ScienceDaily: Matter & Energy News

The world's abalone are threatened, endangered or otherwise vulnerable in nearly every corner of the planet. If only we could wave a magic wand to know when abalone are ready to reproduce, without even touching them. Scientists have now found that wand -- although it isn't magic, and it only looks like a wand. It's an ultrasound transducer, and it can be used to quickly and noninvasively detect when abalone are ready to spawn, they report in a study this week.

Researchers have developed a new type of catalyst material, called a metal hydroxide-organic framework (MHOF), which is made of inexpensive and abundant components. The catalyst speeds up the electrochemical reaction that splits apart water molecules to produce oxygen, which is at the heart of multiple approaches aiming to produce alternative fuels for transportation.

Researchers have developed an innovative terahertz imager microchip that can enable devices to detect and create images through obstacles that include fog, smoke, dust and snow.

Researchers have developed a computationally efficient method that could be used to identify anomalies in the U.S. power grid in real time. The novel technique augments a special type of machine-learning model with a powerful graph structure, and does not require any labeled data to train.

Researchers developed a technique that effectively protects computer programs' secret information from memory-timing side channel attacks, while enabling faster computation than other security schemes.

Researchers have developed a new pH probe and imaging technique to provide researchers more information when studying diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's.

Scientists developed a neural network deep learning technique to extract hidden turbulent motion information from observations of the Sun. Tests on three different sets of simulation data showed that it is possible to infer the horizontal motion from data for the temperature and vertical motion. This technique will benefit solar astronomy and other fields such as plasma physics, fusion science, and fluid dynamics.

Researchers show that certain proteins can act as efficient electrical conductors. In fact, these tiny protein wires may have better conductance properties than similar nanowires composed of DNA, which have already met with considerable success for a host of human applications.

The building blocks of life-saving therapeutics could be developed in days instead of years thanks to new software that simulates evolution. Proseeker is the name of a new computational tool that mimics the processes of natural selection, producing proteins that can be used for a range of medicinal and household uses.

Liquid crystals derived from borophene have risen in popularity, owing to their immense applicability in optoelectronic and photonic devices. However, their development requires a very narrow temperature range, which hinders their large-scale application. Now, researchers have investigated a liquid-state borophene oxide, discovering that it exhibited high thermal stability and optical switching behavior even at low voltages. These findings highlight the strong potential of borophene oxide-derived liquid crystals for use in widespread applications.