Lifeboat Foundation

A QUT-led team of international researchers has made a breakthrough in the development of a type of battery that is much safer and cheaper than the batteries currently charging our smart devices.

The research, published in the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society, has demonstrated a way of improving the voltage of aqueous zinc-ion batteries, which are a type of rechargeable battery which have a water-based electrolyte.

QUT researchers involved in the study are Professor Ziqi Sun, Associate Professor Dongchen Qi, and Fan Zhang from the School of Chemistry and Physics, Professor Ting Liao and Professor Cheng Yan from the School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering and Dr Aaron Micallef from the Central Analytical Research Facility.

From the brain to the bowels, a division of labor between resident tissue lmacrophages keeps organs healthy.

Learn more in a new Science Immunology Review: #DayOfImmunology

Therapists suggest in a new study that there are some intense drawbacks, on their sides and for patients, of psychedelic therapy.

Regular mammograms to screen for breast cancer should start younger, at age 40, according to an influential U.S. task force. Women ages 40 to 74 should get screened every other year, the group said.

Previously, the task force had said women could choose to start breast cancer screening as young as 40, with a stronger recommendation that they get the exams every two years from age 50 through 74.

The announcement Tuesday from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force makes official a draft recommendation announced last year. The recommendations were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In this Tools of the Trade article, Samuel Gould explains how prime editing sensors can improve experimental efficiency and can be designed using a computational tool he created and named PEGG.

Engineered protein filaments originally produced by bacteria have been modified by scientists to conduct electricity. In a study published recently in the journal Small, researchers revealed that protein nanowires—which were modified by adding a single compound—can conduct electricity over short distances and harness energy from moisture in the air.

“Our findings open up possibilities for developing sustainable and environmentally friendly electrical components and devices, based on proteins,” says Dr. Lorenzo Travaglini, lead author on the paper. “These engineered nanowires could one day lead to innovations in energy harvesting, biomedical applications and environmental sensing.”

Developments in the interdisciplinary field that combine protein engineering and nanoelectronics also hold promise for developing cutting-edge technologies that bridge the gap between biological systems and electronic devices.

Bioelectronics is a field of research in which biology and electronics converge. In medicine, for example, an external electric current is used to cure or monitor diseases of the nervous system, and also to monitor biomarkers in situ. Devices made of conductive materials are used for these applications.

The most widely used conductive polymer so far in energy and biomedical applications is PEDOT doped with PSS, known as PEDOT: PSS. Despite its exceptional properties, new conductive materials that can improve some of its limitations, such as biocompatibility, still need to be developed.

A study conducted by CIC biomaGUNE’s Biomolecular Nanotechnology group is proposing a mechanism for doping PEDOT using a robust engineered protein (PEDOT: Protein); the outcome is a hybrid material with ionic and electronic conductivity, which is quite similar to PEDOT: PSS in some cases. The paper is published in the journal Small.

Have you ever looked back on a moment and wondered if you made the right choice? Professor Robert Sapolsky has, but he believes that there was no actual choice at that moment. Professor Sapolsky has staked out an extreme stance in the field: we are nothing more than the sum of our biology, over which we had no control, and its interactions with the environment, over which we also had no control. Explore what it looks like to reject the notion of free will and how doing so can be liberating rather than paralyzing and despairing.

About the Speaker.
Professor Robert Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor and a professor of biology, of neurology, and of neurosurgery. Over the past thirty years, he has divided his time between the lab, where he studies how stress hormones can damage the brain, and in East Africa, where he studies the impact of chronic stress on the health of baboons.

Continue reading “Determined: Life without Free Will with Robert Sapolsky” »

A QUT-led team of international researchers has made a breakthrough in the development of a type of battery that is much safer and cheaper than the batteries currently charging our smart devices.

The research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, has demonstrated a way of improving the voltage of aqueous zinc-ion batteries, which are a type of rechargeable battery which have a water-based electrolyte.

QUT researchers involved in the study are Professor Ziqi Sun, Associate Professor Dongchen Qi, and Fan Zhang from the School of Chemistry and Physics, Professor Ting Liao and Professor Cheng Yan from the School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering and Dr. Aaron Micallef from the Central Analytical Research Facility.