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Calcium carbonate is an impressive material, in that it combines strength, light weight and porosity. Scientists have devised a new bacteria-based method of 3D-printing the substance, for use in applications such as bone repair and coral reef restoration.

First of all, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about the 3D-printing of calcium carbonate objects.

Earlier approaches have involved extruding a gel containing mineral particles, which subsequently dries and hardens. Some of the resulting items have been rather soft and fragile, however, or they’ve shrunk as they dried, creating cracks and causing their shape to change.

Several studies have predicted that the water splitting reaction could be catalyzed by certain groups of 2D materials—each measuring just a few atoms thick. One particularly promising group are named 2D Janus materials, whose two sides each feature a different molecular composition.

Through new calculations detailed in The European Physical Journal B, Junfeng Ren and colleagues at Shandong Normal University in China present a new group of four 2D Janus materials, which could be especially well suited to the task.

Since hydrogen releases an abundance of energy when combusted, with only water as a byproduct, it is now widely seen as an excellent alternative to fossil fuels. Splitting water molecules involves a redox reaction, where electrons and holes participate in reduction and oxidation reactions.

Superconductivity can be switched on and off in “magic-angle” graphene using a short electrical pulse, according to new work by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Until now, such switching could only be achieved by sweeping a continuous electric field across the material. The new finding could help in the development of novel superconducting electronics such as memory elements for use in two-dimensional (2D) materials-based circuits.

Graphene is a 2D crystal of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern. Even on its own, this so-called “wonder material” boasts many exceptional properties, including high electrical conductivity as charge carriers (electrons and holes) zoom through the carbon lattice at very high speeds.

In 2018, researchers led by Pablo Jarillo-Herrero of MIT found that when two such sheets are placed on top of each other with a small angle misalignment, things become even more fascinating. In this twisted bilayer configuration, the sheets form a structure known as a moiré superlattice, and when the twist angle between them reaches the (theoretically predicted) “magic angle” of 1.08°, the material begins to show properties such as superconductivity at low temperatures – that is, it conducts electricity without any resistance.

The fungus has been traditionally used as a fire starter.

A fungus called tinder fungus that grows on the bark of rotting beech and birch trees has been used as a fire starter for a long time, but it may just have a new use: the creation of plastics.

Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland proceeded to analyze the internal structure of the fungus, formally called Fomes fomentarius, to understand its strong yet lightweight consistency.

Continue reading “Old fungus could soon be used to make new plastics” »

Researchers at Harvard University, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Arizona State University, and other institutes in the United States have recently observed an antiferromagnetic metal phase in electron-doped NdNiO₃ a material known to be a non-collinear antiferromagnet (i.e., exhibiting an onset of antiferromagnetic ordering that is concomitant with a transition into an insulating state).

“Previous works on the rare-earth nickelates (RNiO₃) have found them to host a rather exotic phase of magnetism known as a ‘noncollinear antiferromagnet,’” Qi Song, Spencer Doyle, Luca Moreschini and Julia A. Mundy, Four of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org.

“This type of magnet has unique potential applications in the field of spintronics, yet rare-earth nickelates famously change spontaneously from being metallic to insulating at the exact same temperature that this noncollinear antiferromagnet phase turns on. We wanted to see if we could somehow modify one of these materials in a way so that it remained metallic, but still had this interesting magnetic phase.”

Excerpt from album: Leviathan Device. Label: Cyclic Law. Release date: 2011. Country: Canada.

http://www.cycliclaw.com/

Continue reading “Triangular Ascension — Dimensional Warp” »

The days of ripping off a Band-Aid could soon be in the past, with scientists creating a new affordable, flexible electronic covering that not only speeds and wirelessly monitors healing but performs a disappearing act by being harmlessly absorbed into the body when its job is done.

“Although it’s an electronic device, the active components that interface with the wound bed are entirely resorbable,” said Northwestern University’s John A. Rogers, who co-led the study. “As such, the materials disappear naturally after the healing process is complete, thereby avoiding any damage to the tissue that could otherwise be caused by physical extraction.”

Continue reading “Electronic bandage speeds wound healing and dissolves into body after use” »

The bones of the face and skull can be affected due to a wide range of conditions, including cleft palate defects, traumatic injuries, cancer, and bone loss from dentures. Although bone replacements are routinely used to regenerate the missing tissue, they are vulnerable to bacterial infection. In a new study, researchers investigated whether manuka honey, made from tea trees, can be used to resist bacterial infection and promote bone growth.

Bone implants account for 45% of all hospital-contracted infections, impeding healing. Typically, these implants are made from biomaterials that contain extracellular matrix components—molecules that provide structural support to cells. However, researchers commonly use metal implants or synthetic polymers to study bone defects and infections. Therefore, there is a gap in the understanding of how biomaterials behave in response to infection.

“Imagine a metal versus something soft and porous that is made up of extracellular matrix components. They have very different characteristics,” said Marley Dewey, a former graduate student in the Harley lab and the first author of the paper. “Using our scaffolds, this is the first paper to look at how these materials become infected.”

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have created a new type of quantum material whose atomic scaffolding, or lattice, has been dramatically warped into a herringbone pattern.

The resulting distortions are “huge” compared to those achieved in other materials, said Woo Jin Kim, a postdoctoral researcher at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES) at SLAC who led the study.

“This is a very fundamental result, so it’s hard to make predictions about what may or may not come out of it, but the possibilities are exciting,” said SLAC/Stanford Professor and SIMES Director Harold Hwang.