Computers

One Friday evening in 1992, a meteorite ended a more than 150 million-mile journey by smashing into the trunk of a red Chevrolet Malibu in Peekskill, New York. The car's owner reported that the 30-pound remnant of the earliest days of our solar system was still warm and smelled of sulfur. Nearly 30 years later, a new analysis of that same Peekskill meteorite and 17 others by … [Read more...] about Chaotic early solar system collisions resembled ‘Asteroids’ arcade game

A research breakthrough from the University of Virginia School of Engineering demonstrates a new mechanism to control temperature and extend the lifetime of electronic and photonic devices such as sensors, smart phones and transistors. The discovery, from UVA's experiments and simulations in thermal engineering research group, challenges a fundamental assumption about heat … [Read more...] about Engineering discovery challenges heat transfer paradigm that guides electronic and photonic device design

JILA researchers have developed tools to "turn on" quantum gases of ultracold molecules, gaining control of long-distance molecular interactions for potential applications such as encoding data for quantum computing and simulations. The new scheme for nudging a molecular gas down to its lowest energy state, called quantum degeneracy, while suppressing chemical reactions that … [Read more...] about New tools ‘turn on’ quantum gases of ultracold molecules

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have found that graphene-based heat pipes can help solve the problems of cooling electronics and power systems used in avionics, data centres, and other power electronics. "Heat pipes are one of the most efficient tools for this purpose, because of their high efficiency and unique ability to transfer heat over a large … [Read more...] about Cooling electronics efficiently with graphene-enhanced heat pipes

A new tool that uses light to map out the electronic structures of crystals could reveal the capabilities of emerging quantum materials and pave the way for advanced energy technologies and quantum computers, according to researchers at the University of Michigan, University of Regensburg and University of Marburg. A paper on the work is published in Science. Applications … [Read more...] about Mapping quantum structures with light to unlock their capabilities

Instead of inserting a card or scanning a smartphone to make a payment, what if you could simply touch the machine with your finger? A prototype developed by Purdue University engineers would essentially let your body act as the link between your card or smartphone and the reader or scanner, making it possible for you to transmit information just by touching a surface. The … [Read more...] about Tech makes it possible to digitally communicate through human touch

Emotions are complex phenomena that influence our minds, bodies and behaviour. A number of studies have sought to connect given emotions, such as fear or pleasure, to specific areas of the brain, but without success. Some theoretical models suggest that emotions emerge through the coordination of multiple mental processes triggered by an event. These models involve the brain … [Read more...] about Using a video game to understand the origin of emotions

A new machine learning approach offers important insights into catalysis, a fundamental process that makes it possible to reduce the emission of toxic exhaust gases or produce essential materials like fabric. In a report published in Nature Communications, Hongliang Xin, associate professor of chemical engineering at Virginia Tech, and his team of researchers developed a … [Read more...] about Unlocking the secrets of chemical bonding with machine learning

In the last five decades, we've learned a lot about the secret lives of proteins -- how they work, what they interact with, the machinery that makes them function -- and the pace of discovery is accelerating. The first three-dimensional protein structure began emerging in the 1970s. Today, the Protein Data Bank, a worldwide repository of information about the 3D structures of … [Read more...] about Protein storytelling to address the pandemic: New computational tools help characterize protein structures and identify new treatments for COVID-19

Imagine swabbing your nostrils, putting the swab in a device, and getting a read-out on your phone in 15 to 30 minutes that tells you if you are infected with the COVID-19 virus. This has been the vision for a team of scientists at Gladstone Institutes, University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). And now, they report a … [Read more...] about New CRISPR-based test for COVID-19 uses a smartphone camera: The rapid, one-step mobile test could help combat the pandemic and fully reopen communities