Physics
press releases.

Physics14 Mar 2025

CeSPIACE: A broad-spectrum peptide inhibitor against variable SARS-CoV-2 spikes

SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, infects cells by binding its spike protein to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors. Blocking this interaction with inhibitors could prevent infection. Since these inhibitors act directly on the virus without affecting human cells, they may be safer than some existing treatments. However, mutations in the spike protein can alter its structure, reducing the effectiveness of these inhibitors. In a significant breakthrough, a research team led by Professor Yoshinori Fujiyoshi ...

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Physics14 Mar 2025

Understanding the origin of magnetic moment enhancement in novel alloys

Magnetic materials have become indispensable to various technologies that support our modern society, such as data storage devices, electric motors, and magnetic sensors. High-magnetization ferromagnets are especially important for the development of next-generation spintronics, sensors, and high-density data storage technologies. Among these materials, the iron-cobalt (Fe-Co) alloy is widely used due to its strong magnetic properties. However, there is a limit to how much their performance can be improved, necessitating a new approach. Some of the earlier studies have shown that epitaxially grown films made up of Fe-Co alloys doped with heavier elements exhibit remarkably high ...

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Physics13 Mar 2025

Spinning, twisted light could power next-generation electronics

Researchers have advanced a decades-old challenge in the field of organic semiconductors, opening new possibilities for the future of electronics. The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge and the Eindhoven University of Technology, have created an organic semiconductor that forces electrons to move in a spiral pattern, which could improve the efficiency of OLED displays in television and smartphone screens, or power next-generation computing technologies such as spintronics and quantum computing. The semiconductor they developed emits circularly polarised ...

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Physics12 Mar 2025

Adolescent boys who experience violence have up to 8 times the odds of perpetrating physical and sexual intimate partner violence that same day, per South African study collecting real-time data over

Adolescent boys who experience violence have up to 8 times the odds of perpetrating physical and sexual intimate partner violence that same day, per South African study collecting real-time data over mobile phones Article URL: https://plos.io/4brsDzz Article title: Measuring real-time violence exposure and its impact on intimate partner violence perpetration among adolescents Author countries: US, South Africa Funding: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health under Award R01MH119878. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors ...

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Physics12 Mar 2025

2D metals: Chinese scientists achieve breakthrough in atomic manufacturing

Since the groundbreaking discovery of graphene in 2004, the dizzying pace of progress in two-dimensional (2D) materials has ushered in a new era of fundamental research and technological innovation. Although nearly 2,000 2D materials have been theoretically predicted and hundreds have been created in laboratory settings, most of these 2D materials are limited to van der Waals (vdW) layered crystals. Scientists have long been keen to develop atomically thin 2D metals, thereby expanding ...

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Physics7 Mar 2025

No evidence that substituting NHS doctors with physician associates is necessarily safe

Researchers say they can find no convincing evidence that physician associates add value in UK primary care or that anaesthetic associates add value in anaesthetics, and some evidence suggested that they do not. In a special paper published by The BMJ today, Professors Trisha Greenhalgh and Martin McKee say the absence of safety incidents in a handful of small studies “should not be taken as evidence that deployment of physician associates and anaesthetic associates is safe.” New research is urgently needed “to explore staff concerns, examine safety incidents, and inform a national scope of practice for these relatively new and contested ...

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Physics6 Mar 2025

Controlling electrons in molecules at ultrafast timescales

Scientists at YOKOHAMA National University, in collaboration with RIKEN and other institutions in Japan and Korea, have made an important discovery about how electrons move and behave in molecules. This discovery could potentially lead to advances in electronics, energy transfer, and chemical reactions. Published in the Journal, Science, their study reveals a new way to control the distribution of electrons in molecules using very fast phase-controlled pulses of light in the terahertz range. Atoms and molecules contain negatively charged electrons that usually stay in specific energy levels, like layers, ...

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Physics6 Mar 2025

Sneaky clocks: uncovering Einstein’s relativity in an interacting atomic playground

For over a century, physicists have grappled with one of the most profound questions in science: How do the rules of quantum mechanics, which govern the smallest particles, fit with the laws of general relativity, which describe the universe on the largest scales? The optical lattice clock, one of the most precise timekeeping devices, is becoming a powerful tool used to tackle this great challenge. Within an optical lattice clock, atoms are trapped in a “lattice” potential formed by laser beams and are manipulated with precise control of quantum coherence and interactions governed by quantum mechanics. Simultaneously, ...

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Physics5 Mar 2025

New study examines how physics students perceive recognition

ITHACA, N.Y. – Experts see peer recognition as important to student success in physics, and a new study gives college-level physics instructors insight into how students perceive the message from their classmates that “you’re good at physics.” Even when women receive similar amounts of recognition from peers as men for excelling in physics classes, they perceive significantly less peer recognition, the researchers found. “Men are internalizing their recognition differently than women,” said Natasha Holmes, professor of physics at Cornell University. Holmes ...

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Physics27 Feb 2025

Researchers demonstrate laser writing with unprecedented speed and resolution

WASHINGTON — For the first time, researchers have used high-speed laser writing to create lines spaced just 100 nm apart on a glass substrate. The optimized printing approach could enable super-resolution 3D direct laser writing (DLW) of microlenses, photonics crystals, micro-optical devices, metamaterials and more. DLW is an additive manufacturing technique that uses a focused laser beam to selectively solidify, or polymerize, a material with nanoscale precision. DLW typically uses multi-photon polymerization to polymerize materials in a precise, ...

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Physics27 Feb 2025

Four research teams rethink particleboard construction and reuse

For a few hundred dollars, a bedroom can be refreshed with the latest flat-pack offerings. Wood particleboard furniture is affordable and generally easy to assemble, but particleboard is often held together with formaldehyde-based resins that make it hard or impossible to recycle. Now, with the help of science, old pressed-wood furnishings could be repurposed, and new modular decor could incorporate more environmentally friendly materials. Four articles published in ACS journals reveal how. Reporters can request free access to these papers ...

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Physics26 Feb 2025

Material’s ‘incipient’ property could jumpstart fast, low-power electronics

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Scientists at Penn State have harnessed a unique property called incipient ferroelectricity to create a new type of computer memory that could revolutionize how electronic devices work, such as using much less energy and operating in extreme environments like outer space. They published their work, which focuses on multifunctional two-dimensional field-effect transistors (FETs), in Nature Communications. FETs are advanced electronic devices that use ultra-thin layers of materials to control electrical signals, offering multiple functions like switching, sensing or memory in a compact form. They are ferroelectric-like, ...

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Physics26 Feb 2025

What can theoretical physics teach us about knitting?

The practice of purposely looping thread to create intricate knit garments and blankets has existed for millennia. Though its precise origins have been lost to history, artifacts like a pair of wool socks from ancient Egypt suggest it dates back as early as the 3rd to 5th century CE. Yet, for all its long-standing ubiquity, the physics behind knitting remains surprisingly elusive. “Knitting is one of those weird, seemingly simple but deceptively complex things we take for granted,” says ...

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Physics25 Feb 2025

Biophysical Society announced undergraduate poster award competition winners

ROCKVILLE, MD – The 10 winners of the annual Undergraduate Poster Award Competition (UPAC) were recognized at the 69th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting Awards Ceremony on February 17, 2025. After two rounds of judging, judges from every career level selected these students for their outstanding presentations during the poster competition. Seventy-four students participated in the competition. The 2025 UPAC winners are: Adam Gatch, Clemson University, USA – “AΒ42 Accelerates Pathogenic Structural Transformation Within ...

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Physics24 Feb 2025

Pay-for-performance metrics must be more impactful and physician-controlled

Pay-for-Performance Metrics Must Be More Impactful and Physician-Controlled Background: This editorial builds on a study by Brulin and Teoh, released ahead of the March/April 2025 issue of Annals of Family Medicine, which found that performance-based reimbursement is associated with lower perceived quality of care by increasing illegitimate tasks and moral distress for primary care physicians. Editorial Stance: Quality metrics and pay-for-performance initiatives are far more expensive than many patients, clinicians, or administrators realize. The authors call for more rigorous review through cluster randomized controlled trials both before and after implementation—and ...

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Physics21 Feb 2025

Illuminating the proton’s inner workings

Scientists have now mapped the forces acting inside a proton, showing in unprecedented detail how quarks—the tiny particles within—respond when hit by high-energy photons. The international team includes experts from the University of Adelaide who are exploring the structure of sub-atomic matter to try and provide further insight into the forces that underpin the natural world. “We have used a powerful computational technique called lattice quantum chromodynamics to map the forces acting inside ...

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Physics20 Feb 2025

Plasma arc cutting: PNU and KIMM scientists together decode gas flow dynamics

Plasma arc cutting (PAC) is a thermal cutting technique widely used in manufacturing applications such as shipbuilding, aerospace, fabrication, nuclear plants decommissioning, construction industry, and the automotive industry. In this process, a jet of plasma or ionized gas is ejected at high speeds, which melts and subsequently removes unwanted parts of materials from electrically conductive workpieces such as metals. The plasma jet is typically produced in two steps: pressuring a gas through a small nozzle hole and generating an electric arc via power supply. Remarkably, the introduced arc ionizes ...

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Physics20 Feb 2025

Deep Nanometry reveals hidden nanoparticles

Researchers including those from the University of Tokyo developed Deep Nanometry, an analytical technique combining advanced optical equipment with a noise removal algorithm based on unsupervised deep learning. Deep Nanometry can analyze nanoparticles in medical samples at high speed, making it possible to accurately detect even trace amounts of rare particles. This has proven its potential for detecting extracellular vesicles indicating early signs of colon cancer, and it is hoped that it can be applied to other medical and industrial fields. Did you know your ...

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Physics19 Feb 2025

A new way to observe electrons in motion

Electrons oscillate around the nucleus of an atom on extremely short timescales, typically completing a cycle in just a few hundred attoseconds (one attosecond is a quintillionth of a second). Because of their ultrafast motions, directly observing electron behavior in molecules has been challenging. Now researchers from UC San Diego’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry have suggested a new method to make visualizing electron motion a reality. This new method describes an experimental concept called ultrafast vortex electron diffraction, which allows ...

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Physics19 Feb 2025

Using a data-driven approach to synthesize single-atom catalysts that can purify water

All humans need clean water to live. However, purifying water can be energy-intensive, so there is great interest in improving this process. Researchers at Tohoku University have reported a strategy using data-driven predictions coupled with precise synthesis to accelerate the development of single-atom catalysts (SACs) for more robust and efficient water purification. SACs are one of the most crucial catalysts. They play a pivotal role in enhancing efficiency in diverse applications including chemical industries, energy conversion, and environmental processes. ...

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Physics12 Feb 2025

University of Tennessee physicist named Cottrell Scholar

A physics professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with a heart for transfer students has received the Cottrell Scholar Award. Established in 1994, the award honors and helps to develop outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills. Assistant Professor of Physics Lawrence “Larry” Lee of UT’s College of Arts and Sciences will receive $120,000 over three years from the Research Corporation for Science and Advancement to strengthen the transfer pipeline of physics students who transfer ...

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Physics12 Feb 2025

Sea turtles’ secret GPS: researchers uncover how sea turtles learn locations using Earth's magnetic field

A new study from researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides the first empirical evidence that loggerhead sea turtles can learn and remember the unique magnetic signatures of different geographic regions. This discovery offers new insights into how turtles and other migratory animals navigate vast distances to reach specific foraging and breeding grounds. The findings, published in the journal Nature, also suggest that sea turtles possess two distinct magnetic senses that function differently to detect the Earth’s magnetic field. Loggerhead turtles are famous for their extraordinary ...

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Physics12 Feb 2025

Exotic observations with neutrons at the ILL

In everyday life, we typically encounter water in one of three familiar states – solid, liquid or gas. But there are in fact many more phases, some of which – predicted to exist at high temperature and pressure – are so strange they’re referred to as exotic. State-of-the-art neutron spectrometers and sample environment infrastructures at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) have enabled the first experimental observation of one of these exotic phases – plastic ice VII. Plastic ice VII was originally predicted more than 15 years ago by molecular dynamics ...

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Physics12 Feb 2025

Negative refraction of light using atoms instead of metamaterials

For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that negative refraction can be achieved using atomic arrays - without the need for artificially manufactured metamaterials. Scientists have long sought to control light in ways that appear to defy the laws of Nature. Negative refraction - a phenomenon where light bends in the opposite direction to its usual behaviour - has captivated researchers for its potential to revolutionise optics, enabling transformative technologies such as superlenses and cloaking devices. Now, carefully ...

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Physics11 Feb 2025

IEEE researchers provide mathematical solutions to study 2D light interaction in photonic crystal lasers

Laser diodes are semiconductors that generate light and amplify it using repeated reflection or ‘optical feedback’. Once the light has achieved desirable optical gain, laser diodes release it as powerful laser beams. Photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs) are advanced laser diodes where the optical gain is typically distributed laterally to the propagating light within a photonic crystal (PC) structure. They differ from traditional lasers by separating gain, feedback, and emission functions, offering scalable single-mode power and innovative ...

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