Computers

The internet seems like the place to go to get into fights. Whether they're with a family member or a complete stranger, these arguments have the potential to destroy important relationships and consume a lot of emotional energy. Researchers at the University of Washington worked with almost 260 people to understand these disagreements and to develop potential design … [Read more...] about How to make online arguments productive

In physics, things exist in "phases," such as solid, liquid, gas. When something crosses from one phase to another, we talk about a "phase transition" -- think about water boiling into steam, turning from liquid to gas. In our kitchens water boils at 100oC, and its density changes dramatically, making a discontinuous jump from liquid to gas. However, if we turn up the pressure, … [Read more...] about Water and quantum magnets share critical physics

Research breakthrough in understanding how neural systems process and store information. A team of scientists from the University of Exeter and the University of Auckland have made a breakthrough in the quest to better understand how neural systems are able to process and store information. The researchers, including lead author Dr Kyle Wedgwood from the University of Exeter's … [Read more...] about Research breakthrough in understanding how neural systems process and store information

Inspired by the workings of a bat's ear, Rolf Mueller, a professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, has created bio-inspired technology that determines the location of a sound's origin. Mueller's development works from a simpler and more accurate model of sound location than previous approaches, which have traditionally been modeled after the human ear. His work … [Read more...] about Researcher uses bat-inspired design to develop new approach to sound location

A team of researchers from QuTech in the Netherlands reports realization of the first multi-node quantum network, connecting three quantum processors. In addition, they achieved a proof-of-principle demonstration of key quantum network protocols. Their findings mark an important milestone towards the future quantum internet and have now been published in Science. The quantum … [Read more...] about Entanglement-based quantum network

Gas accidents such as toxic gas leakage in factories, carbon monoxide leakage of boilers, or toxic gas suffocation during manhole cleaning continue to claim lives and cause injuries. Developing a sensor that can quickly detect toxic gases or biochemicals is still an important issue in public health, environmental monitoring, and military sectors. Recently, a research team at … [Read more...] about Wearable sensors that detect gas leaks

New research shows how to measure the super-short bursts of high-frequency light emitted from free electron lasers (FELs). By using the light-induced ionization itself to create a femtosecond optical shutter, the technique encodes the electric field of the FEL pulse in a visible light pulse so that it can be measured with a standard, slow, visible-light camera. "This work has … [Read more...] about New method measures super-fast, free electron laser pulses: Using photoionization as an ultrafast, optical shutter, slow visible-light cameras can measure femtosecond extreme ultraviolet laser pulses

When temperatures drop below zero degrees Celsius, water turns to ice. But does everything actually freeze if you just cool it down enough? In the classical picture, matter inherently becomes solid at low temperatures. Quantum mechanics can, however, break this rule. Therefore, helium gas, for example, can become liquid at -270 degrees, but never solid under atmospheric … [Read more...] about Experiments cast doubts on the existence of quantum spin liquids

The electronic properties of solid materials are highly dependent on crystal structures and their dimensionalities (i.e., whether the crystals have predominantly 2D or 3D structures). As Professor Takayoshi Katase of Tokyo Institute of Technology notes, this fact has an important corollary: "If the crystal structure dimensionality can be switched reversibly in the same … [Read more...] about Giant electronic conductivity change driven by artificial switch of crystal dimensionality

In 2018, when Professor Laurie Santos introduced her course "Psychology and the Good Life," a class on the science of happiness, it became the most popular in the history of Yale, attracting more than 1,200 undergraduate enrollees that first semester. An online course based on those teachings became a global phenomenon. By latest count, 3.38 million people have enrolled to take … [Read more...] about How to gain a sense of well-being, free and online