Science Trends

Glowing light bulb (stock image). An international team of scientists has figured out how to capture heat and turn it into electricity. The discovery, published last week in the journal  Science Advances , could create more efficient energy generation from heat in things like car exhaust, interplanetary space probes and industrial processes. "Because of this discovery, we should be able to make more electrical energy out of heat than we do today," said study co-author Joseph Heremans, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Nanotechnology at The Ohio State University. "It's something that, until now, nobody thought was possible." The discovery is based on tiny particles called paramagnons -- bits that are not quite magnets, but that carry some magnetic flux. This is important, because magnets, when heated, lose their magnetic force and become what is called paramagnetic. A flux of magnetism -- what scient...

Neurons illustration (stock image). In experiments in mice, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have developed a way to successfully transplant certain protective brain cells without the need for lifelong anti-rejection drugs. A report on the research, published Sept. 16 in the journal  Brain , details the new approach, which selectively circumvents the immune response against foreign cells, allowing transplanted cells to survive, thrive and protect brain tissue long after stopping immune-suppressing drugs. The ability to successfully transplant healthy cells into the brain without the need for conventional anti-rejection drugs could advance the search for therapies that help children born with a rare but devastating class of genetic diseases in which myelin, the protective coating around neurons that helps them send messages, does not form normally. Approximately 1 of every 100,000 children born in the U.S. will have one of these diseases, such as Peliza...

If Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity holds true, then a black hole, born from the cosmically quaking collisions of two massive black holes, should itself "ring" in the aftermath, producing gravitational waves much like a struck bell reverbates sound waves. Einstein predicted that the particular pitch and decay of these gravitational waves should be a direct signature of the newly formed black hole's mass and spin. Now, physicists from MIT and elsewhere have "heard" the ringing of an infant black hole for the first time, and found that the pattern of this ringing does, in fact, predict the black hole's mass and spin -- more evidence that Einstein was right all along. The findings, published today in  Physical Review Letters , also favor the idea that black holes lack any sort of "hair" -- a metaphor referring to the idea that black holes, according to Einstein's theory, should exhibit just three observable properties: mas...

In Russia, scientist Vladislav Shchegolev inspects a package of berkelium after its overseas flight in 2009. The material was later used to create element 117, tennessine. COURTESY OF ORNL The rare radioactive substance made its way from the United States to Russia on a commercial flight in June 2009. Customs officers balked at accepting the package, which was ensconced in lead shielding and emblazoned with bold-faced warnings and the ominous trefoil symbols for ionizing radiation. Back it went across the Atlantic. U.S. scientists enclosed additional paper work and the parcel took a second trip, only to be rebuffed again. All the while, the precious cargo, 22 milligrams of an element called berkelium created in a nuclear reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, was deteriorating. Day by day, its atoms were decaying. “We were all a little frantic on our end,” says Oak Ridge nuclear engineer Julie Ezold. On the third try, the shipment cleared customs. At...

Gravitational waves concept (stock image). The final chapter of the historic detection of the powerful merger of two neutron stars in 2017 officially has been written. After the extremely bright burst finally faded to black, an international team led by Northwestern University painstakingly constructed its afterglow -- the last bit of the famed event's life cycle. Not only is the resulting image the deepest picture of the neutron star collision's afterglow to date, it also reveals secrets about the origins of the merger, the jet it created and the nature of shorter gamma ray bursts. "This is the deepest exposure we have ever taken of this event in visible light," said Northwestern's Wen-fai Fong, who led the research. "The deeper the image, the more information we can obtain." The study will be published this month in  The Astrophysical Journal Letters . Fong is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy in Northwestern's We...