Pore-scale mechanisms of drag reduction by micro-blowing have rarely been explored. A direct numerical simulation (DNS) study, published in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, is performed to uncover the fundamental physics of single-hole micro-blowing in a supersonic turbulent boundary layer. Results reveal a dual-regime drag-reduction mechanism: upstream reduction driven by adverse pressure gradients and downstream reduction dominated by the formation of a low-speed air film. A detailed vortex-interaction analysis further explains how micro-blowing sustains stable drag-reduction performance under turbulent vortex interference.

For the first time, researchers have been able to show how a cell closes the door to free radicals – small oxygen molecules that are sometimes needed, but that can also damage our cells. The study is published in Nature Communications and was led from Lund University.

Brazil nuts are known as “selenium bombs” and are consumed as a natural dietary supplement. However, they do not only contain this essential nutrient, but also traces of potentially problematic metals like barium and radioactive radium. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the VKTA – Radiation Protection, Analytics & Disposal Rossendorf Inc. have now conducted the first systematic study on the amounts of these elements that could actually enter the body during the digestive process. The team has some good news for lovers of the nut-like seed (DOI: 10.3390/ijms26178312).

An engineering team at Jiangxi Normal University, in collaboration with South China University of Technology, reports an entropy-driven strategy to construct low-topology-entropy silicone elastomers (LTE-SEs) in the journal Wearable Electronics. The materials achieve ultra-softness and ultra-high stretchability while maintaining high strength, and are successfully applied in skin-conformal flexible encapsulation, UV-protection patches, and fully encapsulated safety-positioning insoles, providing a new generation of substrate materials for long-term, comfortable, and reliable wearable electronics. 

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an electrochemical reaction manifold that promotes efficient nitrogen atom insertion into saturated carbocycles to access either functionalised quinolines or N-alkylated saturated N heterocycles, both of which are privileged scaffolds in synthetic chemistry and pharmaceutical science.

Researchers have achieved a groundbreaking discovery that bridges artificial intelligence and nuclear physics. By applying deep learning techniques to a vast amount of unexamined nuclear emulsion data from the J-PARC E07 experiment, the team identified, for the first time in 25 years, a new double-Lambda hypernucleus.