2+1 is Not Always 3

In the microworld unity is not always strength

03-May-2016 - If a person pushes a broken-down car alone, there is a certain effect. If another person helps, the result is the sum of their efforts. If two micro-particles are pushing another microparticle, however, the resulting effect may not necessarily be the sum their efforts. A recent study published in ...

From the scent of roses to nylon and plastics

Enzyme for plastics production from renewable raw materials

25-Apr-2016 - Beguiling scents, sober facts: scents emanating from plants are almost always monoterpenes and monoterpene alcohols, the essential oils of plants are natural hydrocarbon compounds. For instant, geraniol is the tempting fragrant alcohol of roses. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Marine ...

Classical physics in a spin

14-Mar-2016 - This is the first time such simple ‘universal models’ have been found to exist. The study builds on pioneering work from the ‘80s which is at the interface between theoretical computer science and physics. Extremely simple computers are universal: they can in principle compute anything that can ...

Microrobots learn from ciliates

A swimming microrobot formed from liquid-crystal elastomers is driven by a light-induced peristaltic motion

24-Feb-2016 - Ciliates can do amazing things: Being so tiny, the water in which they live is like thick honey to these microorganisms. In spite of this, however, they are able to self-propel through water by the synchronized movement of thousands of extremely thin filaments on their outer skin, called cilia. ...

Superconductivity: footballs with no resistance

Indications of light-induced lossless electricity transmission in fullerenes contribute to the search for superconducting materials

11-Feb-2016 - Superconductors have long been confined to niche applications, due to the fact that the highest temperature at which even the best of these materials becomes resistance-free is minus 70 degrees Celsius. Nowadays they are mainly used in magnets for nuclear magnetic resonance tomographs, fusion ...

Sluggish electrons caught in action

05-Feb-2016 - By creating and using the first optical attosecond pulse, scientists from the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics measured the time it takes electrons inside atoms to respond to the electromagnetic forces of light. In the race to establish ever-faster electronics, light could play an important ...

Gold: Rewriting text book knowledge

14-Jan-2016 - Gold as an element is known and highly valued for more than 2500 years, and its popularity is based on its beautiful color and chemical inertness. It is well established that the golden color is, physically spoken, of relativistic origin. The surface of gold is unique, as it hosts states that ...

Cold fermions keep distance from each other

Scientists observe “Pauli blocking” between fermionic lithium atoms in an optical lattice

06-Jan-2016 - The microcosm is governed by its own laws – the rules of quantum mechanics. They describe, for instance, the statistical behaviour of elementary particles. Electrons and all the other constituents of atoms belong to the group of fermions that are never allowed to share identical quantum numbers. ...

Borophene: A very promising 2D material

21-Dec-2015 - "Borophene", a 2-dimensional layer of boron atoms, holds the electronic properties which researchers try to implement in graphene – and even more. In the latest issue of Science, Hermann Sachdev, a researcher from Professor Müllen’s department at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research ...

New momentum for Open Access

Berlin Conference on the reorganisation of funding models for scholarly journals

14-Dec-2015 - A new approach should give a fresh boost to Open Access, the unrestricted online access to scholarly research articles. This is the result of an international conference in Berlin, where a process was initiated to transform subscription journals to Open Access. The key to this lies in the hands ...