Astronomers at the University of Iowa have determined our galaxy is surrounded by a clumpy halo of hot gases that is continually being supplied with material ejected by birthing or dying stars. The halo also may be where matter unaccounted for since the birth of the universe may reside. Photo courtesy of Christien Nielsen/Unsplash.
ETH researchers are making chocolates shimmer in rainbow colors without the addition of colorants. They have found a way to imprint a special structure on the surface of the chocolate to create a targeted color effect.
Traditional methods for coloring chocolate have been around for a long time. But the ETH researchers are able to create the rainbow effect without artificial colorants. The effect is achieved simply through a surface imprint that produces what the scientists refer to as a structural color. The process is similar to a chameleon, whose skin surface modulates and disperses light to display specific colors.
The story begins in the shared corridor of a university building. The food scientist Patrick Rühs, the materials scientist Etienne Jeoffroy and the physicist Henning Galinski chat about chocolate during their coffee break. Although they work in different research groups, their offices are next to each other. They wonder how—and whether—it might be possible to make colored chocolate. Rühs is studying the material properties of foodstuffs, Jeoffroy specializes in complex materials and Galinski has already done in-depth research into optical materials.
Researchers have designed a material that can act as a superconductor in a room heated to close to 60 degrees Fahrenheit — the warmest temperature yet.
Homeland Security might soon have a new tool to add to its arsenal.
Researchers at Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory have developed a new material that opens doors for a new class of neutron detectors.
With the ability to sense smuggled nuclear materials, highly efficient neutron detectors are critical for national security. Currently, there are two classes of detectors which either use helium gas or flashes of light. These detectors are very large — sometimes the size of a wall.
Graphene out garbage?
A recent breakthrough promises to make graphene out of garbage in a flash.
A major new milestone has just been achieved in the quest for superconductivity. For the first time, physicists have achieved the resistance-free flow of an electrical current at room temperature — a positively balmy 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit).
This has smashed the previous record of −23 degrees Celsius (−9.4 degrees Fahrenheit), and has brought the prospect of functional superconductivity a huge step forward.
“Because of the limits of low temperature, materials with such extraordinary properties have not quite transformed the world in the way that many might have imagined,” physicist Ranga Dias of the University of Rochester said in a press statement.
With NASA getting ready to land a spacecraft on the asteroid Bennu in just a few short days, the mysterious space rock is already revealing some of its secrets, including the presence of carbon-bearing materials.
Several studies were published on the matter in the journals Science and Science Advances, noting that carbon-bearing, organic material is “widespread” on the surface of the asteroid. This includes the area where NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will take its first sample from, known as Nightingale, on Oct. 20.
“The abundance of carbon-bearing material is a major scientific triumph for the mission. We are now optimistic that we will collect and return a sample with organic material – a central goal of the OSIRIS-REx mission,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson, in a statement.
Physicists have reached a long-sought goal. The catch is that their room-temperature superconductor requires crushing pressures to keep from falling apart.
MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems developed and tested a high-temperature superconductor technology (HTS) cable that can be engineered into the high-performance magnets for tokamaks like SPARC.
Colder, Colder…
The process of sintering, or bonding the metals that make up the flexible circuits, usually happens at 572 degrees Fahrenheit.
“The skin surface cannot withstand such a high temperature, obviously,” Penn State engineer and lead author Hanyu “Larry” Cheng said in a press release. “To get around this limitation, we proposed a sintering aid layer — something that would not hurt the skin and could help the material sinter together at a lower temperature.”
