Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 23

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Log in for authorized contributors

Durable catalyst shields itself for affordable green hydrogen production

An international research team led by Professor Philip C.Y. Chow at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has unveiled a new catalyst that overcomes a major challenge in producing green hydrogen at scale. This innovation makes the process of producing oxygen efficiently and reliably in the harsh acidic environment used by today’s most promising industrial electrolyzers.

Spearheaded by Ci Lin, a Ph.D. student in HKU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, the team’s work was published in ACS Energy Letters.

Green hydrogen is seen as a clean fuel that can help reduce carbon emissions across industries like steelmaking, chemical production, long-distance transportation, and seasonal energy storage. Proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers are preferred for their compact design and rapid response, but they operate in acidic conditions that are exceptionally demanding on the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst.

From light to logic: Ultrafast quantum switching in 2D materials

Scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay have found a way to use light to control and read tiny quantum states inside atom-thin materials. The simple technique could pave the way for computers that are dramatically faster and consume far less power than today’s electronics.

The materials studied are just one atom thick—far thinner than a human hair—and are known as two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors. Inside these materials, electrons can sit in one of two distinct quantum states, called valleys. These valleys, named K and K′, can be thought of as two different “locations” that an electron can choose between. Because there are two options, researchers have long imagined using them like the 0 and 1 of digital computing, but on a quantum level. This idea is the foundation of a rapidly growing research field called valleytronics.

However, being able to reliably control which valley electrons occupy—and to switch between them quickly and on demand—has been a major challenge. “Previous methods required complicated experimental setups with carefully tuned circularly polarized lasers and often multiple laser pulses, and they only worked under specific conditions,” said Prof. Gopal Dixit.

CERN upbeat as China halts particle accelerator mega-project

The chief of the CERN physics laboratory says China’s decision to pause its major particle accelerator project presents an “opportunity” to ensure Europe’s rival plan goes ahead.

Ten years ago, China announced its intention to build the Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), which at 100 kilometers (62 miles) long would be the world’s largest particle accelerator.

But Beijing recently put the project on ice, CERN’s director-general Fabiola Gianotti told a small group of journalists at a recent briefing.

Surprising nanoscopic heat traps found in diamonds

Diamond is famous in material science for being the best natural heat conductor on Earth—but new research reveals that, at the atomic scale, it can briefly trap heat in unexpected ways. The findings could influence how scientists design diamond-based quantum technologies, including ultra-precise sensors and future quantum computers.

In a study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers from the University of Warwick and collaborators showed that when certain molecular-scale defects in diamond are excited with light, they create tiny, short-lived “hot spots” that momentarily distort the surrounding crystal. These distortions last only a few trillionths of a second but are long enough to affect the behavior of quantum-relevant defects.

“Finding a hot ground state for a molecular-scale defect in diamond was extremely surprising for us,” explained Professor James Lloyd-Hughes, Department of Physics, University of Warwick. “Diamond is the best thermal conductor, so one would expect energy transport to prevent any such effect. However, at the nanoscale, some phonons—packets of vibrational energy—hang around near the defect, creating a miniature hot environment that pushes on the defect itself.”

Electron-phonon interactions in crystals found to be quantized by a fundamental constant

A researcher at the Department of Physics at Tohoku University has uncovered a surprising quantum phenomenon hidden inside ordinary crystals: the strength of interactions between electrons and lattice vibrations—known as phonons—is not continuous, but quantized. Even more remarkably, this strength is universally linked to one of the most iconic numbers in physics: the fine-structure constant.

What makes this dimensionless number (α ≈ 1/137) so iconic is its ability to explain electromagnetic interactions, independent of the units used. Imagine it like a ratio where one pencil is twice as long as another pencil—this ratio won’t change no matter whether you measure the pencil length in cm, inches, or feet.

Laser draws made-to-order magnetic landscapes

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado, have for the first time succeeded in using existing laser technology to continuously vary the magnetic properties of two-dimensional materials.

This simple and fast method should make a large number of applications possible, including techniques for data storage and processing. The work is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Sometimes using conventional tools in a novel way produces astounding results. That’s what happened when researchers used the high-tech laser equipment in PSI’s cleanroom for something it was not intended to do. It was originally purchased for photolithography—a process for producing tiny 2D structures.

‘Light-bending’ material that controls blue and ultraviolet light could transform advanced chipmaking

Researchers from TU Delft and Radboud University (The Netherlands) have discovered that the two-dimensional ferroelectric material CuInP₂S₆ (CIPS) can be used to control the pathway and properties of blue and ultraviolet light like no other material can.

With ultraviolet light being the workhorse of advanced chipmaking, high-resolution microscopy and next-generation optical communication technologies, improving the on-chip control over such light is vital. As the researchers describe in the journal Advanced Optical Materials, CIPS can be integrated onto chips, opening exciting new avenues for integrated photonics.

How Two Russian Scientists Revolutionized the Way We Understand Aging and Cancer

A new article reflects on how two generations of scientists reshaped thinking on aging, linking hormonal regulation in the brain to molecular growth pathways. Mikhail Blagosklonny spent his career arguing that aging is not slow decay, but biology stuck in “overdrive.” Only now is it becoming wide

Astronomers Discover One of the Largest Rotating Structures Ever Seen in the Universe

Researchers have found a razor-thin, rotating string of galaxies inside a massive cosmic filament, revealing unexpected alignments that challenge models of how galaxies gain their spin. An international research group led by the University of Oxford has uncovered one of the most extensive rotatin

Gravitational Waves Expose Hidden Dark Matter Around Black Holes

Researchers have created a fully relativistic model showing that gravitational waves might carry hidden clues about dark matter near massive black holes. New research from scientists at the University of Amsterdam outlines how gravitational waves produced by black holes could offer a way to detec

/* */