Why shaving dulls even the sharpest of razors

Razors, scalpels, and knives are commonly made from stainless steel, honed to a razor-sharp edge and coated with even harder materials such as diamond-like carbon. However, knives require regular sharpening, while razors ...

Nanosuits help small creatures survive a vacuum

(Phys.org) —Scientists use scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) to study tiny structures in small organisms. SEMs can only work in a high vacuum, and exposure to such a vacuum normally causes living things to die very ...

World's smallest electric motor made from a single molecule

Chemists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences have developed the world's first single molecule electric motor, a development that may potentially create a new class of devices that could be used in applications ...

Researchers uncover new principle of motion in liquid crystals

A research team affiliated with UNIST has unveiled for the first time a new principle of motion in the microworld, where objects can move in a directed manner simply by changing their sizes periodically within a substance ...

Physicists use hair fluorescence to repurpose human hair waste

Physicists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an innovative method of converting human hair waste into a functional material that can be used to encrypt sensitive information or detect environmental ...

Uranium reveals its true nature

Most people are familiar with uranium as a fuel for nuclear power plants. And while that's the most common application, this element is also used in many other fields, such as dyes, medical devices, and weapons. Scientists ...

Team demos breakthrough in analog image processing

A research team of Vanderbilt engineers that includes a scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated a new ultrathin filter, based on metamaterials, that allows for analog optical image processing. Their work, ...

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