Category Technology/Electronics

Illustration of the polar directions in relaxor-ferroelectric solid solutions where a small amount of polar nanoregions embedded in a long-range ferroelectric domain leads to dramatically enhanced piezoelectric and dielectric properties. Credit: Xiaoxing Cheng/ Penn State

All ferroelectric materials possess piezoelectricity in which an applied mechanical force can generate an electrical current and an applied electrical field can elicit a mechanical response. Ferroelectric materials are used in a wide variety of industrial applications, from ultrasound and sonar to capacitors, transducers, vibration sensors and ultrasensitive infrared cameras...

Researchers created an optomechanical silicon bullseye disk that traps optical waves in the outermost ring via total internal reflection while the radial groves confine the mechanical waves to the same area. Credit: Thiago P. Mayer Alegre, University of Campinas

Trapping light and mechanical waves within a tiny bullseye, design could enable more sensitive motion detection. The new device is highly customizable and compatible with commercial manufacturing processes. Optomechanical devices use light to detect movement. They can be used as low-power, efficient building blocks for the accelerometers that detect the orientation and movement of a smart phone or that trigger a car’s airbag to deploy split seconds after an accident...

Speedy mini-apps are designed to address depression and anxiety

A novel suite of 13 speedy mini-apps called IntelliCare resulted in participants reporting significantly less depression and anxiety by using the apps on their smartphones up to 4 times a day, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study. The apps offer exercises to de-stress, reduce self-criticism and worrying, methods to help your life feel more meaningful, mantras to highlight your strengths, strategies for a good night’s sleep and more. Most apps designed for mental health typically offer a single strategy to feel better or provide too many features that make them difficult to navigate.

But participants robustly used the IntelliCare interactive apps an average of 195 times for 8 weeks of the study...

1. The northern clingfish (Gobiesox maeandricus) lives in Pacific Northwest waters, where it seeks out prey in the crashing waves of the intertidal Credit: Petra Ditsche 2. Credit: Christina Linkem

To create prototype suction cups that are capable of glomming onto rough, wet surfaces and staying there, Ditsche has found inspiration in clingfish. On the rocky shores of Washington State, clingfish maneuver over rocks to prey on limpets – dime-sized, snail-like invertebrates. A limpet is covered by a shell shield that hides soft organs, which are fair game if the predatory clingfish can pop it off the rock. Yet the clingfish faces its own foe: heavy forces from incoming waves that threaten to slosh it off the rocks as it searches for food...