Chemists design extra-sticky adhesives that degrade on command
A good adhesive is unequivocally sticky. A great adhesive is sticky until you don't want it to be sticky anymore—a label on cardboard until it's time to recycle it. Medical tape o…
Physicists test the weak equivalence principle in an orbiting space station
The weak equivalence principle (WEP) is central to Einstein's general relativity. It posits that gravity must accelerate everything equally, regardless of what it is made from. Fo…
Temperature emerges as a control for topological properties of materials
Spin-orbit coupling (SOC), an interaction between an electron's spin and its motion, plays a key role in creating topological insulators—unusual materials that are insulating in t…
New research could improve detection of chiral molecules in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology
Ohio University Distinguished Professor Alexander Govorov of the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Nanoscale and Quantum Phenomena Institute (NQPI) in the College of Art…
New high-temperature, high-pressure isotope ratio analysis method developed for halogenated compounds
Halogenated organic compounds (HOCs) are widely used in industrial and consumer products, but some are highly persistent and difficult to analyze and manage. In a new study, resea…
A roadmap for animal-free chemical testing
For many years, the European Union has pursued a policy aimed at the replacement, reduction and refinement of animal testing (the 3Rs principle). To put the ethical principle of t…
A sustainable flame retardant derived from corn steep liquor
Certain phosphorus compounds are highly effective at suppressing fires, which is why they are widely used in flame retardants. Phosphorus, however, is a finite resource. Estimates…
Larger catalyst batches could make carbon recycling cheaper and easier to scale
Turning carbon dioxide into industrial chemicals used in everything from synthetic fuels to plastics and pharmaceuticals is costly. But new research shows it does not have to be.
Tests reveal how thermoplastic composites lose strength at elevated temperatures
Researchers from Skoltech together with colleagues from Xi'an Jiaotong University and the Blagonravov Institute of Mechanical Engineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences, have …
First measurement of low-energy solar neutrinos scattering off electrons
Every second, tens of billions of neutrinos produced by nuclear fusion in the sun pass through every square centimeter of Earth—and through our bodies—almost without interacting. …
Ten-channel photonic interface links neutral-atom qubits in parallel
A research group in Japan has demonstrated a world-record 10-channel multiplexed quantum photonic interface based on an integrated waveguide array, a key technology for optically …
Experiment sees surprising result in search for dark matter
For the better part of a century, people have been trying to understand dark matter. This invisible substance makes up roughly 85% of the mass in the universe but has never been d…
Ultrafast snapshots reveal the first moments on the way from light to electricity
Physicists at the University of Graz (Austria), in collaboration with colleagues from Marburg University and Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany), have achieved a scientific breakth…
Food innovation in your kitchen: Giving peas, beans and lentils a surprisingly meat-like bite
Separating things and then putting them back together is a common principle in industrial food production. Agricultural raw materials are broken down into their individual constit…
Faint far-infrared radiation drives a correlated insulator-to-metal transition in magic-angle graphene
One of the central ideas in modern physics is the phase transition—a sudden transformation of the state of a material. We encounter phase transitions throughout everyday life: wat…
Organic crystal reveals how Joule heating stabilizes resistive switching
Metal-insulator transitions (MITs), in which a material changes from a metallic state with low resistivity to an insulating state because of a change in an external parameter, suc…
New method swaps single atom in a molecule to speed drug discovery
Swapping out one letter in a word can entirely change its meaning. Similarly, swapping one atom in a molecule can completely change its identity. A group of chemists at the Univer…
Why do some proteins accumulate even on protein-resistant surfaces?
Proteins with exposed arginine can selectively accumulate even on protein-resistant coatings, as reported by researchers from Science Tokyo. Through an in-depth analysis of which …
Researchers make non-recyclable flame-retardant EV composites recyclable
Korean researchers have developed a recyclable flame-retardant composite that overcomes a fundamental limitation of conventional flame-retardant composites, which cannot be recycl…
Chemists develop method for the synthesis of natural compounds with potential in medicine
A team of scientists from the Department of Organic Chemistry at the Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, has reported a new method that simplifies the preparation of c…
Metamaterials may enable invisibility cloaks, thinner lenses and smarter wireless networks
Who has not dreamed of an invisibility cloak like the one used by Harry Potter? It sounds like magic, but it could become reality with the help of so-called metamaterials. In the …
Why innovative 'bio‑materials' are still more sci‑fi than fashion revolution
Walk around any major fashion exhibition and you might get the impression that biofabricated materials are about to transform fashion. Grown using living organisms, they're often …
Physicists take Hall effect in a new direction
Carnegie Mellon University scientists have uncovered a new phenomenon that challenges a longstanding assumption about how electronic materials respond to magnetic fields. The disc…
AI streamlines search for new ceramics that generate electricity
A tedious process of trial and error is normally required to discover ceramic materials that generate electricity under mechanical stress. Known as piezoelectric ceramics, these v…