[embedded content] Northwestern University engineers have added a new capability to electronic microchips: flight. About the size of a grain of sand, the new flying microchip (or “microflier”) does not have a motor or engine. Instead, it catches flight on the wind — much like a maple tree’s propeller seed — and spins like a […]

Having good room ventilation to dilute and disperse indoor air pollutants has long been recognized, and with the COVID-19 pandemic its importance has become all the more heightened. But new experiments by indoor air researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) show that certain circumstances will result in poor mixing of room air, meaning […]

Eight teams featuring dozens of robots from more than 30 institutions, including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, will converge in a former Kentucky limestone mine from Sept. 21 to 24 to participate in a series of complex underground scenarios. The goal: to demonstrate cutting-edge robotic autonomy capabilities and compete for the chance to […]

The melting of polar ice is not only shifting the levels of our oceans, it is changing the planet Earth itself. Newly minted Ph.D. Sophie Coulson and her colleagues explained in a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters that, as glacial ice from Greenland, Antarctica, and the Arctic Islands melts, Earth’s crust beneath these land […]

For the first time, scientists have synthesised branched phosphates, called ultraphosphates, finding them to be stable for up to several days in water – despite the 1950 anti-branching rule stating otherwise. Polyphosphates consist of tetrahedral phosphate units, PO4, linked by oxygen atoms. They can be linear, branched or cyclic. Linear polyphosphates like adenosine triphosphate, ATP, are […]

The world will find out who has won this year’s chemistry Nobel prize in less than two weeks, on this the 120th year of the most prestigious awards in science, and excitement is building once more. Analysts and online commentators are once again attempting to forecast who will get the nod, with favourites including free-radical […]

If we want to transition to a greener, healthier and more climate resilient Europe, it is important to ensure our soils are in good condition. However, the quality of soils is worsening because of unsustainable management practices, depletion of resources, climate change and pollution. Soil hosts a quarter of our planet’s biodiversity and is home […]

Researchers in Israel have created the first vortex beams made of atoms and molecules. The experiments, which manipulate atoms’ wave function to carrying an orbital angular momentum, could offer insights into the fundamental properties of matter. Vortices are characterised by some kind of circular flow around an axis. Whirlpools and tornadoes are among the most […]

Scientists at the University of Tokyo in Japan have developed a peptoid-based system that can serve as a programmable template for making molecules that inhibit protein–protein interactions (PPIs).1 By overcoming some of the challenges in developing PPI modulators, the system could make it easier for researchers to study these underexplored drug targets. PPIs are pivotal […]

Electronic health records have been widely adopted with the hope they would save time and improve the quality of patient care. But due to fragmented interfaces and tedious data entry procedures, physicians often spend more time navigating these systems than they do interacting with patients. Researchers at MIT and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center […]