Lifeboat Foundation

The process took eight days to complete.

Five thin-as-human-hair plastic sheets coated with reflective material that will protect the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have now been successfully deployed, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) said in its press release.

Ever since its launch on Christmas Day, space enthusiasts were eager to know if the sunshield on the JWST that is designed to protect the sensitive instruments on board would be deployed to perfection. To rightfully take the place of the mighty Hubble, the JWST has to overcome its 344 potential points of failure, and deploying the sunshield is a major achievement.

Invisibility devices may soon no longer be the stuff of science fiction. A new study published in the De Gruyter journal Nanophotonics by lead authors Huanyang Chen at Xiamen University, China, and Qiaoliang Bao, suggests the use of the material Molybdenum Trioxide (a-MoO3) to replace expensive and difficult to produce metamaterials in the emerging technology of novel optical devices.

The idea of an invisibility cloak may sound more like magic than science, but researchers are currently hard at work producing devices that can scatter and bend light in such a way that it creates the effect of invisibility.

Thus far these devices have relied on metamaterials – a material that has been specially engineered to possess novel properties not found in naturally occurring substances or in the individual particles of that material – but the study by Chen and co-authors suggests the use of a-MoO3 to create these invisibility devices.

Circa 2020

Flash heating of carbon-rich wastes creates graphene, which has many commercial uses.

Continue reading “Converting trash to valuable graphene in a flash” »

The “world’s first” nailable solar shingle, the Timberline Solar Energy Shingle, is being launched today by GAF Energy, the sister company of GAF, the largest roofing and waterproofing company in North America.

The Energy Shingle is combined with other standard roofing components to create the “Timberline Solar” roof system. GAF Energy claims to have the only product to integrate solar technology into existing roofing processes and materials, resulting in a full-fledged solar roof.

GAF Energy claims its Energy Shingles have comparable weatherproof performance to GAF’s roofing shingle, the Timberline HD/HDZ.

A Virginia family received the keys to their new 3D-printed home just in time for Christmas. The home is Habitat for Humanity’s first 3D-printed home in the nation, according to a Habitat news release. The 1,200-square-foot home has three bedrooms, two full baths and was built from concrete.

A large, unconventional anomalous Hall resistance in a new magnetic semiconductor in the absence of large-scale magnetic ordering has been demonstrated by Tokyo Tech materials scientists, validating a recent theoretical prediction. Their findings provide new insights into the anomalous Hall effect.

An international scientific group with outstanding Valencian participation has managed to measure for the first time oscillations in the brightness of a magnetar during its most violent moments. In just a 10th of a second, the magnetar released energy equivalent to that produced by the sun in 100,000 years. The observation was carried out without human intervention, thanks to an artificial intelligence system developed at the Image Processing Laboratory (IPL) of the University of Valencia.

The material that the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft returned from asteroid Ryugu is the most pristine sample we’ve ever gotten our hands on.

Tests at two laboratories show that the dark grains that the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft collected from the carbon-rich near-Earth asteroid 162,173 Ryugu are the most primitive materials known in the solar system.

“In this body you see hydrated materials and signs of organics from very early in the formation of the solar system — that’s exciting!” says Deborah Domingue (Planetary Science Institute), who was not involved in those studies but did earlier analysis of remote sensing data of Ryugu.

Up to 90% of patients who undergo open abdominal or pelvic surgery develop postoperative adhesions, or scar tissue. Minimally invasive laparoscopic surgical approaches can reduce the severity of the adhesions, but the scar tissue still forms. The cellular response to injury—even intentional injury, such as surgery to repair a problem—results in a cascade of molecules pouring to the site to heal the tissue. But the molecules, working quickly to close the wound, often go too far and bind the wound to nearby healthy tissue. Depending on the location, the resulting scar tissue can cause chronic pain, bowel obstruction and even death.

There may be a potential solution available soon, according to researchers from Southern Medical University in China. They have developed an injectable hydrogel that can plug up wounds without sticking to off target tissue, effectively preventing postoperative adhesions.

Their approach, tested in rats and rabbits, was published on Nov. 18 in Advanced Functional Materials.

Technologists envisage an electronically interconnected future that will depend on cheap, lightweight, flexible devices. Efforts to optimize the semiconductor materials needed for these electronic devices are therefore necessary. Researchers from the University of Tsukuba have reported a record-breaking germanium (Ge) thin film on a plastic substrate that offers flexibility without compromising performance. Their findings are published in ACS Applied Electronic Materials.

Ge is a popular semiconductor for use in transistors because it has high charge carrier mobility (charge carrier refers to the electrons and electron holes that move through the material). Ge can also be processed at the relatively low temperature of ~500 degrees Celsius and has a low Young’s modulus, which means it is a softer alternative to commonly used materials such as silicon.

Ge thin films can be grown using the solid-phase crystallization technique. These thin films are polycrystalline, meaning they are made up of many Ge crystals. In general, larger crystals lead to greater carrier mobilities because bigger crystals form fewer grain boundaries that obstruct the current. Recent increases in grain size have therefore led to effective Ge thin-film transistors on rigid substrates such as glass.