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Category: materials – Page 201

Researcher uses graphene for same-time, same-position biomolecule isolation and sensing

New research led by University of Massachusetts Amherst assistant professor Jinglei Ping has overcome a major challenge to isolating and detecting molecules at the same time and at the same location in a microdevice. The work, recently published in ACS Nano, demonstrates an important advance in using graphene for electrokinetic biosample processing and analysis, and could allow lab-on-a-chip devices to become smaller and achieve results faster.

The process of detecting biomolecules has been complicated and time-consuming. “We usually first have to isolate them in a complex medium in a device and then send them to another device or another spot in the same device for detection,” says Ping, who is in the College of Engineering’s Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department and is also affiliated with the university’s Institute of Applied Life Sciences. “Now we can isolate them and detect them at the same microscale spot in a microfluidic device at the same time—no one has ever demonstrated this before.”

His lab achieved this advance by using graphene, a one-atom-thick honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms, as microelectrodes in a .

Researchers Use Lasers to Transform Neutrophils into Medicinal Microrobots

Medical microrobots could aid doctors in providing better illness prevention and treatment. However, the majority of these gadgets are created from synthetic materials that incite in vivo immunological reactions.

Scientists have now successfully utilized lasers to precisely manipulate neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, in living fish as a natural, biocompatible microrobot for the first time, as reported in ACS Central Science.

Microrobots that are now being developed for medical use need to be injected into an animal or ingested as capsules. However, scientists have discovered that these tiny items frequently cause immunological reactions in small animals, which prevents the elimination of microrobots from the body before they can carry out their functions.

The sustainable cities made from mud

Earthen architecture can withstand extreme events such as earthquakes and heavy winds “because of the ability of its structure to distribute the load that it faces on its surface, unlike concrete or cement,” says Damluji.

But mud building’s resilience to earthquakes depends on the intensity of the seismic waves and the soil in which they are built, says Jerome.

Mud buildings are “also protected from seasonal rains and flash floods due to the damp-proof and protective external rendering used in several layers of refined mud, ash and lime coating and plaster”, says Damluji.

Where do batteries come from? And where do they go?

Way too many batteries still end up in a landfill, though it depends on the type. While 90% of lead acid batteries are recycled, experts estimate that only about 5% of lithium-ion batteries currently enter a recycling stream. Many more lurk in drawers or end up in the trash. That’s a problem.

Why you shouldn’t throw batteries in the trash

Lithium-ion batteries can cause fires when exposed to heat, mechanical stress, or other waste materials. Once exposed, the elements contained in the batteries could leach into the environment and contaminate the soil and groundwater. While this shouldn’t present an issue at a well-managed domestic facility, exported trash might end up at a more lenient landfill. Richa et al. note that “the greater risk is loss of valuable materials.”

Mysteries of the Oort cloud at the edge of our solar system

The entirely theoretical cloud of icy space debris marks the frontiers of our solar system.

The Oort cloud represents the very edges of our solar system. The thinly dispersed collection of icy material starts roughly 200 times farther away from the sun than Pluto and stretches halfway to our sun’s nearest starry neighbor, Alpha Centauri. We know so little about it that its very existence is theoretical — the material that makes up this cloud has never been glimpsed by even our most powerful telescopes, except when some of it breaks free.

“For the foreseeable future, the bodies in the Oort cloud are too far away to be directly imaged,” says a spokesperson from NASA. “They are small, faint, and moving slowly.”

Aside from theoretical models, most of what we know about this mysterious area is told from the visitors that sometimes swing our way every 200 years or more — long period comets. “[The comets] have very important information about the origin of the solar system,” says Jorge Correa Otto, a planetary scientist the Argentina National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET).

Smart textiles detect, sense posture and motion

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab have created a novel fabrication process to produce smart textiles that comfortabl | Technology.

Using 3DKnITS, the research team created a “smart” shoe and mat, followed by building a hardware and software system capable of measuring and interpreting real-time data from the pressure sensors. An individual then performed yoga poses on the smart textile mat while the machine-learning system was able to accurately predict the individual’s motions and poses 99 percent of the time.

“Some of the early pioneering work on smart fabrics happened at the Media Lab in the late ’90s. The materials, embeddable electronics, and fabrication machines have advanced enormously since then,” said co-author Jospeh A. Paradiso, an Alexander W. Dreyfoos Professor and Director of the Responsive Environments group within the Media Lab. “It’s a great time to see our research returning to this area, for example through projects like Irmandy’s — they point at an exciting future where sensing and functions diffuse more fluidly into materials and open up enormous possibilities.”

Wicaksono now plans to refine the circuit and machine learning model since the fabrication technique has been deemed a success. This refinement involves the removing a time-consuming calibration step which currently needs to be done to each individual before the system can classify actions. Once this is done, 3DKnITS will be easier to use. Along with that, the researchers also hope to conduct tests on smart shoes outside of the lab to test how the accuracy of the sensors are affected by environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity.

Examining rocking shadows in protoplanetary disks

Astronomers from the University of Warwick reveal a new phenomenon dubbed the “rocking shadow” effect that describes how disks in forming planetary systems are oriented, and how they move around their host star. The effect also gives clues as to how they might evolve with time. Dr. Rebecca Nealon presented the new work this week at the 2022 National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Warwick.

Stars are born when a large cloud of gas and dust collapses in on itself. The leftover material that doesn’t make it into the star ends up circling around it, not unlike how water swirls around the drain before falling in. This swirling mass of gas and dust is called a , and it’s where planets like the Earth are born.

Protoplanetary disks are often thought to be shaped like dinner plates—thin, round and flat. However, recent telescope images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) show that this is not always the case. Some of the disks seen by ALMA have shadows on them, where the part of the disk closest to the star blocks some of the stellar light and casts a shadow onto the outer part of the disk. From this shadow pattern, it can be inferred that the inner part of the disk is oriented completely differently to the outer part, in what is called a broken disk.

Atomic level deposition to extend Moore’s law and beyond

Moore’s law has driven the semiconductor industry to continue downscaling the critical size of transistors to improve device density. At the beginning of this century, traditional scaling started to encounter bottlenecks. The industry has successively developed strained Si/Ge, high-K/metal gate, and Fin-FETs, enabling Moore’s Law to continue.

Now, the critical size of FETs is down to 7 nm, which means there are almost 7 billion transistors per square centimeter on one chip, which brings huge challenges for fin-type structure and nanomanufacturing methods. Up to now, extreme ultraviolet lithography has been used in some critical steps, and it is facing alignment precision and high costs for high-volume manufacturing.

Meanwhile, the introduction of new materials and 3D complex structures brings serious challenges for top-down methods. Newly developed bottom-up manufacturing serves as a good complementary method and provides technical driving force for nanomanufacturing.

A hidden self-portrait has been discovered by X-ray on the back of a Van Gogh painting

“NGS experts believe these materials were applied ahead of an exhibition in the early twentieth century,” the organization said in a press release. “Van Gogh often re-used canvases to save money. However, instead of painting over earlier works, he would turn the canvas around and work on the reverse.”

The portrait shows “a bearded sitter in a brimmed hat with a neckerchief loosely tied at the throat,” NGS says. The portrait has an intense stare, and the right side of his face is in shadow, while his left ear is clearly visible.

Roads built with recycled rubber tires could last twice as long

Unlike much outdoor infrastructure, roads are not designed with any sun protection, making them prone to cracking and potentially unsafe to drive on.

Now, RMIT University engineers collaborated with Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) to discover the perfect blend that is both UV resistant and withstands traffic loads, with the potential to save governments millions on road maintenance annually. Their new research has found that crumb rubber, which is recycled from scrap tires, acts like sunscreen for roads and halves the rate of sun damage when mixed with bitumen.

Crumb rubber has already shown promise in making concrete stronger and more heat resistant. The new study found that the material acts so effectively as a sunscreen for roads that it actually makes the surface last twice as long as regular bitumen.

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