Argonne researchers are the first to capture the formation of nanomaterial defects in near-real time. Their work will help other researchers model the behavior of materials, a step that is key to engineering stronger, more reliable materials. Credit: Mark Lopez/Argonne National Laboratory

From blacksmiths forging iron to artisans blowing glass, humans have for centuries been changing the properties of materials to build better tools. In modern life, new materials are created to improve today’s items, such as stronger steel for skyscrapers and more reliable semiconductors for cell phones...

A new type of LED is made with crystalline substances known as perovskites. CREDIT Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy

Princeton engineers have refined the manufacturing of light sources made with crystalline substances, perovskites, a moreefficient and potentially lower-cost alternative to materials used in LEDs found on store shelves. The researchers developed a technique in which nanoscale perovskite particles self-assemble to produce more efficient, stable and durable perovskite-based LEDs. The advance, reported January 16 in Nature Photonics, could speed the use of perovskite technologies in commercial applications such as lighting, lasers and television and computer screens.

LEDs emit light when voltage is applied across the LED...

This image of the entire Sun was taken in the red visible light emitted by iron atoms in the Sun’s atmosphere. Light at this wavelength originates from the visible solar surface, the photosphere. A cooler, darker sunspot is clearly visible in the disc, and as a visual comparison is shown alongside the image from ALMA at a wavelength of 1.25 millimetres. The full-disc solar image was taken with the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NASA.

New images taken with the ALMA in Chile have revealed otherwise invisible details of our Sun, including a new view of the dark, contorted centre of a sunspot that is nearly twice the diameter of the Earth...

Rolf Chini has been researching approximately 400 stars in the vicinity of the sun that share some of the sun’s properties for many years. In the process, he and his team have made a very interesting discovery. Credit: © RUB, Nelle

49 Lib, a relatively bright star in the southern sky, is 12 billion years old rather than just 2.3 billion. For many decades, researchers were stumped by conflicting data pertaining to this celestial body, because they had estimated it as much younger than it really is. Determining its age anew, astronomers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have now resolved all inconsistencies. “It had previously been assumed that the star was only half as old as our sun,” says Chini. “However, our data have shown that it had been formed at the time that our galaxy was born...