News
New hydrogel could transform wearable medical devices
3+ hour, 15+ min ago (1188+ words) Researchers at MIT created a new kind of hydrogel, a soft, water-rich material that behaves much like conventional hydrogels but also allows air to move through it. (CREDIT: Felice Frankel) A medical patch is supposed to protect skin, not suffocate…...
Physicists discover the upper limit of electrical resistance in metals
3+ week, 6+ day ago (995+ words) Ultracold potassium atoms reveal that collision-driven resistivity can saturate, clarifying a long-running puzzle in transport physics. (CREDIT: AI-generated image / The Brighter Side of News) Electrical resistance is easy to notice and hard to pin down. Power lines shed energy as…...
The astonishing amount of energy locked inside ordinary matter
1+ mon, 3+ week ago (1490+ words) Ordinary matter looks solid and calm, but atomic nuclei hold immense energy locked behind powerful forces. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0) Matter looks calm and solid, but its atoms hold immense energy locked inside tiny nuclei. That hidden reserve rarely escapes…...
Researchers turn sunlight and CO2 into living biomass
1+ mon, 3+ week ago (1341+ words) Researchers developed a semiartificial leaf that uses sunlight, carbon dioxide and engineered bacteria to grow living biomass. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) Carbon dioxide has long looked more like waste than resource. A new solar reactor turns it into living bacterial biomass using…...
New type of stainless steel pulls hydrogen directly out of seawater
2+ mon, 4+ day ago (1190+ words) New stainless steel from Hong Kong could make green hydrogen cheaper by replacing costly, corrosion-resistant materials. (CREDIT: Hong Kong University (HKU)) Green hydrogen has long been sold as one of the clean energy economy’s most important tools. It can be…...
New AI tool can generate millions of new molecules
2+ mon, 1+ week ago (1052+ words) AI model CoCoGraph generated millions of new, chemically valid molecules that could speed drug and materials discovery. (CREDIT: AI-generated image / The Brighter Side of News) Chemists have long faced a maddening problem. The number of possible useful molecules is so…...
Historic discovery shows atoms can exist in two places at once
3+ mon, 5+ day ago (906+ words) ANU physicists observed entanglement in moving helium atoms, a step toward testing quantum physics with massive particles. (CREDIT: Adobe Stock) A cloud of helium atoms split, scattered and fell under gravity, yet still behaved as if its parts were linked....
New form of friction arises purely from magnetic interactions - no contact required
3+ mon, 1+ week ago (765+ words) A new study reveals friction can arise without contact, driven by magnetic dynamics that challenge a centuries-old physics law. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) Friction usually announces itself through contact. A chair scraping across a floor, a tire gripping asphalt, a hand sliding…...
Hard truth: Here's the reason most lithium-ion batteries fail
4+ mon, 1+ day ago (692+ words) Close-up view of the top of the sample transfer box (top door open), showing that the lithium dendrite was transferred using a micromanipulator tip (a sharp silver needle) from the brown copper transmission electron microscopy grids to the Rice micromechanical…...
New chemical process uses sunlight to turn plastic pollution into vinegar
4+ mon, 6+ day ago (777+ words) Dr. Wu demonstrates a way to tackle plastic pollution while simultaneously producing valuable chemicals. (CREDIT: University of Waterloo) Sunlight hits tiny particles of plastic floating in a clear water solution. Slowly, they begin to disappear, leaving behind a familiar household…...