Hydrogen crosses, water stays: Palladium membrane enables ammonia synthesis using water
A South Korean research team has developed an environmentally friendly ammonia synthesis process that reduces carbon emissions using a membrane that selectively transports hydroge…
Higher-dimensional black holes hide an exact symmetry in their ringing, and string-inspired gravity breaks it
Strike a bell, and it rings with a pitch and a fading that tell you about the bell: its size, its shape, the metal it is made of. Black holes ring too. When two merge, the newborn…
3D-printed scaffolds help turn waste methane into useful chemical using less power than liquid reactors
When landfills and wastewater treatment plants create methane as a byproduct, much of it is simply burned and its value is lost. But the gas is an energy-rich resource that could …
Picosecond pulses push superconductors beyond their critical-current limit
Superconductors can carry electrical current without resistance, but only up to a maximum value known as the critical current. The critical current is a crucial figure of merit fo…
Vertical quantum sensor could reveal nanoscale magnetic patterns in quantum materials
Quantum materials do things ordinary materials cannot. They carry current without any loss, or conduct only along their outer edge while the inside insulates. Future quantum compu…
Physicists define new material blueprint for next-generation microchip encryption
Behind every secure online transaction or encrypted message lies a string of completely unpredictable numbers. A team of physicists has now proposed a theoretical way around a lon…
One-atom-high rails steer superconducting vortices, with temperature and magnetic field tuning their guidance
Researchers at the Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), a center within Japan's National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), discovered that atomic-scale s…
New catalogs map the quantum possibilities of atomically thin materials
Twistronics has become a new alchemy of materials. By choosing atomically thin layers, stacking them and changing their relative angle, researchers can create electronic behavior …
Mistletoe berry glue bonds even nonstick Teflon and can be reactivated with heat
Mistletoe is best known from winter traditions as a symbol of luck and affection. For trees, however, the hemiparasitic plant can be a burden: It draws water and nutrients from it…
Whirlpool in a water tank reveals long-predicted wave turbulence
When water drains from a bathtub, a whirlpool often forms above the drain, and its narrow core can start to wobble and twist. For almost 150 years, physicists have predicted that …
Self-driving lab automates semiconductor ink synthesis and thin-film characterization
Developing new functional materials often requires testing numerous material combinations. Conventional experiments reach their limits quickly when many variants must be compared.…
Starch-based sensor changes color to indicate moisture in food packaging
Brazilian researchers have developed a biodegradable, starch-based sensor that changes color when moisture enters food packaging. With the addition of cobalt chloride, the sensor …
Central surface density of dark matter agrees with the prediction of a new theory of gravity
A researcher from Sejong University has used a new theory of gravity proposed by Erik Verlinde to predict the observed central surface density of dark matter. The study was publis…
Graphene measurements reveal energy-loss and quantum-coherence exponents diverge under gate control
Scientists have shown that the two exponents (inelastic scattering exponent and dephasing exponent) commonly used to describe electron scattering in graphene do not necessarily fo…
Evolved enzymes build tuberculosis antibiotic ingredient in the desired form, potentially reducing waste
Tuberculosis, or TB, is a contagious bacterial infection that primarily affects the lungs. While curative treatments exist, more than 80% of cases occur in low- and middle-income …
Scientists build world's most accurate atomic clock
Take a second and turn it into trillions of moments. Measure each one. That's how precisely an atomic clock at Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) keeps time—and wit…
Quantum device simulates matter popping into existence
A research team led by faculty at the Duke Quantum Center (DQC) has observed string-breaking dynamics related to particle-antiparticle formation on a quantum simulator, among the …
Could negative mass exist and be observed?
Unlike electric charge, as far as we know all mass is positive, and positive masses attract one another. Could negative mass exist, and if so, what would be the ramifications?
Pigeons' proposed inner-ear compass runs into a noise problem
A pigeon turning its head might seem an unlikely electricity generator. Yet one proposed explanation for the bird's magnetic sense depends on exactly that: Turning through Earth's…
AI scans 4.6 million compounds in hours to predict hydrogen positions in drug-like molecules
New York University researchers have trained an AI model to learn chemical patterns associated with stability in drug-like molecules and accurately predict where their hydrogen at…
The secret to a perfect crystal may be a precisely calibrated extra turn
Creating a perfect crystal sounds straightforward: Arrange identical building blocks into a repeating, orderly structure. At the microscopic scale, though, even subtle biases in h…
Physicists crack the math connecting ultraslow quantum magnetism to ultrafast black-hole physics
A team led by University at Buffalo physicists has found a mathematical solution that shows how a frustrated quantum magnet can transition from ultraslow behavior to ultrafast, hi…
From swarming bacteria to tissue cells, living matter defies classic physical models of motion
A new study led by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) reveals that living matter violates previously known physical principles of symmetry when cellular flo…
RHIC data reveal intriguing dip in momentum fluctuations in high-density nuclear matter
Scientists using the STAR detector to study particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have found an intriguing dip in their data in a relatively unexplored…