Category Physics

Engineers have designed a new system that can help cool buildings in crowded metropolitan areas without consuming electricity, an important innovation at a time when cities are working to adapt to climate change.

The system consists of a special material – an inexpensive polymer/aluminum film – that’s installed inside a box at the bottom of a specially designed solar “shelter.” The film helps to keep its surroundings cool by absorbing heat from the air inside the box and transmitting that energy through the Earth’s atmosphere into outer space...

Insect-sized device scurries at the speed of a cockroach and can withstand the weight of a human...

Device also can serve as robotic skin, relaying information back to the user. Wearable human-machine interfaces – devices that can collect and store important health information about the wearer, among other uses – have benefited from advances in electronics, materials and mechanical designs. But current models still can be bulky and uncomfortable, and they can’t always handle multiple functions at one time.

Researchers reported Friday, Aug. 2, the discovery of a multifunctional ultra-thin wearable electronic device that is imperceptible to the wearer.

The device allows the wearer to move naturally and is less no...

Physicists conducted experiments to explore superconductivity in a groundbreaking new material known as magic-angle twisted graphene. The team imaged electrons on the material’s surface and found that electrons interact with each other in ways that could help explain how superconductivity arises in this material.

In spring 2018, the surprising discovery of superconductivity in a new material s...