Targeting SARS-CoV-2 Enzyme with Inhibitors

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, many researchers are studying epidemiological models to predict its propagation. However, a mathematician and expert in complex systems decided to focus on finding targets within SARS-CoV-2 for new drugs to attack. In the journal Chaos, he discusses the dramatic increase in the sensitivity of the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 to small disturbances, which made him suspect there is a role for inhibitors to play in killing the virus.

Survival of Coronavirus in Different Cities, on Different Surfaces

One of the many questions researchers have about the COVID-19 virus is how long it remains alive after someone infected coughs or sneezes. In Physics of Fluids, researchers examine the drying time of respiratory droplets from COVID-19-infected subjects on various surfaces in six cities around the world. Using a model well established in the field of interface science, the drying time calculations showed ambient temperature, type of surface and relative humidity play critical roles.

Biohybrid Model Uses Organic Lungs, Synthetic Muscles to Re-Create Respiration Mechanics

Discussed in APL Bioengineering, researchers created a high-fidelity respiratory simulator that accurately represents the interplay between the abdomen, diaphragm, lungs and pleural space, the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the thorax and lungs. The model, using swine lungs, soft robotic materials and artificial muscles, allows precise tuning of pressure in each part of the system, so specific disease conditions can be tested. It also proved extremely useful for testing ventilator-only respiration by removing the elastomeric diaphragm.

Promising New Method for Producing Tiny Liquid Capsules

Microcapsules for the storage and delivery of substances are tiny versions of the type of capsule used for fish oil or other liquid supplements. A new method for synthesizing microcapsules, reported in AIP Advances, creates microcapsules with a liquid core that are ideal for the storage and delivery of oil-based materials in skin care products. They also show promise in some applications as tiny bioreactors. In this new method, a surfactant-free microfluidics process is used.

AIP’s Society of Physics Students Transforms Summer Internships into Virtual Experiences

AIP will be continuing its Society of Physics Students Summer Internship program for 2020 in a virtual setting, having restructured it to accommodate the current state of the world but still provide a comprehensive and complete experience for this year’s interns. Sixteen undergraduates were selected and have accepted positions in the summer program, and they will be placed with organizations that will utilize their knowledge, experience and energy to advance meaningful assignments relevant to the organizations and the advancement of physics and astronomy more generally.

Next-Gen Laser Facilities Look to Usher in New Era of Relativistic Plasmas Research

Chirped pulse amplification increases the strength of laser pulses in many of today’s highest-powered research lasers, and as next-generation laser facilities look to push beam power, physicists expect a new era for studying plasmas. Researchers have released a study in Physics of Plasmas taking stock of what upcoming high-power laser capabilities are poised to teach us about relativistic plasmas subjected to strong-field quantum electrodynamics processes and introducing the physics of relativistic plasma in supercritical fields.

Scientific Groups Seek Change, Cooperation in Response to Immigration Executive Order

Thirty-six scientific associations and societies are calling on President Trump to reconsider an executive order that suspends the entry of immigrants into the United States. The order seeks to limit the number of foreign workers available in the U.S. job market and makes no exceptions for researchers and students in STEM who are not involved in coronavirus research. The letter points out the critical role of immigrant researchers and students from around the world for the U.S. in retaining our advantage as “the premier destination for the world’s best and brightest minds.”

UCI physicists exploring use of Blu-ray disc lasers to kill COVID-19, other viruses

Irvine, Calif., May 19, 2020 – A new weapon in the arsenal against the coronavirus may be sitting in your home entertainment console. A team led by physicist Chris Barty of the University of California, Irvine is researching the use of diodes from Blu-ray digital video disc devices as deep-ultraviolet laser photon sources to rapidly disinfect surfaces and the indoor air that swirls around us.

Image Analysis Technique Provides Better Understanding of Heart Cell Defects

Many patients with heart disease face limited treatment options. Fortunately, stem cell biology has enabled researchers to produce large numbers of cardiomyocytes, which may be used in advanced drug screens and cell-based therapies. However, current image analysis techniques don’t allow researchers to analyze heterogeneous, multidirectional, striated myofibrils typical of immature cells. In the Journal of Applied Physics, researchers showcase an algorithm that combines gradient methods with fast Fourier transforms to quantify myofibril structures in heart cells with considerable accuracy.

AIP Celebrates International Day of Light

Saturday, May 16, is a day to see how light influences our lives with the International Day of Light. The celebration is a global initiative that provides an annual focal point for the continued appreciation of light and the role it plays in science, the economy, culture and art, education, and sustainable development, and in fields as diverse as medicine, communications and energy.

Nanofiber Membranes Transformed Into 3D Scaffolds

Researchers combined gas foaming and 3D molding technologies to quickly transform electrospun membranes into complex 3D shapes for biomedical applications. The new approach demonstrates significant improvements in speed and quality compared with other methods, and is the first successful demonstration of formation of 3D neural tissue constructs with an ordered structure through differentiation of human neural progenitor/stem cells on these transformed 3D nanofiber scaffolds. They discuss their work in this week’s Applied Physics Reviews.

Heising-Simons Foundation Grant Helps AIP Transform TEAM-UP Report into Action Plan

The American Institute of Physics is pleased to announce that a $200,000 grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation will fund workshops to help reach the goal of doubling the number of African American physics and astronomy undergraduate degree recipients by the year 2030. AIP’s hosting these workshops is an important next step in implementing evidence-based recommendations from AIP’s expert report produced by The National Task Force to Elevate African American Representation in Undergraduate Physics & Astronomy, also known as TEAM-UP.

Rutgers’ Greg Moore Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Rutgers Professor Gregory W. Moore, a renowned physicist who seeks a unified understanding of the basic forces and fundamental particles in the universe, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. Moore, Board of Governors Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, joins 119 other new academy members and 26 international members this year who were recognized for their distinguished and ongoing achievements in original research.

Upcoming Trimble Lecture with Elizabeth Kessler Highlights the Impacts of Hubble Imagery on May 7

The American Institute of Physics, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the launch of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is delighted to host a virtual presentation by Stanford University’s Elizabeth Kessler in an upcoming Lyne Starling Trimble Science Heritage Public Lecture. The lecture series is presented by AIP and features science historians and writers who study the role of science and technology in modern society and culture. “Hubble Space Telescope Images and the Astronomical Sublime” will be hosted virtually, Thursday, May 7 at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (U.S.).

Broadband Enhancement Relies on Precise Tilt

If a photon source could be placed on a single chip and made to produce photons at a high rate, this could enable high-speed quantum communication or information processing. In Applied Physics Reviews, a simple on-chip photon source using a hyperbolic metamaterial is proposed, and investigators carried out calculations to show that a prototype arranged in a precise way can overcome problems of low efficiency and allow for high repetition rates for on-chip photon sources.

Major upgrades of particle detectors and electronics prepare CERN experiment to stream a data tsunami

For an experiment that will generate big data at unprecedented rates, physicists led design, development, mass production and delivery of an upgrade of novel particle detectors and state-of-the art electronics.

Simulating Borehole Ballooning Helps Ensure Safe Drilling of Deep-Water Oil, Gas

A device which simulates borehole ballooning, a detrimental side effect of deep-water drilling operations, is expected to ensure safe and efficient operations. If not prevented, borehole ballooning can lead to irreversible damage and serious drilling accidents, which can result in reservoir pollution and huge economic loss. In Review of Scientific Instruments, researchers present a device that can simulate this dangerous phenomenon in the hopes of preventing it.

Emerging Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Devices Based on Silicon Carbide May Revolutionize Power Electronics

Silicon plays a central role within the semiconductor industry for microelectronic and nanoelectronic devices, and silicon wafers of high purity single-crystalline material can be obtained via a combination of liquid growth methods. In Applied Physics Reviews, researchers describe the atomic mechanisms governing extended defect kinetics in cubic silicon carbide, which has a diamondlike zincblende crystal structure that manifests stacking and anti-phase instabilities. The study pinpoints the atomistic mechanisms responsible for extended defect generation and evolution.

Upcoming Trimble Lecture Highlights Hubble’s 30th with Jennifer Wiseman of NASA on April 29

The American Institute of Physics is delighted to host a virtual lecture by Hubble Space Telescope senior project scientist Jennifer Wiseman in an upcoming Lyne Starling Trimble Science Heritage public lecture to celebrate Hubble’s 30th anniversary. The lecture series is hosted by AIP and highlights experts who study the role of science and technology throughout human history and modern society. “The Hubble Space Telescope: 30 Years of Discovery and Awe” will be hosted virtually, April 29 at 3:30 p.m. EDT.

Ultrasound-Assisted Molecule Delivery Looks to Preserve Blood for Years

Blood can typically be stored for only six weeks after donation, but a potential solution attempts to dry blood by using a sugar-based preservative. New work in ultrasound technology looks to provide a path to inserting these sugars into human red blood cells, allowing the molecule trehalose to enter the cells and prevent their degradation when dried for preservation. The researchers discuss their work in this week’s Biomicrofluidics.

New discovery helps close the gap towards optically-controlled quantum computation

Scientists have discovered a light-induced switching mechanism in a Dirac semimetal. The mechanism establishes a new way to control the topological material, driven by back-and-forth motion of atoms and electrons, which will enable topological transistor and quantum computation using light waves.

Milky Way could be catapulting stars into its outer halo, UCI astronomers say

Irvine, Calif., April 20, 2020 – Though mighty, the Milky Way and galaxies of similar mass are not without scars chronicling turbulent histories. University of California, Irvine astronomers and others have shown that clusters of supernovas can cause the birth of scattered, eccentrically orbiting suns in outer stellar halos, upending commonly held notions of how star systems have formed and evolved over billions of years.

Finding the beat: New discovery settles a long-standing debate about photovoltaic materials

Scientists have theorized that organometallic halide perovskites— a class of light harvesting “wonder” materials for applications in solar cells and quantum electronics— are so promising due to an unseen yet highly controversial mechanism called the Rashba effect. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have now experimentally proven the existence of the effect.

Solar Power Plants Get Help from Satellites to Predict Cloud Cover

Cloud cover is often characterized in simple terms, such as cloudy, partly cloudy or clear. This does not provide accurate information for estimating the amount of sunlight available for solar power plants. In this week’s Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, a new method is reported for estimating cloud optical properties using data from recently launched satellites. This new technique is known as Spectral Cloud Optical Property Estimation, or SCOPE.

Personalized Microrobots Swim Through Biological Barriers, Deliver Drugs to Cells

Biohybrid robots on the micrometer scale can swim through the body and deliver drugs to tumors or provide other cargo-carrying functions. To be successful, they must consist of materials that can pass through the body’s immune response, swim quickly through viscous environments and penetrate tissue cells to deliver cargo. In this week’s APL Bioengineering, researchers fabricated biohybrid bacterial microswimmers by combining a genetically engineered E. coli MG1655 substrain and nanoerythrosomes, small structures made from red blood cells.

Scientists See Energy Gap Modulations in a Cuprate Superconductor

Scientists studying high-Tc superconductors at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have definitive evidence for the existence of a state of matter known as a pair density wave–first predicted by theorists some 50 years ago. Their results show that this phase coexists with superconductivity in a well-known bismuth-based copper-oxide superconductor.

Extreme High-Frequency Signals Enable Terabits-Per-Second Data Links

Using the same technology that allows high-frequency signals to travel on regular phone lines, researchers tested sending extremely high-frequency, 200 GHz signals through a pair of copper wires. The result is a link that can move data at rates of terabits per second, significantly faster than currently available channels. In Applied Physics Letters, the scientists discuss their work using experimental measurements and mathematical modeling to characterize the input and output signals in a waveguide.

Atomic Magnetometer Points to Better Picture of Heart Conductivity

Mapping the electrical conductivity of the heart would be a valuable tool in diagnosis and disease management, but doing so would require invasive procedures, which aren’t capable of directly mapping dielectric properties. Significant advances have recently been made that leverage atomic magnetometers to provide a direct picture of electric conductivity of biological tissues, and in Applied Physics Letters, new work in quantum sensors points to ways such technology could be used to examine the heart.

Recipe for Neuromorphic Processing Systems?

The field of “brain-mimicking” neuromorphic electronics shows great potential for basic research and commercial applications, and researchers in Germany and Switzerland recently explored the possibility of reproducing the physics of real neural circuits by using the physics of silicon. In Applied Physics Letters, they present their work to understand neural processing systems, as well as a recipe to reproduce these computing principles in mixed signal analog/digital electronics and novel materials.

Adjusting Processing Temperature Results in Better Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications

Biohydrogels have been studied closely for their potential use in biomedical applications, but they often move between sols and gels, depending on their temperature, changes that can pose issues depending on the intended use. In Physics of Fluids, researchers discuss their work studying the effect of temperature on hydrogels. They found that creating hydrogels at room temperature or below results in more robust materials that function more effectively when used in the body.

Berkeley Lab Cosmologists Are Top Contenders in Machine Learning Challenge

In a machine learning challenge dubbed the 2020 Large Hadron Collider Olympics, a team of cosmologists from Berkeley Lab developed a code that best identified a mock signal hidden in simulated particle-collision data.

Physicists test coronavirus particles against temperature, humidity

One of the biggest unknowns about coronavirus is how changing seasons will affect its spread. Physicists from the University of Utah have received a NSF grant to create individual coronavirus particles without a genome. They’ll test how the structure of the coronavirus withstands changes in humidity and temperature.

Composing New Proteins with Artificial Intelligence

Proteins are the building blocks of life and scientists have long studied how to improve them or design new ones. Traditionally, new proteins are created by mimicking existing proteins or manually editing their amino acids. This process is time-consuming, and it is difficult to predict the impact of changing an amino acid. In APL Bioengineering, researchers explore how to create new proteins by using machine learning to translate protein structures into musical scores, presenting an unusual way to translate physics concepts across domains.