A new open-access tool created by University of Toronto Engineering researchers provides a systematic way to organize and synthesize knowledge about metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) — a class of materials with applications in drug delivery, catalysis, carbon capture and more. The new tool is named Unifying Chemical Data for MOFs, abbreviated to MOF-ChemUnity.

A team of researchers from University of Toronto Engineering have designed a new material that is both very light and extremely strong — even at temperatures up to 500 Celsius. These properties could make it extremely useful in aerospace and other high-performance industries. The new composite material is made of various metallic alloys and nanoscale precipitates, and has a structure that mimics that of reinforced concrete, but on a microscopic scale.  

With the advancement of Internet applications, the global demand for broadband satellite communication services is incessantly escalating. Furthermore, there exists an exponential surge in the requisition for the capacity of satellite communication systems. In response to this evolving demand, the domain of satellite communication technology is progressively evolving toward the realm of high-throughput satellite (HTS) communication systems. The typical technical characteristics of HTS are: (a) the satellite adopts multibeam technology for beam overlapping coverage of the service area, which improves the quality of the wireless link while realizing the spatial dimension segmentation; (b) based on this, the system adopts multiple frequency multiplexing to improve the communication capacity of a single satellite; (c) gateway stations are tightly coupled with user beam clusters to complete two-hop communication, which makes multiple gateway stations share the communication resources of the same satellite, forming a spatial isolation of the gateway stations, and once again realizing the frequency multiplexing of the gateway station links. A key requirement for future multibeam broadband satellite communication systems is the ability to flexibly adjust beam capacity according to changes in business distribution, in order to meet time-varying business requirements. Beam hopping technology provides an efficient solution to achieve the efficient use of frequency resources and power resources. At the same time, the use of beam hopping makes the beam hopping of satellite payload need to match the business signals of ground signal stations, bringing about the need for synchronization of beam hopping between satellite and ground.

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have applied ideas from polymer physics to illuminate the mechanism behind a key pathology in Alzheimer's disease, the formation of fibrils of tau proteins. They showed that fibril formation is preceded by the birth of large protein clusters, mirroring the crystallization of polymers. Crucially, dissolving these clusters helped to prevent fibrils forming in solution. Their work signals a paradigm shift for the development of treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.

Over the past 50 years, geographers have embraced each new technological shift in geographic information systems (GIS) — the technology that turns location data into maps and insights about how places and people interact — first the computer boom, then the rise of the internet and data-sharing capabilities with web-based GIS, and later the emergence of smartphone data and cloud-based GIS systems. Now, another paradigm shift is transforming the field: the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) as an independent “agent” capable of performing GIS functions with minimal human oversight.  

There’s a lion’s share of potential energy in the vibrations produced by footsteps on dance floors, exercise machines in the gym, or the engines of cars, planes or construction equipment. Some tech companies have already begun to harvest electricity from waste vibrations to power lights and recharge batteries using a class of piezoelectric ceramic materials, which emit electrical charges when stepped on or manipulated.