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Toad tongues are ready for their closeup — extremely close closeups — in this video from San Francisco PBS station KQED. The closeups and slow-motion photography are necessary to show the role toad saliva plays in snatching crickets, worms, and other prey in the blink of an eye. Thanks to research from the team of David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics, science learned that a toad’s saliva starts off thick and sticky. But when the saliva hits prey at a high speed, it thins out dramatically, pouring into every nook and cranny the tongue touches. And then, it becomes sticky again, drawing that meal down the hatch.
KQED 2023-03-28T00:00:00-04:00Chia seeds sprouted in trays have experimentally confirmed a mathematical model proposed by computer scientist and polymath Alan Turing decades ago. The model describes how patterns might emerge in nature, such as desert vegetation, leopard spots and zebra stripes. But proving that Turing’s model explains patterns in the real world has been challenging. It could be that the idea is a mathematical just-so story that happens to produce similar shapes in a computer, says Flavio Fenton, professor in the School of Physics. Brendan D'Aquino, a Northeastern University computer science undergraduate student who studied in Fenton's lab in the summer of 2022, described his Turing-based experiment at the recent American Physical Society March meeting. (This story also appeared in LiveScience.)
Science News 2023-03-26T00:00:00-04:00Black holes remain one of the great mysteries of the universe. Another enigma? Dark energy. Little is known about this concept, aside from the belief that dark energy accelerates the expansion of the universe. There’s a new theory that brings together black holes and dark energy into one mind-bending solution: research led by the University of Hawai’i at Manoa posits that dark energy could actually come from supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies. Feryal Özel, professor and chair of the School of Physics, and a founding member of the Event Horizon Telescope project that has captured images of black holes, joined host Ira Flatow to talk about the new development.
WNYC Science Friday 2023-03-10T00:00:00-05:00A collaboration of physicists working at different institutes in the U.S. — including two at Georgia Tech — has discovered a new quantum state in an alloy made of magnesium, silicon, and tellurium, a press release said. The finding could result in applications in quantum computing, such as building sensors and communication systems. The alloy is a crystalline structure denoted as Mn3Si2Te6 and consists of octagonal cells placed in a honeycomb-like arrangement when viewed from above. Though, when viewed from the side, it consists of stacked sheets. Two researchers in the School of Physics, assistant professor Itamar Kimchi and graduate student Sami Hakani, worked on the study announcing the new quantum state.
Interesting Engineering 2023-02-27T00:00:00-05:00The headline for this article refers to a Swedish technology startup company using origami-inspired techniques for its 3D printing services. But it also mentions Georgia Tech winning a Department of Defense grant for a project titled Programming Multistable Origami and Kirigami Structures via Topological Design, which investigated how concepts from the art of paper folding can be combined with 3D printing to create lightweight, flexible structures that can change shape. Zeb Rocklin, an assistant professor in the School of Physics, was part of the project team.
Adaxis Collaborates with Stilride to Incorporate 3D Printing in the Industrial-Origami Manufacturing Arsenal 2023-02-21T00:00:00-05:00Expensive military hardware, like a new tank undergoes rigorous testing before heading to the battlefield. A startup called Istari, backed by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and chair of Alphabet, reckons some of that work can be done more effectively in the metaverse. Ishtari uses machine learning to virtually assemble and test war machines from computer models of individual components, such as the chassis and engines, that are usually marooned on separate digital drawing boards. Will Roper, B.S. and M.S. PHYS, and a former assistant secretary of the Air Force, is founder and CEO of Ishtari.
Wired 2023-02-13T00:00:00-05:00Just like fashioning decorative shapes and figures using the Japanese art of folding paper, tracing when and where origami originated is complicated. But what cannot be disputed is its incredible influence in modern engineering. While styles of origami can be incredibly diverse, the art is rooted in mathematical principles that make it applicable to science and industry. This story in E&T mentions scientists at Georgia Tech exploring origami, kirigami (where paper is cut as well as folded) and specific folding techniques for building everything from furniture to bridges. One of those scientists is D. Zeb Rocklin, assistant professor in the School of Physics.
How origami inspires world-changing technology 2023-02-13T00:00:00-05:00Astrobites, a daily astrophysical literature journal written by graduate students in astronomy since 2010, features a guest column written by two Ph.D. students extolling the virtues of community college. One of the authors is School of Physics alumna Kiersten Boley, B.S PHYS 2019, now seeking a Ph.D. in astronomy from Ohio State University. Boley writes that she didn't want to become a physicist until she attended community college, where her professor in introductory physics "sparked my love of science." Boley credits that with helping her thrive at Georgia Tech.
Breaking the Stigma around Community College 2023-02-12T00:00:00-05:00A pressing quest in the field of nanoelectronics is the search for a material that could replace silicon. Graphene has seemed promising for decades. But, its potential faltered along the way, due to damaging processing methods and the lack of a new electronics paradigm to embrace it. With silicon nearly maxed out in its ability to accommodate faster computing, the next big nanoelectronics platform is needed now more than ever. Walter de Heer, Regents’ Professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has taken a critical step forward in making the case for a successor to silicon. De Heer and his collaborators, including Claire Berger, fellow School of Physics professor, developed a new nanoelectronics platform based on graphene — a single sheet of carbon atoms.
Making the case for a successor to silicon 2023-02-02T00:00:00-05:00Comet Lulin, a rare green comet discovered in 2007, is set to make its closest approach to the Earth around Feb. 24. The comet's green color comes from the gases that make up its atmosphere. Its closest approach to Earth will be 38 million miles. James Sowell, principal academic professional in the School of Physics and director of the Georgia Tech Observatory, joins Atlanta News First to talk about the best times to view the comet, where it may have originated, and how rare green comets are in the universe.
Green comet will pass by Earth this month 2023-02-01T00:00:00-05:00Elisabetta Matsumoto, an associate professor in the School of Physics, will present “Knotty Knits: A Chat about Math and Crafts” beginning at 3 p.m. March 3, at Southern Illinois University's Guyon Auditorium. Matsumoto, whose research interests include soft condensed matter physics and the geometry of materials, uses knitting to illustrate the math and mechanics within the craft, and how studying the physics of knitting could lead to applications such as wearable electronics.
SIU’s Tenney lecture to focus on interdisciplinary teaching of math, art and science 2023-01-27T00:00:00-05:00Pushing a shovel through snow, planting an umbrella on the beach, wading through a ball pit, and driving over gravel all have one thing in common: They all are exercises in intrusion, with an intruding object exerting some force to move through a soft and granular material. Predicting what it takes to push through sand, gravel, or other soft media can help engineers drive a rover over Martian soil, anchor a ship in rough seas, and walk a robot through sand and mud. But modeling the forces involved in such processes is a huge computational challenge that often takes days to weeks to solve. Now, engineers at the Massachusette Institute of Technology and Georgia Tech have found a faster and simpler way to model intrusion through any soft, flowable material. Daniel Goldman, Dunn Family Professor in the School of Physics, joined MIT researchers for this project.
How to push, wiggle, or drill an object through granular material 2023-01-19T00:00:00-05:00- ‹ previous
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Bacteria have no neurons or memories in the human sense. Yet in a new study, researchers at Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon University — including School of Physics Associate Professor Shiladitya Banerjee and Postdoctoral Fellow Josiah Kratz — found that individual E. coli cells carried traces of past hardship into the future. When nutrients repeatedly rose and fell, the cells changed how quickly they grew, suggesting that even simple microbes can use experience to prepare for what may come next.
ZME Science 2026-06-10T00:00:00-04:00A new study led by researchers, including School of Physics graduate student Julia Esposito and Associate Professor Gongjie Li, used 1,500 virtual planetary systems to examine how planet-planet scattering may have influenced the formation of Jupiter-sized planets.
American Astronomical Society NOVA 2026-05-22T00:00:00-04:00Researchers have long known that when two galaxies approach each other and merge, the supermassive black holes at their centers form a pair and are eventually expected to merge as well. It is precisely these mergers that are considered one of the sources of the gravitational-wave background — a faint “hum” of spacetime detected in recent years. However, the role played by the geometry of the collision in this process has remained an open question.
Graduate student Sena Ghobadi of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Physics, along with her colleagues, has developed three-dimensional dynamic models of such collisions.
A similar story appeared in Sky & Telescope.
Universe Magazine 2026-04-28T00:00:00-04:00Research led by Georgia Tech physicist Itamar Kolvin has found that the presence of small imperfections or heterogeneities in materials can have a dual effect on their strength and resilience. While heterogeneities were historically believed to make materials stronger by creating an obstacle course for cracks, the new study shows that in some complex materials, heterogeneities can actually accelerate crack propagation and weaken the overall structure. The findings have implications for how engineers design and reinforce materials to optimize their toughness.
Atlanta Today 2026-02-27T00:00:00-05:00Assistant Professor Zhu-Xi Luo and Ph.D. student Yi-Lin Tsao from Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Physics have demonstrated a novel mechanism for stabilising physical phases vulnerable to topological defects. Their work addresses a fundamental problem in condensed matter physics: the destabilisation of phases like superfluids by thermally-induced defects such as anyons and vortices.
Quantum Zeitgeist 2026-02-25T00:00:00-05:00In an article published in Physics Magazine, School of Physics Ph.D. student Jingcheng Zhou and Assistant Professor Chunhui (Rita) Du review efforts to optimize diamond-based quantum sensing. According to Zhou and Du, the approach used in two recent studies broadens the potential applications of nitrogen-vacancy center sensors for probing quantum phenomena, enabling measurements of nonlocal properties (such as spatial and temporal correlations) that are relevant to condensed-matter physics and materials science.
Physics Magazine 2025-07-14T00:00:00-04:00
