A research team has developed methods to manipulate polymers in a way that changes their fundamental structure, paving the way for potential applications in cargo delivery and release, recyclable materials, shape-shifting soft robots, antimicrobials and more.
Read moreA new way to calculate the interaction between a metal and its alloying material could speed the hunt for a new material that combines the hardness of ceramic with the resilience of metal.
Read morePhorbiplatin is a new anti-cancer prodrug that can be controllably activated by red light. With its unique 'on-site' activation characteristic, this new prodrug can effectively kill cancer cells and minimize damage to normal tissues.
Read moreEnticed by the brilliant green hues of copper acetate and copper resinate, some painters in the Renaissance period incorporated these pigments into their masterpieces. However, by the 18th century, most artists had abandoned the colors because of their tendency to darken with time. Now, researchers have uncovered the chemistry behind the copper pigments' color change.
Read moreResearchers have developed a 'coloring-by-shrinking' method to print arbitrary 3D microscopic objects exhibiting structural colors. The design consisted of woodpile photonic crystals with varying lattice constants as the 3D building blocks. These structures remain colorless until they are heat treated, causing them to shrink and manifest color, a result of their lattice constants shrinking down below the wavelength of visible light. The team printed a colorful microscopic Eiffel Tower with structural colors, demonstrating feature sizes smaller than 100 nm.
Read moreThe largest experiment to date on mobile typing sheds new light on average performance of touchscreen typing and factors impacting the text input speed. Researchers analyzed the typing speed of tens of thousands of users on both phones and computers. Their main finding is that typing speeds on smartphones are now catching up with physical keyboards.
Read moreChemists have fabricated for the first time plasmonic color-switchable films of silver nanoparticles. Until now, such color changing of nanoparticles was mainly achieved in liquids, limiting their potential for practical applications. The technology has a number of applications: product authentication, color displays, signage, sensors, and information encryption.
Read moreResearchers have found it can significantly boost an existing polymer's ability to selectively remove carbon dioxide out of gas mixtures by first submerging the material in liquid water.
Read moreLiquid and solid – most people are unaware that there can be states in between. Liquid crystals are representative of one such state. While the molecules in liquids swim around at random, neighboring molecules in liquid crystals are aligned as in regular crystal grids, but the material is still liquid.
Read moreAccording to Einstein, light consists of particles (photons) that transfer only quantized energy to the electron of the atom. If the photon's energy is sufficient, it knocks the electrons out of the atom. But what happens to the photon's momentum in this process? Physicists are now able to answer this question. To do so, they developed and constructed and new spectrometer with previously unattainable resolution.
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