science wire

In the future, delivering therapeutic drugs exactly where they are needed within the body could be the task of miniature robots. Not little metal humanoid or even bio-mimicking robots; think instead of tiny bubble-like spheres. Such robots would have a long and challenging list of requirements. For example, they would need to survive in bodily fluids, such as stomach acids, and be controllable, so they could be directed precisely to targeted sites.

Study: Training all-mechanical neural networks for task learning through in situ backpropagation (DOI:10.1038/s41467-024-54849-z) It's easy to think that machine learning is a completely digital phenomenon, made possible by computers and algorithms that can mimic brain-like behaviors. But the first machines were analog and now, a small but growing body of research is showing that mechanical systems are capable of learning, too.

Zooming in to the "pixels of reality": the electron microscope helps us to do that. However, it is unsuited for particularly sensitive targets.

First-Reported Device -Improves Resolution and Penetration Depth Of Optical Imaging Techniques for Biomedical Applications-'- SAN FRANCISCO - Dec.

New research finds hard carbon in rice hull ash, providing a cheap, domestic source of the material that can replace graphite in lithium-ion or sodium-ion battery anodes Study: An unexpected source of hard carbon, rice hull ash, provides unexpected Li+ storage capacities (DOI: 10.1002/adsu.

MIT chemical engineers have devised a way to capture methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and convert it into polymers. Although it is less abundant than carbon dioxide, methane gas contributes disproportionately to global warming because it traps more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, due to its molecular structure.

In the 1930s, Caltech astronomer Fritz Zwicky would brave the chill atop Palomar Mountain near San Diego to peer through a small survey telescope in search of eruptions in the night sky.

The researchers will use their grants to unravel the mysteries of materials and their properties. TU/e researchers Shuxia Tao and Nikolay Kosinov have received an ERC Consolidator Grant worth 2 million euros from the European Research Council (ERC).

This new device uses light to perform the key operations of a deep neural network on a chip, opening the door to high-speed processors that can learn in real-time.

After years of research, TU/e scientists Jom Luiten and Peter Mutsaers and their team have successfully generated high-quality hard X-rays with a compact device.

German Research Foundation continues funding of the University of Münster's collaborations on "Imaging inflammation" and "Intelligent matter" Two Collaborative Research Centres (CRC) at the Universit

News from A team of physics educators from Italy, Hungary, Slovenia and Germany is focusing on a new approach to teaching quantum physics in schools.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow are lending their expertise to a new European Principal investigator Dr Mohammad Yazdani-Asrami and co-investigator Dr Wenjuan Song, of the James Watt School

An artist's concept of NASA's Europa Clipper shows the spacecraft in silhouette against Europa's surface, with the magnetometer boom fully deployed at top and the antennas for the radar instrument extending out from the solar arrays.

Using energyand resource-saving methods, a research team at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at TU Graz aims to produce high-quality doped silicon layers for the electronics and solar industries.

Organic semiconductors represent a transformative technology that bridges traditional electronics with the versatility of organic materials. They make flexible, wearable devices and next-generation displays possible. Crystallizable organic semiconductors (COS) represent a subset of organic electronic materials that have garnered substantial attention in recent years due to their unique properties and potential applications.

Albert Einstein's transformational prediction about how gravity behaves has been backed by an international team of researchers who studied how the force acts on cosmic scales.

Markus Markl is a theoretical physicist at TU Graz working on nuclear fusion - a clean form of energy that we want to copy from the sun.

Building off the first analyses of the largest 3D map of the universe released earlier this year, scientists working with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) have pulled additional information from the map.

The Lincoln Laboratory-developed laser communications payload operates at the data rates required to image these never-before-seen thin halos of light.

Professor of the practice Alan Lightman's new book digs into the wonder of striking visual phenomena in nature.

Carnegie Mellon physicists use AI to analyze large datasets from experiments, predict complex physical phenomena and optimize simulations The long-standing interplay between artificial intelligence an

The startup SiPhox, founded by two former MIT researchers, has developed an integrated photonic chip for high-quality, home-based blood testing.

The HU neuroscientist wants to develop methods for analysing large brains using the elephant brain as an example.

Nano-scale changes in structure can help optimise ion exchange membranes for use in devices such as flow batteries. Research that will help fine-tune a new class of ion exchange membranes has been published in Nature * by researchers at Imperial, supported by colleagues at a range of other institutions.

Yale physicist Eduardo H. da Silva Neto led an experiment that supports the existence of a new type of superconductor.

Two quantum information theorists at the University of Sydney Nano Institute have solved a decades-old problem that will require fewer qubits to suppress more errors in quantum hardware.

ETH Professor Yiwen Chu is investigating how to apply quantum states to ever larger objects. This should help to gain new insights into physics and develop more efficient technologies.

A photon detector module designed, assembled and programmed at University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) launched into space earlier this week aboard a SpaceX flight and will soon arrive at the International Space Station.

Key Takeaways Researchers at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have taken direct images of the Wigner molecular crystal, a new quantum phase of an electron solid. Wigner molecular crystals are important because they may exhibit novel transport and spin properties that could be useful for future quantum technologies such as quantum simulations.