New study reveals polymers with flawed fillers boost heat transfer in plastics
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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 4-Apr-2025 11:09 ET (4-Apr-2025 15:09 GMT/UTC)
In the quest to design the next generation of materials for modern devices – ones that are lightweight, flexible and excellent at dissipating heat – a team of researchers led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst made a discovery: imperfection has its upsides.
How does a robotic arm or a prosthetic hand learn a complex task like grasping and rotating a ball? In a paper in the journal Science Advances, researchers address the classic “nature versus nurture” It demonstrates that the sequence of learning, also known as the “curriculum,” is critical for learning to occur. In fact, the researchers note that if the curriculum takes place in a particular sequence, a simulated robotic hand can learn to manipulate with incomplete or even absent tactile sensation.
From seat cushions to mattresses to insulation, foam is everywhere — even if we don’t always see it. Now, researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas have fused chemistry with technology to create a 3D-printed foam that is more durable and more recyclable than the polymer foam found in many everyday products.
Drug-carrying DNA aptamers can deliver a one-two punch to leukemia by precisely targeting the elusive cancer stem cells that seed cancer relapses, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign report. The aptamers — short single-strand snippets of DNA that can target molecules like larger antibodies do — not only deliver cancer-fighting drugs, but also are themselves toxic to the cancer stem cells, the researchers said.
A single severely dry winter temporarily, but dramatically, altered the ranges of three fishes — Chinook salmon, coho salmon, and steelhead trout — in California’s northern waterways. In a new study, a UC Berkeley-led team of biologists found that the unusually dry winter of 2013-2014 caused some salmon and steelhead to temporarily disappear from individual tributaries and even entire watersheds along the northern California coast.
In twisted moiré photonic crystals, how the layers twist and overlap can change how the material interact with light. By changing the twist angle and the spacing between layers, these materials can be fine-tuned to control and manipulate different aspects of light simultaneously — meaning the multiple optical components typically needed to simultaneous measure light’s phase, polarization, and wavelength could be replaced with one device. Now researchers have developed an on-chip twisted moiré photonic crystal sensor that uses MEMS technology to control the gap and angle between the crystal layers in real time. The sensor can detect and collect detailed polarization and wavelength information simultaneously.
Viruses known as “jumbo phage” are a new hope against the rising antibacterial infection crisis. Researchers have discovered how jumbo phage are able to infect bacteria so efficiently. They found a compartment that protects and hides valuable DNA material from the bacteria’s immune defense system.
Researchers have discovered that the underside of the North American continent is dripping away in blobs of rock — and that the remnants of a tectonic plate sinking in the Earth’s mantle may be the reason why.