Category Physics

Have you ever gotten relief from summertime heat by draping a wet towel over your head? If so, you’ve benefited from a phase-change material (PCM): a substance that releases or absorbs energy when it ...

A team of Johns Hopkins University researchers created shock-absorbing material that protects like a metal, but is lighter, stronger, reusable. The new foam-like material could be a game-changer for helmets, body armor, and automobile and aerospace parts.

“We are excited about our findings on the extreme energy absorption capability of the new material,” said senior author Sung Hoon Kang, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “The material offers more protection from a wide range of impacts, but being lighter could reduce fuel consumption and the environmental impact of vehicles while being more comfortable for protective gear wearers.”

Kang, wh...

Researchers have made tiny ‘skyscrapers’ for communities of bacteria, helping them to generate electricity from just sunlight and water.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used 3D printing to create grids of high-rise ‘nano-housing’ where sun-loving bacteria can grow quickly. The researchers were then able to extract the bacteria’s waste electrons, left over from photosynthesis, which could be used to power small electronics.

Other research teams have extracted energy from photosynthetic bacteria, but the Cambridge researchers have found that providing them with the right kind of home increases the amount of energy they can extract by over an order of magnitude...

Physicists’ research findings open a promising avenue for confirming the quantum origin of the Hawking radiation. LSU physicists have leveraged quantum information theory techniques to reveal a mechanism for amplifying, or “stimulating,” the production of entanglement in the Hawking effect in a controlled manner. Furthermore, these scientists propose a protocol for testing this idea in the laboratory using artificially produced event horizons...