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71 articles from PhysOrg

The need for progressive national narratives

The recent rise of authoritarian nationalist movements has reinforced the tendency of many on the left, and some on the right, to reject all forms of nationalism, writes Rogers M. Smith in "Toward Progressive Narratives of American Identity," published in Polity's May Symposium on the Challenges Facing Democrats.

A rebranding of 'freedom'?

According to recent Gallup polls, socialism is now more popular than capitalism among Democrats and young people, and support for "some form of socialism" among all Americans is at 43% (compared to 25% in 1942). Policies that went unmentioned or were declared out-of-bounds in elections four years ago—a federal jobs guarantee, single-payer health care, free college, massive tax hikes on the rich,...

When Dirac meets frustrated magnetism

The fields of condensed matter physics and materials science are intimately linked because new physics is often discovered in materials with special arrangements of atoms. Crystals, which have repeating units of atoms in space, can have special patterns which result in exotic physical properties. Particularly exciting are materials which host multiple types of exotic properties because they give...

NASA's Webb Telescope will study Jupiter, its rings, and two intriguing moons

Jupiter, named for the king of the ancient Roman gods, commands its own mini-version of our solar system of circling satellites; their movements convinced Galileo Galilei that Earth is not the center of the universe in the early 17th century. More than 400 years later, astronomers will use NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to observe these famous subjects, pushing the observatory's instruments to...

Way, shape and form: Synthesis conditions define the nanostructure of manganese dioxide

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology explore a novel and simplistic method to synthesize manganese dioxide with a specific crystalline structure called β-MnO2. Their study sheds light on how different synthesis conditions can produce manganese dioxide with distinct porous structures, hinting at a strategy for the development of highly tuned MnO2 nanomaterials that could serve as catalysts...

Short wind turns with strong cooling effect

Sea surface temperatures in the tropics have a major influence on the climate in the tropics and the adjacent continents. For example, they determine the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and the beginning and strength of the West African monsoon. Therefore, it is important to understand the variability of sea surface temperatures for climate predictions. Until now, the seasonal cycle...

Sharing a secret... the quantum way

Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, have demonstrated a record setting quantum protocol for sharing a secret amongst many parties. The team created an 11-dimensional quantum state and used it to share a secret amongst 10 parties. By using quantum tricks, the secret can only be unlocked if the parties trust one another. The work sets a new record for...

A new synthesis method for three-dimensional nanocarbons

A team of scientists led by Kenichiro Itami, Professor and Director of the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM), has developed a new method for the synthesis of three-dimensional nanocarbons with the potential to advance materials science.

Nanoparticle meta-grid for enhanced light extraction from light-emitting devices

A tailored layer of plasmonic nanoparticles can be introduced into the epoxy casing of a light-emitting diode (LED) to improve the device's light output, to benefit energy savings and boost the LED lifetime. In a new report on Nature Light: Science & Applications, Debrata Sikdar and a team of scientists in chemistry, electronics and physics at the Imperial College London and the Indian Institute...

Monitoring whales from space

Scientists have found that studying high-resolution images of whales from space is a feasible way to estimate their populations. A team, led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), compared satellite images to data collected from traditional ship-based surveys. Reported this week in the journal Scientific Reports, this study is a big step towards developing a cost-effective method to study whales in...

Ultra-fast laser-based writing of data to storage devices

Modern life revolves around data, which means that we need new, fast, and energy-efficient methods to read and write data on our storage devices. Optical-based approaches, which use laser pulses to write data instead of magnets, have received considerable attention over the past decade following the development of all-optical switching (AOS) for magnetic materials. While fast and energy efficient,...

Detective work in the cell: Scientists uncover a new RNA-modifying enzyme

Scientists led by Javier Martinez from the Max Perutz Labs, a joint venture of the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna, have identified a unique chemical reaction at the end of RNA molecules for the first time in human cells. This reaction was previously only observed in bacteria and viruses. Tracing its source among thousands of proteins, they discovered that an unexpected...