News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Engineers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have created the first 3D-printed fluid circuit element so tiny that 10 could rest on the width of a human hair. The diode ensures fluids move in only a single direction -- a critical feature for products like implantable devices that release therapies directly into the body.

A new, simple, and inexpensive method that uses ultraviolet light to control particle motion and assembly within liquids could improve drug delivery, chemical sensors, and fluid pumps.

Graphene Flagship researchers reviewed the current research into the safety of graphene and related materials looking at both human health and environmental impact.

Scientists of the Far Eastern Federal University, together with Russian and foreign colleagues, developed samples of nickel mesoporous film structures, which have useful surface area up to 400 times greater than their solid one. Brand new material can be used in energy saving, chemical industry and other practical areas. The research results are published in Applied Surface Science journal.

A collaborative research effort between the departments of chemistry at the University of Oxford and University of Jyväskylä has resulted in the discovery of a gold compound exhibiting nucleophilic behavior hitherto unknown for molecular gold. The research enables new opportunities in applying gold compounds, for example, as catalysts in novel chemical reactions.

New printing technique and materials could be used to develop intelligent materials and self-adaptive infrastructures and transducers.

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a polarization-insensitive metalens that can achromatically focus light across the visible spectrum without aberrations. This flat lens could be used for everything from virtual or augmented reality headsets to microscopy, lithography, sensors, and displays.

Researchers from Osaka University, in collaboration with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Grenoble Alpes University, succeeded in efficiently controlling the direction of a nano-sized magnet by heating at high speed. The researchers also discovered that nano-magnets amplify microwave signals. These achievements will contribute to reducing power consumption for magnetoresistive random access memory and artificial intelligence devices, helping us move towards a super-smart society.

Molecules are usually formed in reaction vessels or laboratory flasks. An Empa research team has now succeeded in producing molecules between two microscopically small, movable gold tips -- in a sense as a 'hand-knitted' unique specimen. The properties of the molecules can be monitored in real time while they are being produced. The research results have just been published in Nature Communications.

Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a potentially deadly infection in the large intestine most common in people who need to take antibiotics for a long period of time, particularly in Australia's ageing population. But when doses of a new antibiotic called Ramizol were given to hamsters infected with a lethal dose of the bacteria, a significant proportion of hamsters survived the infection.