Solar-Powered Nanosensors

A group of Australian researchers has developed a microscopic sensor for nitrogen dioxide (a toxic component of gasoline car exhaust). It’s barely a few micrometers in size and runs on solar power. The researchers want to develop a chip that can detect a whole array of substances and communicate with nearby instruments. Paper is here, press release here. 

Science News Episode

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High-Speed Signaling With Visible Light

I’d never heard of it until last week, but evidently, one way wireless communication might evolve is by just using visible light from LEDs superimposed with tiny variations that the human eye can’t see. This line of research seems to have been developed primarily in China. Recent review paper here.

Don’t Count MOND Out Quite Yet

I have gotten a lot of questions about a recent paper in Nature Astronomy claiming that the slightly planar alignment of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies is compatible with the dark matter hypothesis. It had previously been claimed that this planar alignment is in severe tension with the dark matter hypothesis. I haven’t commented on that because I’ve heard several people raising doubts that the analysis in the paper is sound and I expect a comment on this to appear on the arXiv soon.

Hydrogen Has A Few Problems

Combine hydrogen with oxygen, add a little spark, and you get energy, plus water. It sounds like a great replacement for fossil fuels, but – as is so often the case – it isn’t that simple. In this week’s video we talk about whether green hydrogen is really green, hydrogen embrittlement, and the impending iridium shortage. 

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Existential Physics: The Big Questions Raised by Modern Physics

A contrarian scientist wrestles with the big questions that modern physics raises, and what physics says about the human condition. Order it here today!