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(PhysOrg.com) -- Building on the work of a previous team that found filaments made from actin, when combined with so called motor proteins, moved themselves into distinct patterns, a new team in Japan has found that combining different proteins results in the formation of far more elaborate patterns such as individual whorls and over time whole lattices.

The moon has been with us for billions of years, almost since the formation of Earth.

The National Physical Laboratory Acoustics team has been investigating acoustic cavitation – the formation and implosion of micro cavities, or bubbles, in a liquid caused by the extreme pressure variations of high intensity sound waves – using the new NPL reference vessel and a chemical commonly found at crime scenes.

The development of periodic structures in embryos giving rise to the formation of, e.g., spine segments, is controlled not by genes but by simple physical and chemical phenomena.

The irradiation of a metal surface with light or electrons can result in the formation of coherent electronic oscillations called surface plasmons, an effect ideal for applications such as optical communications on optoelectronic chips. Unfortunately, however, surface plasmons quickly lose their energy during transit, limiting their on-chip propagation distance. Jing Hua Teng at the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering and co-workers from Nankai University and Nanyang Technological University under the Singapore-China Joint Research Program have now developed nanoscale structures that are able to replenish as well as guide surface plasmons on chips

For all we understand about the universe, 96 percent of what’s out there still has scientists in the dark. Astronomical observations have established that familiar matter--atoms--accounts for only 4 percent of the weight of the cosmos.

A joint study by academics in Switzerland, Germany and at Boston University sheds new light on the formation of financial bubbles and crashes.

A new advance in solar cells that tips the surface with minuscule cone structures could neutralize manufacturing defects, boosting efficiency up to 80 percent. In conventional solar panels, more than 50 percent of the charges generated by sunlight are lost due to defects, said Jun Xu, a researcher at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The irregularities in the formation of the crystalline structure of solar cells can trap electrons and limit the transfer of sunlight to electrical energy.

A breakthrough in the study of chemical reactions during etching and coating of materials was achieved by a research group headed by Kiel physicist, Professor Olaf Magnussen. The team from the Christian-Albrechts-Universitat zu Kiel (CAU), Germany, in collaboration with staff from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, have uncovered for the first time just what happens in manufacturing processes, used for the formation of metal contacts thinner than a human hair in modern consumer electronics, such as flat-screen television. The results appear as the cover feature in the current issue of the renowned Journal of the American Chemical Society.