New design process accelerates the discovery of advanced materials
Flexible materials that combine mechanical flexibility with high thermal or electrical conductivity are essential for wearables, stretchable electronics and soft robotic systems. To identify new composite materials with those properties, researchers typically create and test many different material formulations, a process that can be time-consuming, expensive and lead to waste. , 天美影院researchers developed a new 鈥渋nverse design framework鈥� that reverses the standard design process to speed up the discovery of multifunctional materials. The framework starts with the desired material properties for a specific application 鈥� such as wearable electronics 鈥� and works backward to determine the optimal material composition using physics-based modeling and machine learning. Experiments showed that a material identified by the framework achieved about 60% higher thermal conductivity while reducing material cost by about 10%, compared to materials that were previously used.聽
For more information, contact senior author , 天美影院assistant professor of mechanical engineering.聽
The other co-authors are Lijun Zhou, Yunsik Ohm, Ren-Mian Chin, Olivia Kerr and Krithika Manohar.
Climate models get a vote of confidence in a new 天美影院study mapping tropical ocean temperature over time
Climate models help researchers understand how conditions are changing over time to forecast what is likely to happen in the future. Predicting extreme heat, drought or flooding years in advance can give people time to prepare, but the accuracy of these predictions varies. Scientists test models by asking them to recreate past climate and comparing those predictions with observational data. Although modern climate models get a lot of things right, they often fail to replicate recent temperature change in the tropical Pacific Ocean, a key region for global weather. This has concerned scientists, but a 天美影院study offers a glimmer of hope. The researchers found that climate models could successfully replicate temperature trends in the equatorial Pacific when they expanded the window of observation by 20 years. Including more data allowed the models to better account for climate variability, which can create long-lasting fluctuations in temperature and precipitation that aren鈥檛 always indicative of a general trend.聽
For more information, contact senior author Matt Luongo, 天美影院postdoctoral fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, & Ecosystem Studies and School of Oceanography at mluongo@uw.edu.
The other 天美影院co-author is . A full list of co-authors is .
Paternal body odor increases brain-to-brain synchrony with infants
Infant brains recognize their fathers as unique social partners, showing stronger brain-to-brain synchrony with their fathers compared to unfamiliar males during social interactions. A new study also shows that when infants interact with unfamiliar males while exposed to their fathers鈥� body odor, their brain synchrony increases to levels similar to those seen with their own fathers. Further, exposure to paternal body odor increased infants’ positive arousal. These findings suggest that infants use their fathers鈥� scent as an important social cue, even when the father is not physically present. Researchers also found that father-infant synchrony involved a different neural rhythm than previously observed in mother-infant interactions, suggesting that mothers and fathers may support development through complementary neural pathways. Combined, these findings reveal a previously unknown role of paternal body odor as a sensory signal that contributes to early social and brain development.
For more information, contact , co-author and a research scientist in the 天美影院Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences.聽
The other co-authors are Linoy Schwartz and Ruth Feldman.