News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Scientists led by the ESRF, the European Synchrotron, Grenoble, France and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, have discovered the composition of red and black inks in ancient Egyptian papyri from circa 100-200 AD, leading to different hypotheses about writing practices. The analysis, based on synchrotron techniques, shows that lead was probably used as a dryer rather than as a pigment, similar to its usage in 15th century Europe during the development of oil paintings. They publish their results today in PNAS.

Time crystals sound like something out of science fiction, but they may be the next major leap in quantum network research. A team based in Japan has proposed a method to use time crystals to simulate massive networks with very little computing power. They published their results on October 16 Science Advances.

Cool research story with connections to atomic clocks, Einstein and quantum mechanics. The research shows the 'spooky' interference that can impact even the most sophisticated clocks.

Among the loads to which the plasma vessel in a fusion device may be exposed, so-called edge localised modes are particularly undesirable. By computer simulations the origin and the course of this plasma-edge instability could now be explained for the first time in detail.

Computer modeling of the COVID-19 virus on supercomputers showed that the spike protein visits an intermediate state before it can dock to the receptor protein on the host cell membrane. This intermediate state can be useful for drug targeting to prevent the spike protein to initiate viral infection. The initial findings, which showed the existence of an intermediate semi-open state of the spike protein, was published in the Journal of Chemical Physics.

A team of scientists from GSI Helmholtzzentrum fuer Schwerionenforschung Darmstadt, University Mainz (JGU), Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM) and the University of Jyvaeskylae, Finland, has provided new insights into the fission processes in exotic nuclei and for this, has produced the hitherto unknown nucleus mendelevium-244. The experiments were part of "FAIR Phase 0", the first stage of the FAIR experimental program. The results have now been published in the journal "Physical Review Letters".

As the pandemic continues, researchers have increasingly focused on how respiratory droplets carrying the coronavirus travel and contaminate the air after an infected person coughs. While scientists have studied the properties of air at the mouth, less is known about how they change as the cough cloud travels. In Physics of Fluids, researchers estimate the evolving volume of the cough cloud and quantify the reduction in its volume in the presence of a face mask.

An international joint research team including Dr Zi Yang MENG, Associate Professor of Department of Physics at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), has solved the puzzle of the NFL behaviour in interacting electrons systems, and provided a protocol for the establishment of new paradigms in quantum metals, through quantum many-body computation and analytical calculations. The findings have recently been published in Npj Quantum Materials.

Ultrathin materials such as graphene promise a revolution in nanoscience and technology. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have now made an important advance within the field. In a recent paper in Nature Communications they present a method for controlling the edges of two-dimensional materials using a 'magic' chemical.