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Nov 12, 2018
How solar panels could cool our homes while harvesting energy
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: solar power, sustainability
Nov 12, 2018
Scientists predict a ‘dark matter hurricane’ will collide with the Earth
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: climatology, cosmology, particle physics
Yes, here’s the story of the dark matter hurricane — a cosmic event that may provide our first glimpse of the mysterious, invisible particle.
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Jackson Ryan
Nov 12, 2018
We Just Got Closer Than Ever to Unlocking Graphene’s Superconducting Powers
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, materials
Scientists are now closer than ever to being able to use graphene as a superconductor – to conduct electricity with zero resistance – making it useful for developing energy efficient gadgets, improving medical research, upgrading power grids, and much more besides.
The key to the new approach is heating a silicon carbide (SiC) crystal, itself a superconductor, until the silicon atoms have all evaporated. This leaves two graphene layers on top of each other in a way that, in certain conditions, offers no resistance to electrical current.
A similar dual-layer approach was also successfully used to turn graphene into a superconductor earlier this year. The difference here is the layers don’t have to be carefully angled on top of each other, which should make it easier to reproduce at scale.
Continue reading “We Just Got Closer Than Ever to Unlocking Graphene’s Superconducting Powers” »
Nov 12, 2018
Quantum leap for mass as science redefines the kilogramme
Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in category: science
Sealed in a vault beneath a duke’s former pleasure palace among the sycamore-streaked forests west of Paris sits an object the size of an apple that determines the weight of the world.
Forged against a backdrop of scientific and political upheaval following the French Revolution, a single, small cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy has laid largely undisturbed for nearly 130 years as the world’s benchmark for what, precisely, is a kilogramme.
The international prototype of the kilogramme, or “Le Grand K” as it is tenderly known, is one of science’s most hallowed relics, an analogue against which all other weights are compared and a totem of the metric system that accompanied the epoch of liberty, equality and fraternity.
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Nov 12, 2018
Space photos show smoke smothering a burning California
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: space
Nov 12, 2018
UK companies microchip employees, sparking fears from unions
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: business, computing
Microchips could be implanted into employees of UK firms to track worker efficiencies.
Nov 12, 2018
Physicists wrangled electrons into a quantum fractal
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: quantum physics
The tiny, repeating structure could reveal weird behavior of electrons in fractional dimensions.
To get to the Moon, Mars and beyond: we’re going to need a bigger boat. NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, will be the largest rocket ever assembled. So how do you build a rocket of unprecedented size? Find out: https://go.nasa.gov/2FiWoam.
Nov 12, 2018
What if the Placebo Effect Isn’t a Trick?
Posted by Xavier Rosseel in category: biotech/medical
Feature
New research is zeroing in on a biochemical basis for the placebo effect — possibly opening a Pandora’s box for Western medicine.
Credit Credit Photo illustration by Paul Sahre.
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