http://phys.org/physics-news/soft-matter/ en-us PhysOrg Team Phys.Org provides the latest news on soft matter, soft condensed matter, liquids, colloids, polymers, foams, gels, granular materials Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology achieved a 17-percent increase in boiling efficiency by using an acoustic field to enhance heat transfer. The acoustic field does this by efficiently removing vapor bubbles from the heated surface and suppressing the formation of an insulating vapor film. http://phys.org/news257100162.html Physics - Soft Matter 2012-05-24T17:43:46-07:00 (Phys.org) -- A team of physicists has used the high-energy x-rays of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory to penetrate the everyday mystery of a splash, revealing previously hidden structures and dynamics. http://phys.org/news255772602.html Physics - Soft Matter 2012-05-09T08:56:59-07:00 A new study by a team including scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) indicates that thin polymer films can have different properties depending on the method by which they are made. The results suggest that deeper work is necessary to explore the best way of creating these films, which are used in applications ranging from high-tech mirrors to computer memory devices. http://phys.org/news255252882.html Physics - Soft Matter 2012-05-03T09:20:01-07:00 Stir lots of small particles into water, and the resulting thick mixture appears highly viscous. When this dense suspension slips through a nozzle and forms a droplet, however, its behavior momentarily reveals a decidedly non-viscous side. University of Chicago physicists recorded this surprising behavior in laboratory experiments using high-speed photography that can capture action taking place in one hundred-thousandths of a second or less. http://phys.org/news252353064.html Physics - Soft Matter 2012-03-30T19:04:47-07:00 Ironing increases the humidity of a piece of cloth by injecting water vapor in the form of steam. But how does the vapor affect the fabric? Until now, it was thought that its only effect was to soften the fibers. French researchers at the Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée et Nanostructures de Lyon have now shown that water vapor plays another key role by acting on the contacts between the fibers, whether or not the material they are made of absorbs humidity. This work has just been published online in the journal Soft Matter. http://phys.org/news249300296.html Physics - Soft Matter 2012-02-24T10:05:10-07:00 An article published in Physical Review E and conducted by Spanish researchers at the universities of Granada and Barcelona might lead to a revolutionary change in water desalination and filtration methods. http://phys.org/news249299592.html Physics - Soft Matter 2012-02-24T09:53:23-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have solved one of the printing industry's greatest challenges - whether a liquid thread will break up into drops. http://phys.org/news248948500.html Physics - Soft Matter 2012-02-20T08:22:08-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Working together, Matthieu Gaudet and Steve Arscott from the University of Lille (IEMN lab) in France have built a circuit using a phenomenon known as photoelectrowetting, which allows a switch to be turned on by shining a light on it. As the two describe in their paper on the pre-print server arXiv, the circuit is made by using the principle of electrowetting to cause a drop of water to thin resulting in a conducting cantilever to fall towards a second conducting material allowing current to pass through. http://phys.org/news246276484.html Physics - Soft Matter 2012-01-20T10:08:32-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- On a mission to manipulate microscale structures of materials, researchers engineer new methods of controlling surface tension. http://phys.org/news245404484.html Physics - Soft Matter 2012-01-10T08:30:03-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Microscopic spheres form strings in surprising alignments when suspended in a viscous fluid and sheared between two plates — a finding that will affect the way scientists think about the properties of such wide-ranging substances as shampoo and futuristic computer chips. http://phys.org/news243842336.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-12-23T05:59:20-07:00 The University of Delaware's Eric M. Furst authored a commentary in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) advance online edition Dec. 19. http://phys.org/news243763860.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-12-22T08:11:18-07:00 By studying the behavior of tiny particles at an interface between oil and water, researchers at Harvard have discovered that stabilized emulsions may take longer to reach equilibrium than previously thought. http://phys.org/news242649942.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-12-09T10:45:52-07:00 In a study recently published in European Physical Journal E (EPJE), a German scientist constructed a theoretical model to understand how to best avoid jamming of soft matter that can be applied in food and cosmetics production. http://phys.org/news237030881.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-10-05T10:55:13-07:00 An international research team has successfully developed a widely applicable method for discovering the physical foundations of complex fluids for the first time. Researchers at the University of Vienna and University of Rome have developed a microscopic theory that describes the interactions between the various components of a complex polymer mixture. This approach has now been experimentally proven by physicists from Julich, who conducted neutron scattering experiments in Grenoble. The results have been published in the June issue of Physical Review Letters. http://phys.org/news226139855.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-06-01T09:37:48-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- It is very difficult to overestimate the importance of colloidal suspensions. Besides being an integral part of our everyday life (food, cosmetics, drugs), they also serve as an excellent model system for basic science. http://phys.org/news224932752.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-05-18T11:10:01-07:00 Scientists from the University of Sheffield have developed pigment-free, intensely coloured polymer materials, which could provide new, anti-counterfeit devices on passports or banknotes due to their difficulty to copy. http://phys.org/news224932528.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-05-18T10:15:53-07:00 A new microscope invented by scientists at Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus will let researchers use an exquisitely thin sheet of light -- similar to that used in supermarket bar-code scanners -- to peer inside single living cells, revealing the three-dimensional shapes of cellular landmarks in unprecedented detail. The microscopy technique images at high speed, so researchers can create dazzling movies that make biological processes, such as cell division, come alive. http://phys.org/news218482961.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-03-04T17:42:57-07:00 New York University physicists have developed a method for packing microscopic spheres that could lead to improvements in commercial products ranging from pharmaceutical lotions to ice cream. Their work, which relies on an innovative application of statistical mechanics, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://phys.org/news218130756.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-02-28T15:52:49-07:00 Nematodes, microscopic worms, are making engineers look twice at their ability to exhibit the "Cheerios effect" when they move in a collective motion. http://phys.org/news216384041.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-02-08T10:41:09-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of applied physicists at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Princeton, and Brandeis have demonstrated the formation of semipermeable vesicles from inorganic clay. http://phys.org/news216279355.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-02-07T05:36:20-07:00 In a finding that has been met with surprise and some controversy in the scientific community, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered a basic property that governs the way water and many other liquids behave as their temperature changes. http://phys.org/news214225830.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-01-14T11:11:21-07:00 High energy costs are one drawback of making clean water from waste effluents. According to an article in the journal Biomicrofluidics, which is published by the American Institute of Physics, a new system that combines two different technologies proposes to break down contaminants using the cheapest possible energy source, sunlight. Microfluidics – transporting water through tiny channels -- and photocatalysis -- using light to break down impurities – come together in the science of optofluidics. http://phys.org/news213966018.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-01-11T11:00:35-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team led by Patrick T. Mather, director of Syracuse Biomaterials Institute (SBI) and Milton and Ann Stevenson professor of biomedical and chemical engineering in Syracuse University’s L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science (LCS), has succeeded in applying the concept of functionally graded materials (FGMs) to shape memory polymers (SMPs). http://phys.org/news213447393.html Physics - Soft Matter 2011-01-05T10:56:48-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- From atomic crystals to spiral galaxies, self-assembly is ubiquitous in nature. In biological processes, self-assembly at the molecular level is particularly prevalent. http://phys.org/news211478125.html Physics - Soft Matter 2010-12-13T16:00:07-07:00 New research from the University of South Florida suggests that one of the evolutionary secrets of the shark's success hides in one of its tiniest traits -- flexible scales on the bodies of these peerless predators that make them better hunters by allowing them to change directions while moving at full speed. http://phys.org/news209797185.html Physics - Soft Matter 2010-11-24T05:00:40-07:00 Two separate research groups are reporting groundbreaking measurements of the fluid flow that surrounds freely swimming microorganisms. Experiments involving two common types of microbes reveal the ways that one creature's motion can affect its neighbors, which in turn can lead to collective motions of microorganism swarms. In addition, the research is helping to clarify how the motions of microscopic swimmers produces large scale stirring that distributes nutrients, oxygen and chemicals in lakes and oceans. http://phys.org/news206002366.html Physics - Soft Matter 2010-10-11T07:53:24-07:00 Atmospheric research often focuses on clouds' impact on weather and climate. Yet even low clouds are a long way off, with a base some 6,000 feet above earth. University of Notre Dame fluid dynamics and engineering professor Harindra Fernando works the other end of the air column closer to home -the bottom of the atmosphere in the city, which is known as the urban boundary layer. http://phys.org/news195900948.html Physics - Soft Matter 2010-06-16T10:50:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Understanding how thin-film coatings react to temperature changes could lead to more effective and durable sensors, solar-energy converters, safer medical implants and a host of other applications, says Jodie Lutkenhaus, assistant professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, who has found that heating some of these films can increase their stability. http://phys.org/news194880103.html Physics - Soft Matter 2010-06-04T14:22:06-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- The mystery surrounding what happens when bubbles collide has finally been busted. And knowing how bubbles bounce apart and fuse together could improve the quality of ice-cream and champagne as well as increase efficiency in the mining industry. http://phys.org/news194812392.html Physics - Soft Matter 2010-06-03T19:33:32-07:00 Purple bacteria were among the first life forms on Earth. They are single celled microscopic organisms that play a vital role in sustaining the tree of life. This tiny organism lives in aquatic environments like the bottom of lakes and the colorful corals under the sea, using sunlight as their source of energy. Its natural design seems the best structural solution for harvesting solar energy. Neil Johnson, a physicist and head of the inter-disciplinary research group in complexity in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami, thinks its cellular arrangement could be adapted for use in solar panels and other energy conversion devices to offer a more efficient way to garner energy from the sun. http://phys.org/news192114527.html Physics - Soft Matter 2010-05-03T14:30:01-07:00