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The quirky temperature dependence of liquid silica’s viscosity comes from the liquid equivalent of crystal defects, according to new simulations.


Using radioactive tritium, scientists improve laboratory constraints on the overdensity signal of cosmic relic neutrinos by a factor of 100, an advance that should improve the chances of spotting this elusive particle.

Centimeter-scale objects in liquid can be manipulated using the mutual attraction of two arrays of air bubbles in the presence of sound waves.

Assembling small components into structures is a fiddly business often encountered in manufacturing, robotics, and bioengineering. Some existing approaches use magnetic, electrical, or optical forces to move and position objects without physical contact. Now a team has shown that acoustic waves can create attractive forces between centimeter-scale objects in water, enabling one such object to be accurately positioned above another [1]. The scheme uses arrays of tiny, vibrating air bubbles that provide the attractive force. This acoustic method requires only simple equipment and could provide a cheap, versatile, and gentle alternative technique for object manipulation.

Researchers are developing techniques that use acoustic waves to position objects such as colloidal particles or biological cells. Attractive forces are produced by the scattering of sound waves from the objects being manipulated. One limitation of this approach, however, is that positioning is more accurate with waves of higher frequency (and thus smaller wavelength), but higher frequencies are also more strongly absorbed and attenuated by many materials.

Summary: The simple sight and smell of a meal prior to consumption triggers insulin release. This insulin release depends on a short-term inflammatory response. In those who are overweight, this inflammatory response is so excessive it can impair insulin secretion.

Source: University of Basel.

Even before carbohydrates reach the bloodstream, the very sight and smell of a meal trigger the release of insulin.

You and your business can try Onshape for free at https://Onshape.pro/DesignTheory. With recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence design tools, we are about to see the biggest creative and cultural explosion since the invention of electricity in the 1890s. By the end of this video, you will have a better understanding of how artificial intelligence will impact design, engineering, creativity, and culture as a whole. AI is a revolutionary game changer in design!

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Atoms are all about a tenth of a billionth of a meter wide (give or take a factor of 2). What determines an atom’s size? This was on the minds of scientists at the turn of the 20th century. The particle called the “electron” had been discovered, but the rest of an atom was a mystery. Today we’ll look at how scientists realized that quantum physics, an idea which was still very new, plays a central role. (They did this using one of their favorite strategies: “dimensional analysis”, which I described in a recent post.)

Since atoms are electrically neutral, the small and negatively charged electrons in an atom had to be accompanied by something with the same amount of positive charge — what we now call “the nucleus”. Among many imagined visions for what atoms might be like was the 1904 model of J.J. Thompson, in which he imagined the electrons are embedded within a positively-charged sphere the size of the whole atom.

But Thompson’s former student Ernest Rutherford gradually disproved this model in 1909–1911, through experiments that showed the nucleus is tens of thousands of times smaller (in radius) than an atom, despite having most of the atom’s mass.