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Archive for the ‘materials’ category: Page 193

May 5, 2020

Researchers demonstrate pattern recognition using magnonic holographic memory device

Posted by in categories: computing, materials

Circa 2015


Researchers at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering and the Russian Academy of Sciences have successfully demonstrated pattern recognition using a magnonic holographic memory device, a development that could greatly improve speech and image recognition hardware.

Pattern recognition focuses on finding patterns and regularities in data. The uniqueness of the demonstrated work is that the input patterns are encoded into the phases of the input spin waves.

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May 5, 2020

How a mycologist is making ‘living’ bricks out of mushrooms that are stronger than concrete

Posted by in categories: materials, sustainability

Circa 2017 o.,o.


Philip Ross is an artist and lecturer at Stanford University who focuses on an unlikely sustainable design element: mushrooms. After years of growing mushrooms, Ross has learned that there’s far more than meets the eye to mycelium — the extensive and tangled network of rootlike fibers that grow beneath the ground. According to our fungus expert, when left to dry the mycelium can become an excellent raw material for various constructions. For instance, Ross used the mycelium to fashion bricks out of.

Among its many properties, the mycelium bricks are:

May 5, 2020

Environmentally friendly ‘living concrete’ capable of self-healing

Posted by in categories: biological, materials

Researchers said this building material has structural load-bearing function, is capable of self-healing and is more environmentally friendly than concrete – which is the second most-consumed material on Earth after water.

The team from the University of Colorado Boulder believe their work paves the way for future building structures that could “heal their own cracks, suck up dangerous toxins from the air or even glow on command”.

Wil Srubar, who heads the Living Materials Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder and is one of the study authors, said: “We already use biological materials in our buildings, like wood, but those materials are no longer alive.

May 4, 2020

New Material Finally Makes It Into the Almighty Nuclear Code

Posted by in categories: materials, nuclear energy

Scientists working at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have announced the approval of a new high-temperature metal after 12 years and a $15 million Department of Energy investment. Alloy 617, a “combination of nickel, chromium, cobalt and molybdenum,” is tolerant and strong at temperatures of more than 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit. The scientists say this means it could be used in existing high temperature nuclear facilities as well as cutting-edge applications like molten salt reactors.

For any new nuclear plant material, making the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code is like qualifying for the Olympics. Alloy 617 is the first new material to get into “The Code” in 30 years.

May 1, 2020

Nanoarchitected metamaterial with material achieves the theoretic limits of stiffness and strength

Posted by in categories: materials, space travel

Question: When you’ve designed the world’s most efficient metamaterial, one that could change the way cars, planes and even space exploration vehicles are built, is mostly air yet reaches the theoretical bounds for stiffness and strength and can equally resist forces coming from any direction, what do you do next?

Answer: You break it.

At least, that’s what a team of material scientists including Jonathan Berger of UC Santa Barbara and Jens Bauer of UC Irvine did. Their goal? To learn what boundaries could be pushed with a novel metamaterial called plate-nanolattice. The research findings are published in a paper in the journal Nature Communications (“Plate-nanolattices at the theoretical limit of stiffness and strength”).

Apr 28, 2020

Kondo cloud seen at last

Posted by in category: materials

New observations could boost understanding of multiple-impurity systems such as Kondo lattices, spin glasses and high transition-temperature superconductors.

Apr 28, 2020

Scientists Have Figured Out The Best Materials to Use if You’re Making a Mask at Home

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, materials

Depending on who you ask and where you are, wearing a mask can be an important part of the strategy to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

With the CDC recommending surgical and N95 masks should be kept for medical personnel on the front line, if you do want or need a mask, you should be purchasing or making a cloth one.

But when looking at cloth masks, which materials work best for keeping your germs in and other people’s germs out?

Apr 28, 2020

Pentagon officially releases videos of ‘unidentified’ flying objects

Posted by in categories: materials, military

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) praised Monday’s release of the videos, but said more action is needed.

“I’m glad the Pentagon is finally releasing this footage, but it only scratches the surface of research and materials available,” he tweeted. “The U.S. needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications. The American people deserve to be informed.”


The Pentagon on Monday officially released three videos of “unidentified” flying objects that have been previously leaked to the public.

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Apr 27, 2020

New 3D Concrete Printer Could Be a Major Advancement in Construction

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, materials

By more accurately printing complex geometric patterns, this new 3D printing method makes construction projects more efficient with less waste and faster time to market.


A new 3D printing method could revolutionize the way additive manufacturing is used to print materials on construction sites.

Apr 27, 2020

Astronomers Have Found a Star That Survived Being Swallowed by a Black Hole

Posted by in categories: cosmology, materials

When black holes swallow down massive amounts of matter from the space around them, they’re not exactly subtle about it. They belch out tremendous flares of X-rays, generated by the material heating to intense temperatures as it’s sucked towards the black hole, so bright we can detect them from Earth.

This is normal black hole behaviour. What isn’t normal is for those X-ray flares to spew forth with clockwork regularity, a puzzling behaviour reported last year from a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy 250 million light-years away. Every nine hours, boom — X-ray flare.

After careful study, astronomer Andrew King of the University of Leicester in the UK believes he has identified the cause — a dead star that’s endured its brush with a black hole, trapped on a nine-hour, elliptical orbit around it. Every close pass, or periastron, the black hole slurps up more of the star’s material.