Tiny droplets can form soft networks for brain-inspired computing - EurekAlert!

We’re sharing this article early to provide faster access to peer-reviewed, accepted research. It is citable and carries a permanent DOI. This version is subject to further edits and will be replaced automatically by the final Version of Record. All legal disclaimers apply. AbstractDroplets would move following the designed wettability gradient on the surface, toward the position with high surface energy, which is vital for various applications like ink printing, biological detection, and water collection. Anomalously, here we have found that the core of the overlaid droplet shows anti-wettability-gradient movement on the wettability boundary. The core droplet would perform different directional motions after the impact on the same established surface, depending on the impact dynamics and the composition ratio of the overlaid droplet. The macroscopic motion preference of the overlaid droplet is related to the wetting preference of the overlayer on the heterogeneous surface. Competitive wetting/dewetting of different components of the overlayer droplet induces a special shuttle motion of the core droplet.

Mud from a fjord shows an Atlantic air pattern brought wetter, colder spells to southern Greenland, a clue to how its ice may fare. Greenland’s ice is shrinking as the planet warms. But in the island’s southwest, rainfall and snowfall have been influenced by the same North Atlantic air-pressure pattern for at least 5,000 years. When that pattern tipped one way, the region turned wetter and colder. The record comes from mud on the floor of a Greenland fjord, and it suggests snowfall, not only temperature, shaped how the area’s ice grew and shrank. It doesn’t yet show how glaciers there will respond to the warming ahead. Johan Faust, a researcher at MARUM, the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen in Germany, led the work with colleagues in Germany, Norway, Denmark and Canada. A seesaw in the airThe pattern is called the North Atlantic Oscillation. It’s the difference in air pressure between a low that sits near Iceland and a high near the Azores, and it’s strongest in winter. When that difference is large, the pattern is in its positive phase. Northwestern Europe and southwestern Greenland both get more rain and snow.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Isaiah Santistevan led the development of three-dimensional simulations exploring how a nuclear device could deflect or disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth. Credit: Blaise Douros/LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are developing three-dimensional simulations to examine how a nuclear device could be used to deflect or potentially disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth.

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SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on October 15 and delivered more than 6,300 pounds of food, essential supplies and scientific equipment to the crew of Expedition 75. The cargo included equipment for manufacturing artificial retinas in microgravity, brain organoids, three-dimensional models of heart tissue and materials for studying a new type of glass. As ScienceDaily reports, Dragon docked with the space-facing port of the Harmony module at 10:27 a.m. Eastern Time. This is SpaceX's 35th commercial ISS resupply mission under a NASA contract. Research for medicineThe equipment for manufacturing artificial retinas is intended to help study the possibility of creating such structures in microgravity. Scientists hope these technologies may be useful for restoring vision on Earth in the future.3D models of heart tissue that reproduce important properties of the human heart were also sent to the station. They are planned to be used to improve methods for testing large numbers of potential medicines during future space missions. More current news is available on the UA. News Telegram channel Telegram.