clhs sciblog

It was discovered that the nanostructures  that produce some birds’ brightly colored feathers have a structure similar to sponges or beer foam.  Most colors in nature are produced by pigments, but the bright blue color in many birds feathers are produced by nanostructures.  Under a microscope, nanostructures look like sponges or air bubbles.  A team [...]

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The University of Chicago has combined small angle and wide angle x-rays with a laser to watch quick reactions in protein. The different types of rays show both the overall shape (small angle) and more detailed information (wide angle) of the molecule. Just how quick of reactions does this machine track? The rays began hitting [...]

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Researchers have recently been studying helium, that could lead to more accurate temperature and pressure measurements. Helium is used in more than just balloons, Helium is also very useful for lasers, and nuclear reactor coolers. Helium is very unique, because it doesn’t react with other substances and it is the least volatile of any gas. [...]

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Why does hot water freeze faster than cold water? This is one of the modern science’s few remaining mysteries. It’s called the Mpemba effect. It only occurs under certain circumstances. Because of the bigger difference in temperature between water and the freezer, hot water freezes faster. and it helps it reach the freezing point before [...]

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A physics professor at The University of Arizona and some international teams of physicists are leading an experiment that will use ultra high energy proton collisions. They are searching for a particle called the Magnetic Monopole. This magnetic monopole will only have one pole ( hence the name “mono”pole) unlike normal magnets that have two poles: [...]

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Physicists at NYU have created particles called handshaking particles.  This means that these particles link together based on their certain shapes rather than randomly.  This is something that could be able to improve the creation of synthetic materials.  This process is done by manipulating colloids.  Colloids are particles suspended within a fluid.  What the researchers [...]

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Fraunhofer researchers from Paris have discovered a way of creating fiber-reinforced thermoplastics that doesn’t involve glass or carbon fiber matting, siphoning air, and huge ovens. Instead they have come up with a way of using lasers. They take kilometer long strips of  thermoplastic resin and melt them with the lasers. They are stacked on top [...]

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Scientists have created a way to make a liquid go uphill. They carve patterns into silicon with short, highly-powerful laser bursts causing a liquid to climb to the top of a silicon chip. The water molecules get more attracted to the silicon than to themselves and they rise 3.5cm a second. The process cools down [...]

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MIT researches have created a synthetic crystal that can control the transmission of heat. It was built by using silicon dioxide, which is a hard glassy material, and polymer material, which is a molecule made up of smaller units bonded to form a chain. The two component materials reflected phonon — created low-level heat. Phonons [...]

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What do phones, iPods, and battery powered cars have in common? They all have powerful lithium-ion batteries. But a common problem within them all, and all other lithium-ion batteries, is that they all take much too long to charge their batteries. Researchers at Mississippi State University discovered that by adding another oscillating electric field, and [...]

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