Schematic of the structure and the fabrication process of a spine-like battery. (a) Schematic illustration of bio-inspired design, the vertebrae correspond to thick stacks of electrodes and soft marrow corresponds to unwound part that interconnects all the stacks. (b) the process to fabricate the spine-like battery, multilayers of electrodes were first cut into designed shape, then strips extending out were wound around the backbone to form spine-like structure. Credit: Yuan Yang/Columbia Engineering

Shaped like a spine, new design enables remarkable flexibility, high energy density, and stable voltage no matter how it is flexed or twisted...

Centaurus A, an elliptical galaxy 13 million light-years from Earth, hosts a group of dwarf satellite galaxies co-rotating in a narrow disk, a distribution not predicted by dark-matter-influenced cosmological models. Credit: Christian Wolf and the SkyMapper team / Australian National University

An international team has determined that Centaurus A, a massive elliptical galaxy 13 million light-years from Earth, is accompanied by a number of dwarf satellite galaxies orbiting the main body in a narrow disk. This is the first time such a galactic arrangement has been observed outside the Local Group, home to the Milky Way...

Jean-Phillipe MacLean works in his lab. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Waterloo

Scientists at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo have captured the first images of ultrafast photons that are energy-time entangled. The new technique will have direct applications for quantum cryptography and communication protocols, including the possibility for establishing highly secure communication channels over long distances. “This technique will allow us to explore all sorts of quantum effects that were inaccessible because the detectors were simply too slow,” said Jean-Philippe MacLean, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science.

To capture one of the shortest quantum events possible, t...

Printing a liquid-filled foam and including living cells. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Twente

Using a new technique they call ‘in-air microfluidics’, University of Twente scientists succeed in printing 3D structures with living cells. This special technique enable the fast and ‘in-flight’ production of micro building blocks that are viable and can be used for repairing damaged tissue, for example.

Microfluidics is all about manipulating tiny drops of fluid with sizes between a micrometer and a millimeter. Most often, chips with tiny fluidic channels, reactors and other components are used for this: lab-on-a-chip systems...