Scientists have successfully tested new neuroprosthetic technology that combines robotic control with users’ voluntary control, opening avenues in the new interdisciplinary field of shared control for neuroprosthetic technologies. The technology merges two concepts from two different fields. Implementing them both together had never been done before for robotic hand control, and contributes to the emerging…

New research provides a closer look at a nearby star thought to resemble our young Sun. The work allows scientists to better understand what our Sun may have been like when it was young, and how it may have shaped the atmosphere of our planet and the development of life on Earth. Many people dream…

Researchers have developed a gene switch that can be operated with the green LED light emitted by commercial smartwatches. This revolutionary approach could be used to treat diabetes in the future. These watches have become extremely popular. A team of ETH researchers now wants to capitalise on that popularity by using the LEDs to control…

Numbers like pi, e and phi often turn up in unexpected places in science and mathematics. Pascal’s triangle and the Fibonacci sequence also seem inexplicably widespread in nature. Then there’s the Riemann zeta function, a deceptively straightforward function that has perplexed mathematicians since the 19th century. The most famous quandary, the Riemann hypothesis, is perhaps…

Astronomers can’t touch the stars they study, but an astrophysicist is using 3-dimensional models that fit in the palm of her hand to unravel the structural complexities of stellar nurseries, the vast clouds of gas and dust where star formation occurs. Astronomers created the models using data from simulations of star-forming clouds and a sophisticated…

Researchers have developed a type of processor called PAXEL, a device that can potentially bypass Moore’s Law and increase the speed and efficiency of computing. Researchers looked at using light for the data transport step in integrated circuits, since photons are not subject to Moore’s Law. Instead of integrated electronic circuits, much new development now…

Scientists have boosted the efficiency and scalability of perovskite solar cells by replacing their electron-transport layers with a thin layer of quantum dots. One of the obstacles facing the commercialization of perovskite solar cells is that their power-conversion efficiency and operational stability drop as they scale up, making it a challenge to maintain high performance…

A detailed reconstruction of meteorite impacts resolves a longstanding problem and gives new insight into how the moon formed. Despite their common origin there are curious differences between the Earth and moon. Elements such as gold, iridium, platinum and palladium (known as highly siderophile or ‘iron-loving’ elements) are relatively scarce on the moon compared to…

NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has confirmed, for the first time, water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places. SOFIA has detected water molecules (H2O) in Clavius Crater, one of the largest craters visible…

The first demonstration of an approach that inverts the standard paradigm of scanning probe microscopy raises the prospect of force sensing at the fundamental limit. Tail wagging the dog Doing force microscopy by ‘vibrating the table under the finger’ may look like making the entire procedure a whole lot more complicated. In a sense it…