News 2019

A new study by University of Chicago and University of Pennsylvania scientists shows that as materials age, they 'remember' prior stresses and external forces, which researchers can then use to create new materials with unique properties. The study, published Dec. 20 in  Science Advances , found that certain types of materials have a "memory" of how they were processed, stored, and manipulated.

A puddle freezing on the sidewalk, your humidifier pumping out water vapor, salt trucks melting icy streets-wintertime in Chicago is full of examples of a physics phenomenon called a "phase transition," in which a material changes state. Physicists are fascinated by this phenomenon, which is useful in technology from the basic steam turbine all the way to MRIs.

Scientists from the University of Bristol and the British Museum, in collaboration with Oxford Archaeology East and Canterbury Archaeological Trust, have, for the first time, identified the use of birch bark tar in medieval England - the use of which was previously thought to be limited to prehistory.

Painful inflammatory lesions of the skin and mucous membranes may occur in children who develop bacterial pneumonia. A research group at the University Children's Hospital Zurich has recently developed a new diagnostic blood test, which reliably diagnoses bacteria as the causative pathogen at an early stage, allowing more specific treatment and prediction about prognosis.

By Christoph Pelzl Newly discovered properties of magnetically doped topological insulators could significantly accelerate the development of quantum computers. The transmission electron microscope ASTEM, located at Graz University of Technology, played a major role in the success of these discoveries.

ETH researchers are making chocolates shimmer in rainbow colours without the addition of colourants. They have found a way to imprint a special structure on the surface of the chocolate to create a targeted colour effect. By playing this video, you agree to the use of cookies by YouTube This may include analytics, personalization, and ads.

An ultrathin coating developed by University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers upends a ubiquitous physics phenomenon of materials related to thermal radiation: The hotter an object gets, the brighter it glows. The new coating - engineered from samarium nickel oxide, a unique tunable material - employs a bit of temperature trickery.

From the health benefits of cool roofs to an experiment to search for dark matter, Berkeley Lab researchers did a lot of science! The breadth of science conducted by researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is vast, spanning from fundamental questions about the nature of the universe to solutions for saving energy in our homes and offices.

Researchers at the University of Manchester in collaboration with CMT theorists (M. Andelkovic, S. Milovanovic, L. Covaci and F. Peeters) have uncovered interesting phenomena when multiple two-dimensional materials are combined into van der Waals heterostructures (layered 'sandwiches' of different materials).

Scientists at Berkeley Lab convert diamonds' atomic flaws into atomic sensors with front-row seats to a quantum world of materials under extreme pressure S ince their invention more than 60 years ago, diamond anvil cells have made it possible for scientists to recreate extreme phenomena - such as the crushing pressures deep inside the Earth's mantle - or to enable chemical reactions that can only be triggered by intense pressure, all within the confines of a laboratory apparatus that you can safely hold in the palm of your hand.

By Birgit Baustädter 3D printing is the manufacturing technique of the future. And these are not just empty words: the approach's significance is reflected in numerous examples from a wide variety of disciplines. This article has just been published in our research magazine TU Graz research. You can read or download the latest issue directly as an e-paper.

Imperial College London bioengineers have found a way to create stretchy and squeezy soft sensing devices by bonding rubber to electrical components. Stretchy and squeezy soft sensors that can fit around body parts or squeezed in hands could be used for applications including sports and rehabilitation after injury or stroke.

In work that may have broad implications for the development of new materials for electronics, Caltech scientists for the first time have developed a way to predict how electrons interacting strongly with atomic motions will flow through a complex material. To do so, they relied only on principles from quantum mechanics and developed an accurate new computational method.

Researchers at EPFL's Computational Solid Mechanics Laboratory and the Weizmann Institute of Science have modeled the onset of slip between two bodies in frictional contact. Their work, a major step forward in the study of frictional rupture, could give us a better understanding of earthquakes - including how far and fast they travel.

A material that thickens when you pull on it seems to contradict the laws of physics. However, the so-called auxetic effect, which also occurs in nature, is interesting for a number of applications. A new Empa study recently published in "Nature Communications" shows how this amazing behavior can be improved - and even used to treat injuries and tissue damage.

Infrared technique at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source probes active chemistry at the solid-liquid interface How a liquid interacts with the surface of a solid is important in batteries and fuel cells, chemical production, corrosion phenomena, and many biological processes. To better understand this solid-liquid interface, researchers at Berkeley Lab developed a platform to explore these interactions under real conditions ("in situ") at the nanoscale using a technique that combines infrared light with an atomic force microscopy (AFM) probe.

Every field in science and engineering employs highly specialized equipment: surface area analyzers, nanosizers, recording membrane osmometers. This equipment is often incredibly specific, designed for just a single function, but it's essential for performing accurate, replicable research. And without the ability to replicate the research of other scientists, the validity of science itself falls apart.

Physicists from Switzerland, Germany, and France have found that large-amplitude acoustic waves, launched by ultrashort laser pulses, can dynamically manipulate the optical response of semiconductors. One of the main challenges in materials science research is to achieve high tunability of the optical properties of semiconductors at room temperature.

White blood cells, which release a toxic potion of proteins to kill cancerous and virus-infected cells, are protected from any harm by the physical properties of their cell envelopes, find scientists from UCL and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. Until now, it has been a mystery to scientists how these white blood cells - called cytotoxic lymphocytes - avoid being killed by their own actions and the discovery could help explain why some tumours are more resistant than others to recently developed cancer immunotherapies.

A protective membrane for cardiac pacemakers developed at ETH Zurich has proved successful in animal trials in reducing the undesirable build-up of fibrotic tissue around the implant. The next step is to test the protective membrane in patients. ETH scientists have developed a special protective membrane made of cellulose that significantly reduces the build-up of fibrotic tissue around cardiac pacemaker implants, as reported in the current issue of the journal Biomaterials.