Latest science news in Physics & Chemistry
NMR Method Reveals Hidden Battery Chemistry
Study may help novel lithium-ion battery achieve high charge-storage capacity
Negligible Proportion Of Artificial Carbon-based Nanoparticles Found In Aquatic Sediments
The quantity of artificial carbon-based nanoparticles in lake and river-beds, originating from new products, is negligible compared to the concentration of natural carbon-based nanoparticles that are present in such beds....
New Family Of Molecules For Self-assembly: The Carboranes
Researchers have found a way to control the geometry and stability of a new family of self-assembled-monolayer materials, the carboranes. The resulting exceptionally high quality and simplicity of the improved...
Design Revolution: How Manufacturers Could Reduce Costs By Simply Designing For Reliability
A revolutionary approach to the design of consumer products -- from automobiles to plasma TVs -- could cut manufacturers' warranty costs significantly. Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International...
Chemists Create More Efficient Palladium Fuel Cell Catalysts
Chemists have overcome a challenge to fuel cell reactions using palladium catalysts. The scientists produced palladium nanoparticles with about 40 percent greater active surface area than commercially available palladium particles,...
Cloud Computing Helps Scientists Run High Energy Physics Experiments
A novel system is enabling high energy physicists at CERN in Switzerland, to make production runs that integrate their existing pool of distributed computers with dynamic resources in "science clouds."
New possibilities for hydrogen-producing algae
Stanford, CA-- Photosynthesis produces the food that we eat and the oxygen that we breathe ? could it also help satisfy our future energy needs by producing clean-burning hydrogen?
New RFID technology tracks and monitors nuclear materials
Radio frequency identification (RFID) devices have widely been used for tracking for years; recently, scientists from U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have developed a unique tracking technology...
New form of destructive terrorist material unlikely, chemists report
Concerns that terrorists could produce a new and particularly dangerous form of the explosive responsible for airport security screening of passengers' shoes and restrictions on liquids in carryon baggage are...
3-D surface treatment boosts solar cell efficiency
Using two different types of chemical etching to create features at both the micron and nanometre size scales, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a surface treatment...
Venice seaport eyes algae to fuel energy needs
ROME (Reuters) - Venice's seaport plans to become self-sufficient in its energy needs by building a power plant fueled by algae, in what would be the first facility of its...
Inorganic Chameleon Show Promise In Energy And Nano Research
The multifaceted material perovskite could be of benefit in three key applications: fuel cells, gas separation prior to the storage of carbon dioxide and nanocomponents in electronic products. Consequently, the...
From microbes to hydrogen fuel
Searching for an environmentally friendly way to produce cheap hydrogen as a fuel, researchers at Oregon State University are turning to microbes that have been doing the job for billions...
Researchers Develop Flow Sensors Based on Blind Fish Hair Structures
(PhysOrg.com) -- A blind fish that has evolved a unique technique for sensing motion may inspire a new generation of sensors that perform better than current active sonar.
Feature: Window opens to a wood revival
Good design is often frustrated by the limitations of available materials, but things improve if the designer gets to influence research.
Science and Religion: Bridging the Divide?
Over the last century, science and religion have been like oil and water: They just don’t mix. Scientists and people of faith seem to disagree about everything, particularly when it...
Poison Gas May Produce Clean Energy
The world's largest dead zone, the Black Sea, may be chock-full of future clean energy, a new study says.
Researchers create catalysts for use in hydrogen storage materials
A team of scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Uppsala in Sweden, and the Savannah River National Laboratory have identified that carbon nanostructures can be used as catalysts...
Faster, Cheaper Fuel Cells: New $1.6 Million DoE Grant Supports Fuel Cell Manufacturing Innovations
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have won a $1.6 million DoE grant to develop new methods for manufacturing a key fuel cell component. The multi-year grant aims to create new...
Elgar Named National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow
Steve Elgar, a senior scientist in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering department, was recently named a 2009 National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow...
Glass you can build with
The normal structure of metals is crystalline. Glass, on the other hand, is amorphous. But it's possible to make amorphous forms of metal, metallic glasses, which can be remarkably strong,...
The beginning of the end for ELISA?
Polymer-based test for proteins proves sensitive, selective and simpler than traditional assay
Lab on ice
Experimental apparatus made from ice can be used as detecting systems for solvent extraction and chromatography, claim Japanese scientists
Alkali metals reveal a taste for clam
Researchers have found that alkali metal cations like to form structures that look like open or closed clam shells
Wrinkle-Blasting Laser Treatments Soar
A cosmetic surgery technique called laser resurfacing is soaring in popularity.
Flying Car Takes Wing
A prototype of what is being touted as the world's first practical flying car took to the air for the first time this month, a milestone in a project started...
Study proves fine light control
A recent study split light into tiny rainbows and recombined them – a first step to better fine control of light for high-speed computing.
Waste not, want not
UK scientists have converted crude biodiesel waste into useful amines with no need for difficult separation techniques