Spiral pattern gives clue to how high-mass stars form
New observations have revealed a spiral pattern in a disk of material around a still forming, but already high-mass, baby star.
A motion freezer for many particles
Using lasers to slow down atoms is a technique that has been used for a long time already: If one wants to achieve low-temperature world records in the range of absolute temperature zero, one resorts to laser cooling, in which energy is extracted from the atoms with a suitable laser beam.
Machine learning model speeds up assessing catalysts for decarbonization technology from months to milliseconds
Argonne researchers have developed an artificial intelligence-based model to greatly speed up the process for engineering a low-cost catalyst that converts biomass into fuels and useful chemicals with many possible applications.
Super-fast insect urination powered by the physics of superpropulsion
Sharpshooter insects excrete by catapulting urine droplets at high accelerations. By using computational fluid dynamics and biophysical experiments, the researchers studied the fluidic, energetic, and biomechanical principles of sharpshooter excretion. Their study reveals how an insect smaller than the tip of a pinky finger performs a feat of physics and bioengineering - superpropulsion.
Your Gut's Microbiome, On a Chip
In APL Bioengineering, researchers describe how gut-on-a-chip devices can bridge lab models and human biology. Modeling the microbiome is particularly difficult because of its unique environmental conditions, but through creative design, gut-on-a-chip devices can simulate many of these properties, such as the gut's anaerobic atmosphere, fluid flow, and pulses of contraction/relaxation. Growing intestinal cells in this environment means that they more closely resemble human biology compared to standard laboratory cell cultures.
Galactic explosion offers astrophysicists new insight into the cosmos
Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope's first year of interstellar observation, an international team of researchers was able to serendipitously view an exploding supernova in a faraway spiral galaxy.
Scientists Twist X-Rays with Artificial Spin Crystals
"Twisted" X-ray beams carrying orbital angular momentum hold great promise for imaging and probing materials at the nanoscale. Scientists have now developed and demonstrated a new technique that uses a special patterned array of engineered nanoscale magnets called an artificial spin ice to impart OAM to X-ray beams. The beams can be switched on and off using changes in temperature and magnetic fields.
Applications Open: SPS Partners with Google to Award 20 $2,500 Scholarships to Physics and Astronomy Undergrads
AIP Foundation and the Society of Physics Students have partnered with Google to award up to 20 $2,500 scholarships to physics and astronomy undergraduate students. Applicants must be undergraduate members of SPS and have at least one full semester remaining at the time of the award. The committee will consider applicants' interest and perseverance in physics or astronomy, their effort and potential, and their active participation in their physics department, clubs, and programs outside the classroom. Applications are due March 15/
Mysteries of the Earth: FSU researchers predict how fast ancient magma ocean solidified
Previous research estimated that it took hundreds of million years for the ancient Earth's magma ocean to solidify, but new research from Florida State University published in Nature Communications narrows these large uncertainties down to less than just a couple of million years.
Astronomers discover metal-rich galaxy in early universe
While analyzing data from the first images of a well-known early galaxy taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Cornell University astronomers discovered a companion galaxy previously hidden behind the light of the foreground galaxy -- one that surprisingly seems to have already hosted multiple generations of stars despite its young age, estimated at 1.4 billion years old.
Clear Sign that QGP Production 'Turns Off' at Low Energy
Physicists report new evidence that production of an exotic state of matter in collisions of gold nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) can be 'turned off' by lowering the collision energy. The findings will help physicists map out the conditions of temperature and density under which the exotic matter, known as a quark-gluon plasma (QGP), can exist and identify key features of the phases of nuclear matter.
Shape-Shifting Experiment Challenges Interpretation of How Cadmium Nuclei Move
Atomic nuclei take a range of shapes, from spherical to football-like deformed. Spherical nuclei are often described by the motion of a small fraction of the protons and neutrons, while deformed nuclei tend to rotate as a collective whole. A third kind of motion, nuclear vibration, has been proposed since the 1950s. However, a new investigation of cadmium-106 nuclei found that these nuclei rotate, not vibrate, counter to scientists' expectations.
Unusual atom helps in search for Universe's building blocks
An unusual form of caesium atom is helping a University of Queensland-led research team unmask unknown particles that make up the Universe.
The Biophysical Journal Names Carlas S. Smith the 2022 Paper of the Year-Early Career Investigator Awardee
Carlas S. Smith, PhD, of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands was honored as the recipient of the Biophysical Journal Paper of the Year-Early Career Investigator Award at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, held February 18-22 in San Diego, California. This award recognizes the work of outstanding early career investigators in biophysics.
Newly discovered form of salty ice could exist on surface of extraterrestrial moons
Scientists suspect that the red streaks crossing the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa is a frozen mixture of water and salts, but its chemical signature matches no known substance on Earth. Now researchers have discovered a new type of solid crystal that forms when water and table salt combine in cold, pressurized conditions. Researchers believe the new substance created in a lab on Earth could form at the surface and bottom of these worlds' deep oceans.
When Material Goes Quantum, Electrons Slow Down and Form a Crystal
Moire patterns can occur when scientists stack two-dimensional crystals with mismatched atomic spacings. Moire superlattices display exotic physical properties that are absent in the layers that make up the patterns. Researchers have discovered a new property in the moire superlattices formed in tungsten diselenide/tungsten disulfide crystals, in which the electrons "freeze" and form an ordered array.
Spallation Neutron Source achieves world-record power to enable more discoveries
The Spallation Neutron Source at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory set a world record when its linear accelerator reached an operating power of 1.55 megawatts, which improves on the facility's original design capability.
Mas de mil millones de galaxias brillan en un colosal mapa del cielo
El mapa bidimensional mas grande del cielo hasta la fecha se ha hecho mucho mas grande con la decima publicacion de datos de los estudios DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys: un estudio de seis anos que abarca casi la mitad del cielo. Esta nueva entrega de datos anade una mayor cobertura tanto del cielo como de las longitudes de onda a los estudios existentes realizados con los datos de los telescopios de NOIRLab de NSF en el Observatorio Nacional Kitt Peak (Arizona) y en Cerro Tololo (Chile).
Over One Billion Galaxies Blaze Bright in Colossal Map of the Sky
The largest two-dimensional map of the sky ever made has grown even larger with the tenth data release from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys -- a monumental six-year survey covering nearly half the sky. This new data release adds increased sky and wavelength coverage to the already completed surveys made with data from NSF's NOIRLab telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
Neutrons reveal key to extraordinary heat transport
Warming a crystal of the mineral fresnoite, Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists discovered that excitations called phasons carried heat three times farther and faster than phonons, the excitations that usually carry heat through a material.
Changes of Tibetan religious activities during the past millennium revealed from lake sediments
Xiahe County, located in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, is known as 'Wei Zang Ni Wa', also known as "Little Tibet".
Scientists warn: When restoring historical paintings, be careful with polar solvents
Even small amounts of water can lead to rapid formation of metal soap crystals in historical oil paintings.
Scholarship Application Open for African American Undergraduates Pursuing Physics, Astronomy - Deadline Extended
The TEAM-UP Together Scholarship Program is underway and will continue to accept applications for its next round of need-based scholarships until April 7. The scholarship program is one of TEAM-UP Together's strategies aimed at doubling the number of African Americans earning bachelor's degrees in physics and astronomy by 2030. The awards of $10,000 per academic year are to be used for tuition, fees, or supplies. To apply, students must be African American or Black undergraduates majoring in physics or astronomy at accredited U.S. colleges or universities.
Novel quantum entanglement lets researchers spy on atomic nuclei
Nuclear physicists have found a way to peer inside the deepest recesses of atomic nuclei, according to a new study.
Physicists create new model of ringing black holes
When two black holes collide into each other to form a new bigger black hole, they violently roil spacetime around them, sending ripples called gravitational waves outward in all directions.