Scientists have now found answers to central questions which had previously stood in the way of acoustic propulsion of nanoparticles. Travelling ultrasound waves are suitable for propulsion Ultrasound is used in acoustically propelled nanomachines as it is quite safe for applications in the body. Lead author Johannes Vo? sums up the research carried out so…

Using public data from the entire 1,500-square-mile Los Angeles metropolitan area, researchers reduced the time needed to create a traffic congestion model by an order of magnitude, from hours to minutes. The tool, called TranSEC, was developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to help urban traffic engineers get access to…

Physicists have developed a theory describing how space reflection and time reversal symmetries can be exploited, allowing for greater control of transport and correlations within quantum materials. Two theoretical physicists, from the University of Exeter (United Kingdom) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (in Trondheim, Norway), have built a quantum theory describing a…

Control engineers and AI experts team up to make drones that fly more smoothly close to the ground. At Caltech’s Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST), artificial intelligence experts have teamed up with control experts to develop a system that uses a deep neural network to help autonomous drones «learn» how to land more…

A new special edition of EPJ Special Topics brings together several papers that detail our understanding of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) and the processes that transformed it into the baryonic matter we around us on an everyday basis. Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) is a state of matter which existed only for the briefest of times at the…

Researchers create ‘optically active spin arrays’ within a device that could serve as a node for exchanging photons with distant locations. The research team has designed a nanoscale node made out of magnetic and semiconducting materials that could interact with other nodes, using laser light to emit and accept photons. The development of such a…

A recent study has shed new light on the Minoan system of fractions, one of the outstanding enigmas tied to the ancient writing of numbers. About 3,500 years ago, the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete developed a writing system composed of syllabic signs, called Linear A, which they sometimes used to inscribe offerings…

Scientists have published an analysis laying out how the tiny beads of glass inside many meteorites came to be — and what they can tell us about what happened in the early solar system. Scientists with the University of Chicago have published an analysis laying out how these beads, which are found in many meteorites,…

Astrophysicists have identified the mechanism that powers black hole flares. By employing computer simulations of unparalleled power and resolution, the researchers found that energy released near a black hole’s event horizon during the reconnection of magnetic field lines powers the flares. The findings hint at exciting new possibilities for observing the region just outside a…

An international team of scientists have shown that glycine, the simplest amino acid and an important building block of life, can form under the harsh conditions that govern chemistry in space. The results, published in Nature Astronomy, suggest that glycine, and very likely other amino acids, form in dense interstellar clouds well before they transform…