Bizarre Things: Matter & Energy

April 19, 2024

Top Headlines

How 3D Printers Can Give Robots a Soft Touch

Apr. 17, 2024 — Soft skin coverings and touch sensors have emerged as a promising feature for robots that are both safer and more intuitive for human interaction, but they are expensive and difficult to make. A recent study demonstrates that soft skin pads doubling ...

Two-Dimensional Nanomaterial Sets Record for Expert-Defying, Counter-Intuitive Expansion

Apr. 17, 2024 — Engineers have developed a record-setting nanomaterial which when stretched in one direction, expands perpendicular to the applied ...

Star Trek's Holodeck Recreated Using ChatGPT and Video Game Assets

Apr. 11, 2024 — Star Trek's Holodeck is no longer just science fiction. Using AI, engineers have created a tool that can generate 3D environments, prompted by everyday ...

Trapped in the Middle: Billiards With Memory

Apr. 11, 2024 — Adding one simple rule to an idealized game of billiards leads to a wealth of intriguing mathematical questions, as well as applications in the physics of living organisms. Researchers are discovering the fascinating dynamics of billiards with ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:27pm EDT

A Single Atom Layer of Gold: Researchers Create Goldene

Apr. 16, 2024 — For the first time, scientists have managed to create sheets of gold only a single atom layer thick. The material has been termed goldene. According to researchers, this has given the gold new ...

Revolutionary Molecular Device Unleashes Potential for Targeted Drug Delivery and Self-Healing Materials

Apr. 10, 2024 — In a new breakthrough that could revolutionise medical and material engineering, scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind molecular device that ...

Engineers Design Soft and Flexible 'Skeletons' for Muscle-Powered Robots

Apr. 8, 2024 — Engineers designed modular, spring-like devices to maximize the work of live muscle fibers so they can be harnessed to power biohybrid ...

'Smart Swarms' of Tiny Robots Inspired by Natural Herd Mentality

Apr. 3, 2024 — Researchers gave nanorobots a trait called adaptive time delay, which allows them to better work ...

Elastocaloric Cooling: Refrigerator Cools by Flexing Artificial Muscles

Apr. 2, 2024 — There is room for just one small bottle in the world's first refrigerator that is cooled with artificial muscles made of nitinol, a nickel-titanium alloy. But the mini-prototype is groundbreaking: it ...

Plastic-Free Vegan Leather That Dyes Itself Grown from Bacteria

Apr. 3, 2024 — Researchers have genetically engineered bacteria to grow animal- and plastic-free leather that dyes ...

Intelligent Liquid

Apr. 3, 2024 — Researchers have developed a programmable meta-fluid with tunable springiness, optical properties, viscosity and even the ability to transition between a Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid. The ...

AI Writing, Illustration Emits Hundreds of Times Less Carbon Than Humans, Study Finds

Apr. 2, 2024 — A group of scholars calculated the amount of energy used by AI tools for the tasks of writing and illustrating and compared it to the average amount ...

Micro-Lisa! Making a Mark With Novel Nano-Scale Laser Writing

Mar. 26, 2024 — High-power lasers are often used to modify polymer surfaces to make high-tech biomedical products, electronics and data storage components. Now researchers have discovered a light-responsive, ...

Robot, Can You Say 'Cheese'?

Mar. 27, 2024 — What would you do if you walked up to a robot with a human-like head and it smiled at you first? You'd likely smile back and perhaps feel the two of you were genuinely interacting. But how does a ...

A Solar Cell You Can Bend and Soak in Water

Mar. 27, 2024 — Researchers have developed an organic photovoltaic film that is both waterproof and flexible, allowing a solar cell to be put onto clothes and still function correctly after being rained on or even ...

Scientists on the Hunt for Evidence of Quantum Gravity's Existence at the South Pole

Mar. 26, 2024 — An Antarctic large-scale experiment is striving to find out if gravity also exists at the quantum level. An extraordinary particle able to travel undisturbed through space seems to hold the ...

The World Is One Step Closer to Secure Quantum Communication on a Global Scale

Mar. 25, 2024 — Researchers have brought together two Nobel prize-winning research concepts to advance the field of quantum communication. Scientists can now efficiently produce nearly perfect entangled photon pairs ...

A Self-Cleaning Wall Paint

Mar. 25, 2024 — Beautiful white wall paint does not stay beautiful and white forever. Often, various substances from the air accumulate on its surface. This can be a desired effect because it makes the air cleaner ...

Artificial Nanofluidic Synapses Can Store Computational Memory

Mar. 25, 2024 — In a step toward nanofluidic-based neuromorphic -- or brain-inspired -- computing, engineers have succeeded in executing a logic operation by connecting two chips that use ions, rather than ...

Research Suggests How Turbulence Can Be Used to Generate Patterns

Mar. 20, 2024 — Physicists show how patterns can emerge from chaos in turbulent ...

Robotic Metamaterial: An Endless Domino Effect

Mar. 20, 2024 — If it walks like a particle, and talks like a particle... it may still not be a particle. A topological soliton is a special type of wave or dislocation which behaves like a particle: it can move ...

Molecular Crystal Motors Move Like Microbes When Exposed to Light

Mar. 19, 2024 — At first glance, Rabih Al-Kaysi's molecular motors look like the microscopic worms you'd see in a drop of pond water. But these wriggling ribbons are not alive; they're made from ...

Brain-Inspired Wireless System to Gather Data from Salt-Sized Sensors

Mar. 19, 2024 — In a new study, researchers describe a novel approach for a wireless communication network that can efficiently transmit, receive and decode data from thousands of microelectronic chips that are each ...

Backyard Insect Inspires Invisibility Devices, Next Gen Tech

Mar. 18, 2024 — Leafhoppers, a common backyard insect, secrete and coat themselves in tiny mysterious particles that could provide both the inspiration and the instructions for next-generation technology, according ...

Two Artificial Intelligences Talk to Each Other

Mar. 18, 2024 — Performing a new task based solely on verbal or written instructions, and then describing it to others so that they can reproduce it, is a cornerstone of human communication that still resists ...

Holographic Message Encoded in Simple Plastic

Mar. 18, 2024 — Important data can be stored and concealed quite easily in ordinary plastic using 3D printers and terahertz radiation, scientists show. Holography can be done quite easily: A 3D printer can be used ...

Bridge in a Box: Unlocking Origami's Power to Produce Load-Bearing Structures

Mar. 18, 2024 — Load-bearing structures like bridges and shelters can be made with origami modules -- versatile components that can fold compactly and adapt into different shapes -- engineers have ...

DNA Origami-Based Vaccines Toward Safe and Highly-Effective Precision Cancer Immunotherapy

Mar. 15, 2024 — Researchers have created a DNA origami platform called DoriVac, whose core component is a self-assembling square block-shaped nanostructure. DoriVac vaccines enabled tumor-bearing mice to better ...

Advanced Army Robots More Likely to Be Blamed for Deaths

Mar. 14, 2024 — Advanced killer robots are more likely to blamed for civilian deaths than military machines, new research has revealed. The study shows that high-tech bots will be held more responsible for ...

An Electricity Generator Inspired by the Drinking Bird Toy Powers Electronics With Evaporated Water

Mar. 14, 2024 — Inspired by the classic drinking bird toy, scientists have developed an engine that efficiently converts energy from water evaporation into electricity to power small electronics. The device produces ...

What Kinds of Seismic Signals Did Swifties Send at LA Concert?

Mar. 13, 2024 — Seattle may have experienced its own Swift Quake last July, but at an August 2023 concert Taylor Swift's fans in Los Angeles gave scientists a lot of shaking to ponder. After some debate, a ...

Robot ANYmal Can Do Parkour and Walk Across Rubble

Mar. 13, 2024 — The quadrupedal robot ANYmal went back to school and has learned a lot. Researchers used machine learning to teach it new skills: the robot can now climb over obstacles and successfully negotiate ...

You Don't Need Glue to Hold These Materials Together -- Just Electricity

Mar. 13, 2024 — Is there a way to stick hard and soft materials together without any tape, glue or epoxy? A new study shows that applying a small voltage to certain objects forms chemical bonds that securely link ...

Batteries for Airborne Electric Vehicles That Take Off and Land Vertically

Mar. 12, 2024 — Researchers are taking cleaner transportation to the skies by creating and evaluating new batteries for airborne electric vehicles that take off and land vertically. Researchers are developing new ...