Lead-free piezoelectric materials of the future

Piezoelectric materials have fantastic properties: squeeze them and they generate an electrical field. And vice-versa, they contract or expand when jolted with an electrical pulse. With a name derived from the Greek word ...

Fundamental forces in protein structure revisited

(PhysOrg.com) -- Research scientists from Bristol have joined forces with colleagues from America to unravel one of the fundamental problems of molecular biology, paving the way for better engineering of biological systems.

Researchers Shed Light on Birth of the First Stars

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the beginning, there were hydrogen and helium. Created in the first three minutes after the Big Bang, these elements gave rise to all other elements in the universe. The factories that made this possible ...

How shape-memory materials remember

X-ray studies and fundamental calculations are helping physicists gain molecular level insight into the workings of some magnetic shape-memory materials, which change shape under the influence magnetic fields.

Researcher unravels one of geology's great mysteries

Danish researcher has solved one of the great mysteries of our geological past: Why the Earth's surface was not one big lump of ice four billion years ago when sun radiation was much weaker than today. Scientists have presumed ...

Rice physicists find reappearing quantum trios

Using atoms at temperatures colder than deep space, Rice University physicists have delivered overwhelming proof for a once-scoffed-at theory that's become a hotbed for research some 40 years after it first appeared. In a ...

First Bose-Einstein condensation of strontium

In an international first, scientists from the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI, Austria) produced a Bose-Einstein condensate of the alkaline-earth element strontium, thus narrowly winning an international ...

Nano-sonar uses electrons to measure under the surface

Just as sonar sends out sound waves to explore the hidden depths of the ocean, electrons can be used by scanning tunnelling microscopes to investigate the well-hidden properties of the atomic lattice of metals. As researchers ...

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