Aestus Ajith

There's a disturbance in the force. The Universe as we know it is made up of a continuum of space and time - a space-time fabric that's curved by massive objects such as stars and black holes, and which dictates the movement of matter.  Thanks to Einstein's  gravitational waves , we know disturbances can propagate through both space and time. But what's less understood is exactly  how  that happens when properties of the fabric is continuously shifting. That could soon be about to change. Researchers have just come up with a brand new mathematical framework that could finally explain how disturbances move through a dynamic space-time fabric - a concept known as 'field patterns'. If that sounds mind-achingly complex, it's because it is - we're in the realm of theoretical physics here, after all. But the basic concept isn't actually that bizarre. Field patterns, put very simply, break down space-time into a chessboard, like the one you ca...

Get ready for one-dimensional boron chains. We all love graphene - the one-atom-thick sheets of carbon aren't just super flexible, harder than diamond, and stronger than steel, they've also recently  become superconductors  in their own right. But it's not the only over-achieving nanomaterial out there. Researchers have just simulated a stretched out, one-dimensional (1D) chain of boron, predicting that the material could have even weirder properties than graphene. To be clear, 1D boron chains haven't been created as yet - so far, this research is purely based on detailed computer simulations of the new material. But labs have already successfully synthesised atom-thick and  fullerene  - cage-like buckyball - forms of boron, and single-atom-thick-carbon chains known as  carbyne  (pictured above) have also been created. So the researchers predict it's only a matter of time before 1D boron-atom chains become a reality too. If that's the...

The new frontier of chemistry. If you remember your high school chemistry, you'll know that helium is a bit of an oddball. This  noble gas  is the least reactive element on the periodic table, and thanks to its full outer shell, conventional wisdom states that helium cannot interact with other atoms to create stable compounds. While other noble gas elements  have shown signs  of forming compounds under extreme pressure, helium has remained firmly exclusive - until now. Scientists report creating what appears to be a stable helium-sodium compound, and it challenges some of the most basic assumptions of modern chemistry. "Chemistry changes when you apply high pressure, and this can be achieved inside our Earth and on different planets like Saturn," one of the team, Ivan Popov from Utah State University,  told Ryan F. Mandelbaum at Gizmodo. "But this is a book changer."  If you need a bit of a refresher on your chemistry facts, helium is the seco...

This could be the beginning of a whole new life form. Scientists have engineered the first ever 'semi-synthetic' organisms, by breeding  E. coli  bacteria with an expanded, six-letter genetic code. While every living thing on Earth is formed according to a DNA code  made up of four bases  (represented by the letters G, T, C and A), these modified  E. coli  carry an entirely new type of DNA, with two additional DNA bases, X and Y, nestled in their genetic code. The team, led by Floyd Romesberg from the Scripps Research Institute in California, engineered synthetic  nucleotides  - molecules that serve as the building blocks of DNA and RNA - to create an additional base pair, and they’ve successfully inserted this into the  E. coli’s  genetic code. Now we have the world’s first semi-synthetic organism, with a genetic code made up of two natural base pairs and an additional 'alien' base pair, and Romesberg and his team suspe...

Okay, wow. It's official: graphene has been made into a superconductor in its natural state - which means electrical current can flow through it with zero resistance. Last year , physicists managed to do this by doping graphene with calcium atoms, but this is the first time researchers have achieved superconductivity in the material without having to alter it. And the results so far show that the material achieves an incredibly rare type of superconductivity that's even crazier and more powerful than scientists expected. The new research is a big deal even for a material as innately impressive as graphene, seeing as superconductivity is the key to more efficient electronics, better power grids, and new medical technology. "It has long been postulated that, under the right conditions, graphene should undergo a superconducting transition, but can't,"  said one of the researchers, Jason Robinson from the University of Cambridge in the UK. Now, he says ...

10 times stronger than steel. For years, researchers have known that carbon, when arranged in a certain way, can be very strong. Case in point: graphene. Graphene, which was heretofore, the  strongest material known to man , is made from an extremely thin sheet of carbon atoms arranged in two dimensions. But there’s one drawback: while notable for its thinness and unique electrical properties, it’s very difficult to create useful, three-dimensional materials out of graphene. Now,  a team of MIT researchers  discovered that taking small flakes of graphene and fusing them following a mesh-like structure not only retains the material’s strength, but the graphene also remains porous. Based on experiments conducted on 3D printed models, researchers have determined that this new material, with its distinct geometry, is actually stronger than graphene – making it 10 times stronger than steel, with only 5 percent of its density. The discovery of...