Students can hide their ignorance and answer questions correctly in an exam without their lack of knowledge being detected by teachers — but only in the quantum world. University of Queensland researchers have successfully verified a counterintuitive idea from quantum theory — that ignorance of the whole does not necessarily imply ignorance of the parts […] More
It is well-known that victims of bullying can have higher risks of future health and social problems. However, different victims experience a broad range of responses and some may not suffer at all. Researchers felt this implied there might be factors that could protect against some consequences of bullying. In a study of over 6,000 […] More
Like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, critical spin fluctuations in a magnetic system haven’t been captured on film. Unlike the fabled creatures, these fluctuations — which are highly correlated electron spin patterns — do actually exist, but they are too random and turbulent to be seen in real time. A Cornell team developed a […] More
Seeing light emerge from a nanoscale experiment didn’t come as a big surprise to Rice University physicists. But it got their attention when that light was 10,000 times brighter than they expected. Condensed matter physicist Doug Natelson and his colleagues at Rice and the University of Colorado Boulder discovered this massive emission from a nanoscale […] More
A University of Wollongong team has published an extensive review of spin-gapless semiconductors (SGSs) . Spin gapless semiconductors (SGSs) are a new class of zero gap materials which have fully spin polarised electrons and holes. The study tightens the search for materials that would allow for ultra-fast, ultra-low energy ‘spintronic’ electronics with no wasted dissipation […] More
The brain analyses spoken language by recognising syllables. Scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Evolving Language National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR) have designed a computational model that reproduces the complex mechanism employed by the central nervous system to perform this operation. The model, which brings together two independent theoretical frameworks, […] More
Indium nitride is a promising material for use in electronics, but difficult to manufacture. Scientists at Linköping University, Sweden, have developed a new molecule that can be used to create high-quality indium nitride, making it possible to use it in, for example, high-frequency electronics. The results have been published in Chemistry of Materials. The bandwidth […] More
As high school students see in experiments with water waves, and we observe and use with light waves in many optical devices, interference is a fundamental property associated with wave-like behavior. Indeed, Davisson and Germer’s famous observation of interference in experiments with dilute beams of electrons, nearly a century ago, gave key experimental support to […] More
