Blog

When heated to just above room temperature, the electrical conductivity of vanadium dioxide (VO2) abruptly increases by a factor of 10,000. Experiments coupled with high-performance computation reveal how the unusually large lattice vibrations, which are the oscillations of atoms about their equilibrium positions, stabilize this highly conductive metallic phase.

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers working in Australia has found that bright coloring on female birds appears to be a reproductive disadvantage. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the team describes how they tested predation of red-capped plover eggs and discovered that enhanced coloring by the parent tending the nest, made the eggs a more likely target, at least during the day.

(Phys.org)—It was another good week for physics as a team of researchers with the University of Waterloo found that a photon “afterglow” could transmit information without transmitting energy—though the receiver must expend energy to read that information. Also good news for physicists trying to solve the “information loss paradox”—a team of researchers has found a way to show that black holes don’t erase information—they claim that interactions between particles emitted by a black hole can be used to reveal information about material that “disappeared” inside of it

When you can turn your phone into a pocket-sized scanner you know you’re in business, a capability that is quite useful for anyone who needs to walk in and out of collaborative meetings to seed and complete projects. Written or even keyboarded notes of meeting “minutes” pale when compared to an actual saved picture of the whiteboard tale of proceedings, where arguments and counter-arguments from the group resulted in ideas planted, cross-linked with other ideas, expanded, redirected into action steps, and so on.

A proposed pathway to construct quantum computers may be the outcome of research by a University of Oklahoma physics team that has created a new molecule based on the interaction between a highly-excited type of atom known as a Rydberg atom and a ground-state atom. A unique property of the molecule is the large permanent dipole moment, which reacts with an electric field much like a bar magnet reacts with a magnetic field.

By modifying the CRISPR-Cas genome editing system, Whitehead Institute researchers are now able to manipulate Candida albicans’ genome systematically—an approach that could help identify novel targets for therapies against this serious pathogen for which there are a limited number of anti-fungal agents.

We’d like to believe that our opinions are nuanced, balanced, high-minded, wise and above all, unique, but alas they are not—or so says Twitter. Most often, those we engage with on the popular social media site are like-minded, and the ensuing electronic maelstrom of 140-character missives most often serves to reinforce, pulling us and them further along in the direction we were already trending toward—so that at the end of the day, we all tweet to the converted.

The natural, untreated cotton in tampons readily absorbs chemicals commonly used in toilet paper, laundry detergents and shampoos. These chemicals – known as optical brighteners -are used to enhance whites and brighten colours, and show up under ultra-violet (UV) light, a phenomenon often seen in glowing t-shirts under certain lighting in bars and clubs.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), writing about GPS, said: “The military relies heavily on the Global Positioning System (GPS) for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), but GPS access is easily blocked by methods such as jamming. In addition, many environments in which our military operates (inside buildings, in urban canyons, under dense foliage, underwater, and underground) have limited or no GPS access.” This raises the questions of what DARPA plans as a step up

Scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Institutes of Health have devised and demonstrated a new, shape-shifting probe, about one-hundredth as wide as a human hair, which is capable of sensitive, high-resolution remote biological sensing that is not possible with current technology.