SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on October 21 have captured the loudest bird calls yet documented. The calls are the mating songs of male white bellbirds, which live atop mountains in the Amazon region of northern Brazil. The calls have a sound pressure about three times that of screaming pihas, now the second loudest bird … Read more
“Edgy” takes on new meaning when experimenting with certain quantum states of matter. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science investigated electrons that move around the edges of a unique system. Their measurements – the most precise and sensitive ever – revealed an interesting twist to the story of electron behavior on the quantum level. … Read more
Researchers have succeeded in creating an efficient quantum-mechanical light-matter interface using a microscopic cavity. Within this cavity, a single photon is emitted and absorbed up to 10 times by an artificial atom. This opens up new prospects for quantum technology, report physicists at the University of Basel and Ruhr-University Bochum in the journal Nature. Quantum physics … Read more
A new analysis of archival data of gamma-ray bursts (GRB), the most energetic objects in the Universe, has revealed that the process producing this emission might indeed be electrons that are cooled from near-relativistic speeds in a magnetic field. This so-called synchrotron radiation was dismissed in earlier, more indirect analyses. Scientists at the Max Planck … Read more
A widely-used gas that is currently produced from fossil fuels can instead be made by an ‘artificial leaf’ that uses only sunlight, carbon dioxide and water, and which could eventually be used to develop a sustainable liquid fuel alternative to petrol. The carbon-neutral device sets a new benchmark in the field of solar fuels, after … Read more
Buildings devote more than 30% of their energy use to heating, cooling, and lighting systems. Passive designs such as cool roof paints have gone a long way toward reducing this usage, and its impact on the environment and climate, but they have one key limitation–they are usually static, and thus not responsive to daily or … Read more
Grab a mixing bowl from your kitchen, throw in a handful of aluminum balls, apply some high voltage, and watch an elegant dance unfold where particles re-arrange themselves into a distinct “crystal” pattern. This curious behavior belongs to the phenomenon known as Wigner crystallization, where particles with the same electrical charge repel one another to … Read more
Assembly of the Plasma Liner Experiment (PLX) at Los Alamos National Laboratory is well underway with the installation of 18 of 36 plasma guns in an ambitious approach to achieving controlled nuclear fusion (Figure 1). The plasma guns are mounted on a spherical chamber, and fire supersonic jets of ionized gas inward to compress and … Read more
Imagine you’re getting ready to fly to your favorite vacation destination when suddenly a volcano erupts, sending massive amounts of volcanic ash into the atmosphere, and forcing the cancellation of your flight. That’s exactly what happened in April 2010 when Eyjafjallajokull, a volcano in Iceland, erupted and disrupted air travel in Europe for six days. … Read more
Fusion is a non-carbon-based process for energy production, where lighter atoms fuse into heavier ones. Fusion reactors operate by confining a “soup” of charged particles, known as a plasma, within powerful magnetic fields. But these magnetic fields must contain the plasma long enough that it can be heated to extreme temperatures – hotter than the … Read more