Welcome to our “Science Tank” section. In this area of the website, we deal with relevant discoveries from the world of science (physics, mathematics, computer science, medicine and many more) in an interdisciplinary manner. We publish important achievements from around the world with a special focus on the scientific environment in Göttingen. Have fun and stay curious.
A team of German scientists measured the passage of photons through the hydrogen molecule. This is the shortest measurement of a period of time so far and is expressed in zeptoseconds or trillions of seconds. Physicists at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt have measured how in collaboration with scientists from the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin and DESY in Hamburg long it takes a photon to traverse a hydrogen particle. The result they obtained is 247 zeptoseconds for the average bond length of the particle. This is the shortest time span that has been measured so far.
In his 1999 Nobel Prize-winning work, Egyptian chemist Ahmed Zewail measured the speed with which particles change shape. Using ultrashort laser flashes, he discovered that the formation and breaking of chemical bonds takes place in the femtosecond range. A femtosecond is equal to one billionth of a second (0,0000000000000000001 second, 10E-15 seconds).
But German physicists have studied a process that is much shorter than the femtosecond. They measured how long it takes a photon to penetrate a hydrogen molecule. The measurements showed that the photon journey takes 247 zeptoseconds for the average particle binding length, and one zeptosecond equals one trillionth of a second (0,00000000000000000000001 second, 10E-21).
The first recording of a phenomenon of such short duration was in 2016. It was then that scientists captured the electron released from the bonds of the original helium atom. They estimated that this loop lasted 850 zeptoseconds. The results of these measurements appeared in the journal "Nature Physics".
It's called the Fluidic Propulsive System. (FPS), means the "fluid propulsion system", or perhaps rather the "fluid-based propulsion system", or actually "fluid physics". In fact, it is not a liquid, but a gas, quite simply air, which from a physical point of view can also be viewed as a very low-viscosity liquid.
Andrei Evulet from Romania, who has 15 years of experience at GE Aviation, has been building prototypes of these engines for some time. He was responsible for the technology that is part of the world's largest jet engine, the GE9X, which is working on the Boeing 777X. Together with his school friend Denis Dancanet, he founded Jetoptera a few years ago. They were guided by the idea of creating a new propulsion system that would be ideal for VTOL's vertical take-off flights and that would enable both large unmanned drones and flying cars to be used.
The journal "Nature" published a publication by a team of scientists about the fact that they managed to get one Superconductor to get that at room temperature works, maybe a little cooler than room temperature, because 14,5 degrees Celsius. The catch is that the material in which this phenomenon has been demonstrated has to be pressed to 2,6 million atmospheres. But just achieving superconductivity at such a high temperature is a great achievement.
An international group of scientists has set an upper limit for the speed of sound, which is around 36 kilometers per second. So far, the highest speed of sound has been measured in a diamond and was only about half of the stated maximum.
Sound waves can penetrate various media such as air or water. Depending on what they are crossing, they move at different speeds. For example, they move much faster through solids than through liquids or gases, so an oncoming train can be heard sooner if you listen to the sound traveling along the route rather than in the air.
Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity sets an absolute limit to the speed at which a wave can propagate, namely the speed of light, which is around 300.000 km per second. So far, however, it is not known whether sound waves also have an upper speed limit when crossing solids or liquids. Until now. Scientists at Queen Mary University of London, Cambridge University, and the Institute of High Pressure Physics in Troiksk, Russia, have found that the speed of sound depends on two dimensionless fundamental constants: the subtle structural constant and the ratio of proton mass to electron. The results of their work are in the magazine "Science Advances"has been published. (Image source: Pixelbay)
The well-known Hacksmith Internet DIY team of hackers, who translated various concepts from films, comics and games into real devices, constructed a "real", ie plasma-based lightsaber. Although it is not as comfortable as the weapon from "Star Wars" because it unfortunately requires a thick gas supply cable, it looks quite similar to the equipment of Jedi Knights, as can be seen from the video presentations available on the Internet.
The nanoparticles, which are deadly to cancer, can be used to fight the disease by obscuring their true nature. Nanoparticles, which are "camouflaged" as amino acids necessary for the development of cancer, can penetrate the cancer cell and, following the principle of the "Trojan horse", blow it up from the inside. The method proved to be very promising in laboratory experiments.
This "Trojan horse" is actually a nanoparticle covered in the amino acid L-phenylalanine, which is essential for cancer cells to survive and grow. L-phenylalanine is not produced in the body and has to be ingested from food, usually meat and dairy products, "said researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Their research was published in the journal"Small" released.
Image source: Nanyang Technology University Singapore
“Space, endless expanses. The year is 2020. These are the adventures of the ISS space station:… "
NASA has announced tests for a new toilet to be installed on the International Space Station (ISS). The entire $ 23 million set was intended primarily for women. If the tests are successful, this high-tech toilet will be used during the Artemis II mission in three years.
Most of the room toilets developed to date work with negative pressure, which draws the "effects of human metabolism" away from the body and transfers it to appropriate storage systems. Now the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) has been designed, which can be translated using the Universal Waste Management System. It works on a similar principle but has a number of new features that help maintain hygiene and reduce odors, which is quite important in the tight spaces of spacecraft.
New space toilet:
NASA reports that the UWMS is 65 percent smaller and 40 percent lighter than the toilet that has been on the ISS since the 1990s. One of the most important improvements is the automatic start of suction as soon as the toilet lid is lifted. This is to help reduce the spread of unpleasant odors.
Since the toilet is designed for people who are weightless, it will also have foot mounts and special guides to "anchor" the astronauts. In the old design, special thigh straps were used for this purpose. Although the information from NASA does not make it clear that the new space toilet will be comfortable, the agency's experts believe it will be a more efficient project than the solutions in use today. According to NASA, the new toilet cleans and maintains itself faster, especially thanks to the new solutions for urine drainage. The toilet is also intended to be completely isolated from other parts of the spaceship to ensure user privacy.
A team of physicists from the University of Arkansas reported on the development of a system that is able to detect thermal movements in the structure of graphs and convert them into electrical current. "The graph-based energy collection circuit can be integrated with a processor to provide clean, low-voltage energy for small devices or sensors," said Paul Thibado, professor of physics and lead author of a paper on the subject published in Physical Review E.
The Polish-Israeli team led by Dr. Radek Łapkiewicz from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw presented a new, revolutionary method of microscopy that theoretically has no resolution limit in the magazine "Optica".
The research was announced by the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) in a communication to PAP. Dr. Łapkiewicz is a recipient of the FIRST TEAM program.
The development of life sciences and medicine requires the observation of ever smaller objects - for example the structure and interaction of proteins in cells. The samples observed should not differ from the structures naturally occurring in the body - therefore the methods and reagents must not be used too aggressively. The classic optical microscope has insufficient resolution. Due to the wavelength of the light, such a microscope does not allow the imaging of structures that are smaller than about 250 nanometers (half the wavelength of green light). Objects that are closer together can no longer be distinguished. This is the so-called diffractive limitation. The electron microscope has a resolution several orders of magnitude higher than a light microscope, but it allows us to only observe dead objects that are placed in a vacuum and bombarded with an electron beam. It is not about studying living organisms or processes naturally occurring in them.
Thanks to centrifugal force and the use of liquids of different densities, self-organizing chemical factories can be developed. The idea for spinning reactors proposed by Poland is not only clever but also beautiful. The research was placed on the cover of the prestigious magazine "Nature".
The Polish-Korean team showed how a whole series of complex chemical reactions can be carried out at the same time - without resorting to complicated plant systems, ... centrifugal force. The first author of the publication is Dr. Olgierd Cybulski, who works at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea.
A rotating chemical reactor
- We show how to prepare self-organizing chemical factories - describes the corresponding author of the publication, Prof. Bartosz Grzybowski (also UNIST and the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences). He adds that he already has an idea how to make such a chemical spinning reactor ... to recover lithium from liquids in batteries.
The fact that liquids of different densities can form unmixed layers can even be observed during lunch - while staring at broths. Soup fat floats on top because it is less dense than the watery part of the soup.
At home, a more complex experience can be had: many liquids of different densities are slowly poured into a single vessel one at a time. You can start with the densest honey, maple syrup, dish soap, water, vegetable oil to the rarest kerosene. If this happens slowly enough, you will see layers of different colors separated from each other and not mixed in this (inedible) so-called density column. But if such a density column begins to rotate very, very quickly - to rotate the vessel around a vertical axis (like on a pottery wheel, but much faster - e.g. 2,6 thousand revolutions per minute), it turns out that the subsequent layers form concentric rings. The lightest liquids are smaller in diameter and placed closest to the center of the centrifuge, while the densest are placed in large rings closer to the edge of the centrifuge. Centrifugation is an important factor here as centrifugal force begins to dominate the surface tension of the liquid. Very thin layers of liquid - up to 0,15 mm or even thinner - can be achieved without the risk of mixing. If the density of the liquid is chosen correctly, scientists have shown that up to 20 colored rings can be obtained in a centrifuge that rotates around a common axis.
The University of Helsinki has developed an Artificial Intelligence tool that allows you to get an idea of what your brain is thinking at any given moment. After reading the brain waves of people who are asked to focus on a person's image, the AI algorithm creates facial images that the participants look at. This research, described in Nature Scientific Reports, consisted of that to perform several phases of practice and then test the algorithm.
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A team of German scientists measured the passage of photons through the hydrogen molecule. This is the shortest measurement of a period of time so far and is expressed in zeptoseconds or trillions of seconds. Physicists at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt have measured how in collaboration with scientists from the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin and DESY in Hamburg long it takes a photon to traverse a hydrogen particle. The result they obtained is 247 zeptoseconds for the average bond length of the particle. This is the shortest time span that has been measured so far.
The nanoparticles, which are deadly to cancer, can be used to fight the disease by obscuring their true nature. Nanoparticles, which are "camouflaged" as amino acids necessary for the development of cancer, can penetrate the cancer cell and, following the principle of the "Trojan horse", blow it up from the inside. The method proved to be very promising in laboratory experiments. 
The research was announced by the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) in a communication to PAP. Dr. Łapkiewicz is a recipient of the FIRST TEAM program.
Thanks to centrifugal force and the use of liquids of different densities, self-organizing chemical factories can be developed. The idea for spinning reactors proposed by Poland is not only clever but also beautiful. The research was placed on the cover of the prestigious magazine "Nature".