When gold-coated silver nanoplates are irradiated with a pulsed laser, they change shape into a sphere and release silver ions which produces a strong antibacterial effect. Credit: Dr. Takuro Niidome

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are known to have excellent antibacterial properties and are considered by many to be a strong contender in the critical search for an answer to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They block enzymes and can cause bacteria to have irregularly shaped membranes, producing results ranging from inhibited growth to cell death. However, a collaboration of researchers from Kumamoto University, Keio University, and Dai Nippon Toryo Co., Ltd. in Japan found that AgNPs have a propensity to conglomerate, which results in a reduction of antibacterial attributes...

Cosimo Rusconi (l.) and Oriol Romero-Isart (r.) play with a levitron to illustrate their work on nano magnets.
Credit: IQOQI Innsbruck/M.R.Knabl

Quantum physicists have now shown that, despite Earnshaw’s theorem, nanomagnets can be stably levitated in an external static magnetic field owing to quantum mechanical principles. The quantum angular momentum of electrons, which also causes magnetism, is accountable for this mechanism.

Already in 1842, British mathematician Samuel Earnshaw proved that there is no stable configuration of levitating permanent magnets. If one magnet is levitated above another, the smallest disturbance will cause the system to crash...

Light reflecting off of the primary and secondary mirrors of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope as mirrors are being aligned Credits: NASA/M. McClare

About 1 million miles away from the nearest eye surgeon, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will be able to perfect its own vision while in orbit. Though the Webb telescope will focus on stars and galaxies approximately 13.5 billion light-years away, its sight goes through a similar process as you would if you underwent laser vision correction surgery to be able to focus on an object 10 feet across the room...

An artist’s conception of a view from within the Exocomet system KIC 3542116. Credit: Danielle Futselaar

Tails of comets seen streaking past a distant star. Scientists from MIT and other institutions, working closely with amateur astronomers, have spotted the dusty tails of 6 exocomets – comets outside our solar system – orbiting a faint star 800 light years from Earth. These cosmic balls of ice and dust, about the size of Halley’s Comet and traveled about 100,000 miles per hour before they ultimately vaporized, are some of the smallest objects yet found outside our own solar system.

The discovery marks the first time that an object as small as a comet has been detected using transit photometry, a technique by which astronomers observe a star’s light for telltale dips in intensity...