Topic Review
Rotating Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Energy Harvesting Applications
Addressing the increasing development of IoT networks and the associated energy requirements, rotating triboelectric nanogenerators (R-TENGs) are proving to be strong candidates in the field of energy harvesting, as well as to that of self-powered devices and autonomous sensors.
  • 555
  • 13 Jul 2023
Topic Review
Large Strategic Science Missions
NASA's Large Strategic Science Missions, formerly known as Flagship missions or Flagship-class missions, are the costliest and most capable NASA science spacecraft. Flagship missions exist within all four divisions of NASA's Science Mission Directorate: the astrophysics, Earth science, heliophysics and planetary science divisions. "Large" refers to the budget of each mission, typically the most expensive mission in the scientific discipline. Within the Astrophysics Division and the Planetary Science Division, the large strategic missions are usually in excess of $1 billion. Within Earth Science Division and Heliophysics Division, the large strategic missions are usually in excess of $500 million. "Strategic" refers to their role advancing multiple strategic priorities set forth in plans such as the Decadal Surveys. "Science" marks these missions as primarily scientific in nature, under the Science Mission Directorate (SMD), as opposed to, e.g., human exploration missions under the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD). The lines can be blurred, as when the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter began as a directed mission from the HEOMD, and was later transferred to the SMD. Flagship missions are not under the purview of any larger "Flagship Program", unlike, e.g., Discovery-class missions that are under the purview of the Discovery Program. Unlike these competed classes that tender proposals through a competitive selection process, the development of Flagship missions is directed to a specific institution — usually a NASA center or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory — by the Science Mission Directorate. Flagship missions are developed ad-hoc, with no predetermined launch cadence or uniform budget size. Flagship missions are always Class A missions: high priority, very low risk.
  • 556
  • 17 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Synchrotron Light Source
A synchrotron light source is a source of electromagnetic radiation (EM) usually produced by a storage ring, for scientific and technical purposes. First observed in synchrotrons, synchrotron light is now produced by storage rings and other specialized particle accelerators, typically accelerating electrons. Once the high-energy electron beam has been generated, it is directed into auxiliary components such as bending magnets and insertion devices (undulators or wigglers) in storage rings and free electron lasers. These supply the strong magnetic fields perpendicular to the beam which are needed to convert high energy electrons into photons. The major applications of synchrotron light are in condensed matter physics, materials science, biology and medicine. A large fraction of experiments using synchrotron light involve probing the structure of matter from the sub-nanometer level of electronic structure to the micrometer and millimeter level important in medical imaging. An example of a practical industrial application is the manufacturing of microstructures by the LIGA process.
  • 555
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Magnetic Ag-Integrated Photocatalysts in Water Treatment
One of the great dangers facing humanity is the depletion of natural resources. For water specifically, the problem of shortage is all but gone. In 1960, only 9% of the world’s population was facing chronic water shortage issues, while nearly 50% of the global population has to manage moderate shortage, with around 10% of that population facing almost complete lack of water. Many measures have been employed to balance this ever-increasing threat, such as irrigated areas, groundwater utilization and reservoir storage, as this increase in water shortage does not only affect agriculture but human health itself as well and can even increase risks of diseases. The need for low-cost water treatment is especially evident in countries such as Pakistan, where the increased dependency on severely threatening contaminated water (by ~80% of the population) necessitates methods such as low-cost water filters for increased availability of affordable drinking water throughout the country. A magnetic/silver composite combines the advantages of magnetic properties with those of plasmonic nanoparticles, and these composites are able to perform well under UV and visible light, are effective against pollutants and pathogenic bacteria and can be easily separated from a solution with a simple magnet.
  • 553
  • 19 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Sterile Neutrinos with Neutrino Telescopes
Searches for light sterile neutrinos are motivated by the unexpected observation of an electron neutrino appearance in short-baseline experiments, such as the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) and the Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment (MiniBooNE). In light of these unexpected results, a campaign using natural and anthropogenic sources to find the light (mass-squared-difference around 1 eV2) sterile neutrinos is underway. Among the natural sources, atmospheric neutrinos provide a unique gateway to search for sterile neutrinos due to the broad range of baseline-to-energy ratios, L/E, and the presence of significant matter effects. Since the atmospheric neutrino flux rapidly falls with energy, studying its highest energy component requires gigaton-scale neutrino detectors. These detectors—often known as neutrino telescopes since they are designed to observe tiny astrophysical neutrino fluxes—have been used to perform searches for light sterile neutrinos, and researchers have found no significant signal to date. 
  • 553
  • 29 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Charge
In physics, a charge is any of many different quantities, such as the electric charge in electromagnetism or the color charge in quantum chromodynamics. Charges correspond to the time-invariant generators of a symmetry group, and specifically, to the generators that commute with the Hamiltonian. Charges are often denoted by the letter Q, and so the invariance of the charge corresponds to the vanishing commutator [math]\displaystyle{ [Q,H]=0 }[/math], where H is the Hamiltonian. Thus, charges are associated with conserved quantum numbers; these are the eigenvalues q of the generator Q.
  • 553
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Transit of Venus, 1639
The first known observations and recording of a transit of Venus were made in 1639 by the English astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and his friend and correspondent William Crabtree. The pair made their observations independently on 4 December that year (24 November under the Julian calendar then used in England); Horrocks from Carr House, then in the village of Much Hoole, Lancashire, and Crabtree from his home in Broughton, near Manchester. The friends, followers of the new astronomy of Johannes Kepler, were self-taught mathematical astronomers who had worked methodically to correct and improve Kepler's Rudolphine tables by observation and measurement. In 1639, Horrocks was the only astronomer to realise that a transit of Venus was imminent; others became aware of it only after the event when Horrocks's report of it was circulated. Although the friends both died within five years of making their observations, their ground-breaking work was influential in establishing the size of the Solar System; for this and their other achievements Horrocks and Crabtree, along with their correspondent William Gascoigne, are considered to be the founding fathers of British research astronomy.
  • 552
  • 06 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Water-Based Liquid Scintillators
Monolithic optical detectors, either water–Cherenkov detectors or liquid scintillator detectors, are a well-established technique in neutrino physics. Using water-based liquid scintillators (WbLS) is an approach that exploits Cherenkov and scintillation signals simultaneously; i.e., water is loaded with 1% to 10% liquid scintillator. 
  • 552
  • 04 Jan 2023
Topic Review
Geant4-DNA Simulation Toolkit
The Geant4-DNA low energy extension of the Geant4 Monte Carlo (MC) toolkit is a continuously evolving MC simulation code permitting mechanistic studies of cellular radiobiological effects. Geant4-DNA considers the physical, chemical, and biological stages of the action of ionizing radiation (in the form of x- and γ-ray photons, electrons and β±-rays, hadrons, α-particles, and a set of heavier ions) in living cells towards a variety of applications ranging from predicting radiotherapy outcomes to radiation protection both on earth and in space.
  • 550
  • 19 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Ursa Major Moving Group
The Ursa Major Moving Group, also known as Collinder 285 and the Ursa Major association, is the closest stellar moving group – a set of stars with common velocities in space and thought to have a common origin in space and time. In the case of the Ursa Major group, all the stars formed about 300 million years ago. Its core is located roughly 80 light years away and part of the Local Bubble. It is rich in bright stars including most of the stars of the Big Dipper.
  • 549
  • 14 Oct 2022
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