Fractionating DNA—from hours to minutes
Researchers of the University of Twente in The Netherlands developed a glass microchip for ultrafast separation and purification of DNA fragments. The chip, moreover, is easy to produce and cheap. The...
View ArticleAmmonia on-demand? Alternative production method for a sustainable future
Our society is in need of ammonia more than ever. Chemical fertilizers, plastic, fibers, pharmaceuticals, refrigerants in heat pumps, and even explosives all use ammonia as raw material. Moreover,...
View ArticlePrototype device enables photon-photon interactions at room temperature for...
Ordinarily, light particles—photons—don't interact. If two photons collide in a vacuum, they simply pass through each other.
View ArticleScientists develop innovative, atomic resonance-based method to measure...
In the last decades, mobile phones and other wireless devices have become central features of life around the globe. These devices radiate varied amounts of electromagnetic energy and thus project...
View ArticleStudy demonstrates a better way to store renewable energy
In an effort to find better ways to store renewable energy, physicists at the University of Arkansas, in collaboration with a scientist at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, have...
View ArticleElectrocaloric refrigerator offers alternative way to cool everything from...
(Phys.org)—Researchers have built an electrocaloric refrigerator the size of a beverage coaster that can generate a temperature difference of about 2 K between the hot and cold ends of the device. The...
View ArticleTiny 'tornado' boosts performance of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry
Adding the equivalent of a miniature tornado to the interface between electrospray ionization (ESI) and a mass spectrometer (MS) has allowed researchers to improve the sensitivity and detection...
View ArticleUsing an electric charge to make tiny fluid droplets look like Saturn
(Phys.org)—A pair of researchers at Brown University has found that it is possible to induce a drop of fluid to emit smaller droplets in a way that resembles the planet Saturn with its rings. In their...
View ArticleSurprise discovery in the search for energy efficient information storage
Today almost all information stored on hard disc drives or cloud servers is recorded in magnetic media, because it is non-volatile (i.e. it retains the information when power is switched off) and...
View ArticleShock front probed by protons
A shock front is usually considered as a simple discontinuity in density or pressure. Yet in strongly shocked gases, the atoms are ionized into electrons and ions. The large difference in the electron...
View ArticleHow home security resembles dancing honeybees
The earliest forms of biological communication between single-celled organisms have survived evolution to exist in all species, including humans.
View ArticleCarving diamonds for optical components
Thanks to a new technique developed at EPFL, optical diffraction gratings can now be made out of pure diamond, with their surfaces smoothed down to the very last atom. These new devices can be used to...
View ArticleThe turbulent healing powers of plasma
Researchers are starting to discover the curing powers of plasma—bringing the ion-based form of matter into medical realms. A kind of plasma called non-equilibrium atmospheric pressure plasma can help...
View ArticleNew analysis explains role of defects in metal oxides
Sometimes things that are technically defects, such as imperfections in a material's crystal lattice, can actually produce changes in properties that open up new kinds of useful applications. New...
View ArticleA new way to enhance the capacity of memory devices
A Tomsk Polytechnic University study reveals how topological vortices found in low-dimensional materials can be both displaced and erased and restored again by the electrical field within...
View ArticleChemically stabilizing atomically flat materials improves their potential for...
Two-dimensional materials could underpin a novel family of flexible, low-power electronic devices, but their success depends on ensuring the layers are chemically stable. A*STAR researchers now show...
View ArticleResearchers get straight to the heart of piezoelectric tissues
For years, scientists have wondered whether the heart and adjacent vessels might have evolved to be piezoelectric, meaning that the tissue can generate an electrical charge when squeezed. They thought...
View ArticleJILA spinning method confirms the electron still seems round
JILA physicists have for the first time used their spinning molecules technique to measure the "roundness" of the electron, confirming the leading results from another group and suggesting that more...
View ArticleElectric field boost to water flow potentially offers alternative water...
Applying an electric field to water in a naturally occurring protein substantially boosts the flow of the liquid and opens up the possibility of delivering more efficient water treatment technology,...
View ArticleTurning a pinch of salt into an electrical switch
A team of scientists from the University of Liverpool, University College London and the University of Zaragoza in Spain has discovered a way to induce and control a fundamental electrical switching...
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