout its nearly 100-year manufacturing history, the crack resistance of natural rubber—one of the world's most widely used biomaterials—hasn't improved much. Until now. Materials researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have devised a way to produce natural rubber that retains its key properties of stretchiness and durability while greatly improving its ability to resist cracking, even after repeated cycles of use. /news/2025-05-rubber-material-ten-stronger-resistant.html Polymers Thu, 22 May 2025 13:11:41 EDT news667138295 A serendipitous observation in a Chemical Engineering lab at Penn Engineering has led to a surprising discovery: a new class of nanostructured materials that can pull water from the air, collect it in pores and release it onto surfaces without the need for any external energy. /news/2025-05-accidentally-class-nanostructured-materials-passively.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 21 May 2025 16:10:06 EDT news667062601 A research team led by Dr. Lim Sang-kyu in DGIST's Department of Energy and Environmental Technology has developed a smart fiber sensor that can detect natural disasters such as landslides in real time. The new fiber is based on piezoelectric technology, which converts pressure into electricity. Its three-dimensional (3D) structure dramatically improves performance, facilitating the implementation of a self-powered sensor system that can operate without an external power source. /news/2025-05-high-piezoelectric-fiber-sensor-real.html Nanomaterials Mon, 19 May 2025 11:50:10 EDT news666874206 A research team led by Prof. Wang Mingtai at the Hefei Institutes of Â鶹ÒùÔºical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a finely tuned method for growing titanium dioxide nanorod arrays (TiO2-NA) with controllable spacing without changing individual rod size and demonstrated its application in high-performance solar cells. /news/2025-05-finely-tuned-tio-nanorod-arrays.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Fri, 16 May 2025 12:07:03 EDT news666616022 Two physicists from the Technical University of Denmark have found that leaf shape is a determining factor in the distance leaves travel as they fall from their tree. In their paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Matthew Dominic Biviano and Kaare Hartvig Jensen describe how they built a device that allowed them to mass-test falling leaves and what they learned through its use. /news/2025-05-leaf-nutrients-tree.html Ecology Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 14 May 2025 15:10:42 EDT news666447484 Light is all around us, essential for one of our primary senses (sight) as well as life on Earth itself. It underpins many technologies that affect our daily lives, including energy harvesting with solar cells, light-emitting-diode (LED) displays and telecommunications through fiber optic networks. /news/2025-05-science-future-africans-local.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 14 May 2025 12:57:05 EDT news666446221 A review of digital technologies in the International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology suggests that integration of mobile, 5G, wireless and the so-called metaverse could be a turning point in global agriculture. The use of this kind of technology is becoming essential in the face of population growth, climate change, and resource scarcity. /news/2025-05-big-farming-5g-metaverse-agriculture.html Biotechnology Agriculture Tue, 13 May 2025 04:27:02 EDT news666329214 They are large rafts that drift thousands of kilometers across the ocean surface, moving with the currents in an otherwise featureless marine environment. Tracked by satellites, the rudimentary floats—which may also be outfitted with long, submerged tails of netting—are used to attract schools of fish that can be scooped up by industrial tuna fishing vessels. /news/2025-05-reveals-alarming-tuna-fishing-devices.html Ecology Thu, 08 May 2025 11:41:04 EDT news665923261 Following the end of native logging in Victoria on January 1 2024, the state's majestic forests might be expected to regenerate and recover naturally. But our new research shows that's not always the case. /news/2025-05-devastated-victoria-native-forests.html Plants & Animals Ecology Fri, 02 May 2025 11:59:04 EDT news665405942 In 2023, EPFL researchers succeeded in sending and storing data using charge-free magnetic waves called spin waves, rather than traditional electron flows. The team from the Lab of Nanoscale Magnetic Materials and Magnonics, led by Dirk Grundler, in the School of Engineering, used radiofrequency signals to excite spin waves enough to reverse the magnetization state of tiny nanomagnets. /news/2025-04-earth-abundant-mineral-sustainable-spintronics.html Condensed Matter Fri, 25 Apr 2025 09:04:04 EDT news664790641 New research has uncovered how a simple circadian clock network demonstrates advanced noise-filtering capabilities, enhancing our understanding of how biological circuits maintain accuracy in dynamic natural environments. /news/2025-04-circadian-clocks-robustness-environments.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 15 Apr 2025 15:22:04 EDT news663949321 A joint research team has successfully demonstrated the complete confinement of mechanical waves within a single resonator—something long thought to be theoretically impossible. Their findings, published on April 3 in Â鶹ÒùÔºical Review Letters, mark a major breakthrough in the century-old mystery of bound states in the continuum (BIC). The team is from POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) and Jeonbuk National University. /news/2025-04-century-physics-barrier-scientists-simple.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 11 Apr 2025 11:32:03 EDT news663589921 Scientists from Skoltech, the Institute of Nanotechnology of Microelectronics, RAS, and other research centers have refined the understanding of how plasma treatment of carbon-based electrodes affects the key characteristics of supercapacitors. These are energy storage devices that complement batteries in electric cars, trains, port cranes, and elsewhere. /news/2025-04-nitrogen-argon-plasma-boosts-carbon.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:19:04 EDT news662897941 In the quest for next-generation energy, sensing, and pigment technologies, semiconducting metal oxides like titanium dioxide (TiOâ‚‚) have emerged as essential materials due to their abundance, stability, and intriguing photophysical properties. But there's a catch: Their surfaces—where most chemical interactions occur—often behave unpredictably, limiting their performance in applications ranging from photocatalysis to solar energy harvesting. /news/2025-03-photoluminescence-nanoscale-insights-surface-metal.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:00:01 EDT news662633633 Biological science is changing the way we harness and manage renewable energy, according to a new study by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU). /news/2025-03-power-green-energy-transition.html Plants & Animals Biotechnology Fri, 14 Mar 2025 08:46:03 EDT news661160761 An international team of researchers has discovered a new method to generate electricity using small plastic beads. By placing these beads close together and bringing them into contact, they generate more electricity than usual. This process, known as triboelectrification, is similar to the static electricity produced when rubbing a balloon against hair. /news/2025-03-scientists-smart-generate-energy-tiny.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:25:03 EDT news660914701 Discarded food scraps, stray branches, seashells and many other natural materials are key ingredients in a new system that can pull drinkable water out of thin air developed by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin. /news/2025-02-scraps-biomass-based-hydrogel-thin.html Polymers Materials Science Tue, 25 Feb 2025 15:43:04 EST news659720582 Zaps of static electricity might be a wintertime annoyance, but to certain scientists, they represent an untapped source of energy. Using a device called a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), mechanical energy can be converted into electrical energy using triboelectric effect static. Many TENGs contain expensive, specially fabricated materials, but one team has instead used inexpensive store-bought tape, plastic and aluminum metal. The researchers report an improved version of their tape-based TENG in ACS Omega. /news/2025-01-generating-electricity-tacky-tape-version.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Thu, 30 Jan 2025 12:38:43 EST news657463120 A research team led by Dr. David Helman from the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed a novel machine learning model employing hyperspectral imaging to assess the quality of tomatoes before harvest. Hyperspectral images of specific ranges of light wavelengths, known as spectral bands, are used to study objects' properties based on how they reflect light. /news/2025-01-harvest-smarter-harder-machine-tomato.html Molecular & Computational biology Agriculture Thu, 23 Jan 2025 15:55:02 EST news656870101 A combined team of chemists and nano-scientists at Cornell University has developed a wireless microelectronic device powered by light that can convert a well plate into an array of small electrochemical reactors. /news/2025-01-wireless-electrochemical-synthesis-microelectronics-plate.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:31:44 EST news655651899 Heat management at the nanoscale has long been a cornerstone of advanced technological applications, ranging from high-performance electronics to quantum computing. Addressing this critical challenge, we have been deeply intrigued by the emerging field of thermotronics, which focuses on manipulating heat flux in ways analogous to how electronics control electric energy. Among its most promising advancements are quantum thermal diodes, which enable directional heat control, and quantum thermal transistors, which regulate heat flow with precision. /news/2024-12-advancing-unidirectional-era-quantum-thermal.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:32:36 EST news654514302