As plastic debris weathers in aquatic environments, it can shed tiny nanoplastics. Although scientists have a good understanding of how these particles form, they still don t have a good grasp of where all the fragments end up. Now, researchers reporting in ACS
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IMAGE: Artistic impression of different spacecraft designs considering theoretical shapes of different kinds of warp bubbles . view more
Credit: E Lentz
If travel to distant stars within an individual s lifetime is going to be possible, a means of faster-than-light propulsion will have to be found. To date, even recent research about superluminal (faster-than-light) transport based on Einstein s theory of general relativity would require vast amounts of hypothetical particles and states of matter that have exotic physical properties such as negative energy density. This type of matter either cannot currently be found or cannot be manufactured in viable quantities. In contrast, new research carried out at the University of Göttingen gets around this problem by constructing a new class of hyper-fast solitons using sources with only positive energies that can enable travel at any speed. This reignites debate about the possibility of faster-than-light trave
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Wormholes play a key role in many science fiction films - often as a shortcut between two distant points in space. In physics, however, these tunnels in spacetime have remained purely hypothetical. An international team led by Dr. Jose Luis Blázquez-Salcedo of the University of Oldenburg has now presented a new theoretical model in the science journal
Physical Review Letters that makes microscopic wormholes seem less far-fetched than in previous theories.
Wormholes, like black holes, appear in the equations of Albert Einstein s general theory of relativity, published in 1916. An important postulate of Einstein s theory is that the universe has four dimensions - three spatial dimensions and time as the fourth dimension. Together they form what is known as spacetime, and spacetime can be stretched and curved by massive objects such as stars, much as a rubber sheet would be curved by a metal ball sinking into it. The curvature of spacetime determines the way objects like
Polymer scientists from the University of Groningen and NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, both in the Netherlands, have developed a polymer membrane from biobased malic acid. It is a superamphiphilic vitrimer epoxy resin membrane that can be used to separate water and oil. This membrane is fully recyclable. When the pores are blocked by foulants, it can be depolymerized, cleaned and subsequently pressed into a new membrane.
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VIDEO: The spread of virus aerosols throughout a music classroom, with one student and one faculty member, shown with and without a portable air purifier. view more
Credit: Sai Ranjeet Narayanan and Suo Yang, University of Minnesota
WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 The University of Minnesota School of Music was concerned about one-on-one teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and wondered if it should supplement its ventilation system with portable HEPA air purifiers.
So, school officials reached out to Suo Yang, a professor within the College of Science and Engineering, and his team to figure it out. In Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, Yang and the researchers describe their work to predict how virus particles spread within a music classroom.