Lifeboat Foundation

Space is a dangerous place. From micro-meteorites and electromagnetic interference to fires in space and extreme heat and cold, we need to develop new materials to enable the next generation of space travel and intergalactic travel.

New Swinburne research published in Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials highlights the cutting-edge materials that are solving these problems, including those being developed by Swinburne’s Multifunctional Materials and Composites team.

These include self-healing polymers, fire and thermally resistant materials, materials for thermal management, self-cleaning materials, EMI shielding materials and multifunctional carbon fiber composites.

Chinese researchers have announced in a video that they’ve verified LK-99’s ability to conduct current with zero resistance, but questions still linger.

Glossy white-concrete panels clad this holiday home with a pentagonal plan in Italy, which has been designed by Milan studio JM Architecture.

The dwelling is named Pinwheel after its distinctive shape, which was JM Architecture’s solution for the client’s “only request” – that it offers views of both the nearby Lake Maggiore and surrounding alpine valleys.

“While exploring several design options for a compact house to fit on this small plot, we realised that the building constraints and the client’s requirements resulted in the simple geometry of a pentagon shape,” said JM Architecture founder Jacopo Mascheroni.

Year 2001 😗😁

Stable levitation of one magnet by another with no energy input is usually prohibited by Earnshaw’s theorem. However, the introduction of diamagnetic material at special locations can stabilize such levitation. A magnet can even be stably suspended between (diamagnetic) fingertips. A very simple, surprisingly stable room temperature magnet levitation device is described that works without superconductors and requires absolutely no energy input. Our theory derives the magnetic field conditions necessary for stable levitation in these cases and predicts experimental measurements of the forces remarkably well. New levitation configurations are described which can be stabilized with hollow cylinders of diamagnetic material. Measurements are presented of the diamagnetic properties of several samples of bismuth and graphite.

New research uses protons to shine a light on the structure and imperfections of this two-dimensional wonder material.

Graphene is a two-dimensional wonder material that has been suggested for a wide range of applications in energy, technology, construction, and more since it was first isolated from graphite in 2004.

This single layer of carbon atoms is tough yet flexible, light but with high resistance, with graphene.

Massive implications with this one.

It’s been a rough few days in the condensed matter physics realm following claims of the world’s first room-temperature superconductor being achieved. However, work to verify and replicate the results.

“They come off as real amateurs,” Michael Norman, a theorist at Argonne National Laboratory told Science. “They don’t know much about superconductivity and the way they’ve presented some of the data is fishy.”

Nadya Mason, a condensed matter physicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign said “the data seems a bit sloppy.”

The topic has kept Science Twitter tittering for days, with many researchers—and wannabe researchers— sharing their hot takes.

Earth’s oldest craters could give scientists critical information about the structure of the early Earth and the composition of bodies in the solar system as well as help to interpret crater records on other planets. But geologists can’t find them, and they might never be able to, according to a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Geologists have found evidence of impacts, such as ejecta (material flung far away from the impact), melted rocks, and high-pressure minerals from more than 3.5 billion years ago. But the actual craters from so long ago have remained elusive. The planet’s oldest known impact structures, which is what scientists call these massive craters, are only about 2 billion years old. We’re missing two and a half billion years of mega-craters.

The steady tick of time and the relentless process of erosion are responsible for the gap, according to Matthew S. Huber, a planetary scientist at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa who studies impact structures and led the new study.

Energy storing building materials could make on-demand power from renewables affordable worldwide.