ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

Researchers have discovered a giant thermoelectric effect in an antiferromagnet. The study shows, surprisingly, that antiferromagnets can have the same value of the anomalous Nernst effect as conventional ferromagnets, but without any stray magnetic fields that would otherwise affect surrounding devices. The newly discovered recipe for generating large Nernst voltages opens a new research direction for the development of highly efficient thermoelectric devices.

An international research team that synthesized a new ultrahard form of carbon glass with a wealth of potential practical applications for devices and electronics. It is the hardest known glass with the highest thermal conductivity among all glass materials.

Mounded, luminous clouds of gas and dust glow in this Hubble image of a Herbig-Haro object known as HH 45. Herbig-Haro objects are a rarely seen type of nebula that occurs when hot gas ejected by a newborn star collides with the gas and dust around it at hundreds of miles per second, creating bright shock waves. In this image, blue indicates ionized oxygen (O II) and purple shows ionized magnesium (Mg II). Researchers were particularly interested in these elements because they can be used to identify shocks and ionization fronts. This object is located in the nebula NGC 1977, which itself is part of a complex of three nebulae called The Running Man. NGC 1977 -- like its companions NGC 1975 and NGC 1973 -- is a reflection nebula, which means that it doesn't emit light on its own, but reflects light from nearby stars, like a streetlight illuminating fog. Hubble observed this region to look for stellar jets and planet-forming disks around young stars, and examine how their environment affects the evolution of such disks.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that multidrug-resistant bacteria and bacterial spores can be killed by ultrashort-pulse lasers. The findings could lead to new ways to sterilize wounds and blood products without damaging human cells.

The petrochemical industry turns oil and gas into precursors used to synthesize lubricants and other critical products. Chemists show that bacteria can be metabolically engineered to generate similar precursors, providing a sustainable replacement for fossil fuels and using less energy. The microbes need only glucose. The medium-chain hydrocarbons they produce can be broken down into shorter chains and polymerized into plastics, or lengthened to make products such as diesel.

Astronomers have discovered an ultrahot Jupiter with shortest orbit of any known gas giant planet.

NASA's Mars mission InSight probes the geology of the Elysium Planitia, finding alternate layers of basalt and sediments. An international team of scientists compares on-the-ground data with data from models, which helps to understand, e.g., the surface's load-bearing capacity and trafficability.

Engineers have invented a breakthrough optical phase modulator that controls visible light -- without dimming it -- with the smallest footprint and lowest power consumption. New device will improve LIDAR for remote sensing, AR/VR goggles, quantum information processing chips, implantable optogenetic probes, and more.

Scientists have discovered that ferroelectric bubbles remain intact and retain their electronic and electromechanical (piezoelectric) properties in a freestanding state. The discovery offers promise for novel microelectronics and energy-related applications.

Demonstrating that a material thought to be always chemically inert, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), can be turned chemically active holds potential for a new class of catalysts with a wide range of applications, according to an international team of researchers.

Despite advances in patient screenings and breakthrough therapies that allow CF patients now to live into their mid- to late 30s or 40s, sometimes even longer, all patients are plagued by bacteria settling in their mucus, which causes inflammation in their lungs, and eventually causes their respiratory systems to fail. A major barrier to developing new and urgently needed treatments is the lack of human in vitro models that recapitulate the CF disease's pathology.

New highly sensitive quantum sensors for the brain may in the future be able to identify brain diseases such as dementia, ALS and Parkinson's, by spotting a slowing in the speed at which signals travel across the brain.

Researchers have new evidence that could help rapidly boost efforts to scale-up the adoption of clean cooking with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in sub-Saharan Africa. The new study suggests that supply-side interventions such as shortening the distance to LPG retail points and improving access to multi-burner LPG stoves could help increase the consumption of the clean cooking fuels, for the benefit of public health, gender equality and environmental protection.

Safe, cheap and sustainable technology for energy storage has been developed. It is based on two major breakthroughs: the manufacture of wood-based electrodes in rolled form, and a new type of water-based electrolyte.

An international research team has developed a new imaging technology. In the future this technology could not only improve the resolution of neutron measurements by many times but could also reduce radiation exposure during x-ray imaging.

A new study describes a proof of principle for engineering a bacterium, Gluconobacter oxydans, that takes a big first step towards meeting skyrocketing rare earth element demand in a way that matches the cost and efficiency of traditional thermochemical extraction and refinement methods and is clean enough to meet U.S. environmental standards.