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Dr Suren Vasilyan | Measuring Microscopic Forces with Extreme Precision using Laser Beams
Brillouin microscopy is a revolutionary imaging technology that offers detailed insights into the mechanical properties of cells and tissues. The technology relies on Brillouin light scattering. When light interacts with a material, it scatters in a way that depends on the material’s mechanical properties. This scattering causes a shift in the frequency of the light, which scientists can measure to determine stiffness and viscosity. This non-invasive technique allows living tissues to be studied in great detail without needing to use chemical labels or physical contact. The field of Brillouin microscopy has seen significant advancements over the past two decades, primarily driven by the development of high-resolution optical spectrometers.
Investigating Neural Networks Through Microfluidics
In our brains, neurons form intricate networks that allow electrical signals to flow in an efficient and directional manner between brain regions, ensuring that information ends up in the right destination. Neuroscientists have struggled to reproduce these intricate, one-way patterns of electrical exchange in traditional cell cultures. Ioanna Sandvig, Axel Sandvig, Nicolai Winter-Hjelm and Katrine Hanssen show how the directional flow of information can be successfully mimicked using ‘microfluidic platforms’ developed at NTNU NanoLab, which feature microscopic networks of channels and chambers.
Dr Gabrielle Laloy-Borgna – Dr Stefan Catheline | Discovery of Flexural Waves in Blood Vessels Could Enable Accurate Cardiovascular Diagnostics
Arterial stiffness reflects our cardiovascular health and can reveal our risk of cardiovascular illness. This stiffness can be measured by assessing the speed of the waves that travel through our blood vessels as our heart beats. However, ultrasound measurements are too inaccurate for measuring wave speeds in certain blood vessels, while optical techniques are too inconsistent. Because of these issues, longitudinal waves are typically not measured in clinical settings. The key to measuring arterial stiffness may lie in assessing the right kind of waves.
Professor Marica Bakovic | Advanced Scientific Techniques Provide Proof that Red Guitar is an Original Picasso Painting
Red Guitar is a painting believed to have been created by the renowned artist Pablo Picasso. Its owner affirmed that Red Guitar was a gift from Picasso to Stevan Hazdic, a former Yugoslav army chief who employed Picasso’s brother-in-law. Professor Marica Bakovic at the University of Guelph, in collaboration with scientists and historians at different Canadian institutes, set out to verify this theory and further explore the painting’s origin.
Professor Kathryn Toghill | Storing Renewable Energy by Converting Carbon Dioxide to Formic Acid
Before they can replace fossil fuels entirely, wind and solar power plants will need to provide electricity to the grid at all times of the day, and in unpredictable weather conditions. To ensure a consistent output, renewable sources can be coupled with energy-storing batteries. Ideally, these batteries can be charged up when excess energy is generated, and then release their energy when the grid’s demand for power outpaces its supply. However, even the most well-designed battery systems only have a limited storage capacity. If this limit is exceeded, any excess energy will simply be wasted. One possible solution to this problem is to combine electrical batteries with chemical energy storage.
Dr Lars Wojtecki | Treating Alzheimer’s Disease with a New Brain Stimulation Technique
Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disorder that causes problems with memory, mood, and the ability to perform daily activities. Although there are medicines available to ease the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, there is currently no cure. Therefore, patients slowly deteriorate over time due to neural damage that prevents the exchange of messages between cells. The search for a treatment to slow or even reverse the progression of the disease is ongoing. Recently, a new type of brain-stimulation therapy, called transcranial pulse stimulation, or TPS, has been approved for use in Alzheimer’s patients.
Professor Zhiliang Zhang | The Super-tough Coating that Repels Ice
Ice can cause serious damage to vehicles and infrastructure, including aircraft, pavements, power lines, and wind turbines. It is important to remove ice before it causes damage, but doing this manually is often expensive and energy-intensive, and sometimes even dangerous. Researchers have begun to develop so-called ‘super-hydrophobic’ coatings, which can repel incoming water droplets before they freeze. This not only prevents ice from building up; it also weakens the adhesion of ice that does freeze to the surface, allowing it be removed more easily.
GenBench: Mapping out the Landscape of Generalization Research
From ChatGPT to Google Gemini, large language models are now increasingly important in our everyday lives. These models are part of the field of natural language processing – or ‘NLP’ – which studies how machines understand and generate human language. Most NLP systems are built using machine learning, and vast amounts of language data are used as training material. Afterwards, a successfully trained model should be able to handle new scenarios. This ability is called ‘generalization’. For large language models that generalize well, a conversation about a topic it hasn’t been trained on, such as new scientific discoveries, should not be a problem.
Professor Erik Folven | Gaining Tighter Control Over Artificial Spin Ices for Technological Applications
The energy demands required to operate our increasingly connected society is unsustainable. Data-centres, the Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence all create unsustainable power demands. As such, new energy-efficient technologies are needed to fulfil humanity’s computing needs into the future. Spin-based technologies could greatly reduce the energy requirements of computing. One reason that such technologies are more energy efficient is that far less energy is wasted as heat. Additionally, computation and memory can both occur within the same spin-based device. One promising spin-based technology is artificial spin ice (ASI).
Professor Dawn Roberts-Semple | Measuring Air Pollution with Inexpensive Passive Diffusion Tubes
Air pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone, are a significant threat to public health, contributing to respiratory symptoms and cardiovascular disease. Such pollutants are often caused by traffic emissions, and tend to accumulate in urban areas. Assessing when and where such pollutants tend to be present at dangerous levels is important for protecting public health, but concentrations may vary dramatically and can be influenced by wind patterns, temperature, traffic levels and urban architecture.
Damian Nowak – Adam Bachorz – Professor Marcin Hoffmann | Using Machine Learning to Discover New Medicines
Many researchers today are dedicated to the discovery of new medicines. Over the past few decades, their tireless efforts have culminated in a database of around 100 million known drug molecules. This value may already sound vast, but by current estimates, the true number of small drug-like molecules could actually range anywhere between 1023 – already more than the number of grains of sand on Earth – and 1060 – comparable to the number of atoms in an entire galaxy. With existing approaches, researchers ultimately need to test the medical potential of these molecules individually, taking up vast amounts of time and computing power.
Dr Martin Van Den Berghe | Combatting Climate Change with Microbe-Enhanced Rock Weathering
In the fight against climate change, carbon capture and storage technologies are widely seen as a critical tool in avoiding the worst effects of global warming. The problem is being approached from many different angles, but many proposed solutions have a long way to go before they can have any meaningful impact on the health of Earth’s climate. According to Dr Martin Van Den Berghe at Cytochrome Technologies, one of the most promising approaches to carbon capture could be to enhance a chemical mechanism that has naturally shaped Earth’s geology for billions of years.
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