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Archive for the ‘nanotechnology’ category: Page 116

Nov 3, 2022

Engineers developed a breakthrough method to generate hydrogen gas in one-step process

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, nanotechnology

The method requires only visible light and no external heating.

Hydrogen sulfide, infamous for its aroma of rotten eggs, is known to be highly poisonous and corrosive — especially in wastewater applications. Petrochemical plants and other industries make thousands of tons of this gas every year as a byproduct of various processes that separate sulfur from petroleum, natural gas, coal, and other products.

Now, Rice University engineers and scientists have devised a new way for such petrochemical industries to turn the noxious gas into “high-demand” hydrogen gas.

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Nov 3, 2022

‘Inherited nanobionics’ makes its debut

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, nanotechnology, transhumanism

Nanotube-modified bacteria could produce electricity as living photovoltaic devices, say researchers.

Nov 2, 2022

Nanowire Synapses 30,000x Faster Than Nature’s

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, robotics/AI

Artificial-intelligence systems are increasingly limited by the hardware used to implement them. Now comes a new superconducting photonic circuit that mimics the links between brain cells—burning just 0.3 percent of the energy of its human counterparts while operating some 30,000 times as fast.

In artificial neural networks, components called neurons are fed data and cooperate to solve a problem, such as recognizing faces. The neural net repeatedly adjusts the synapses—the links between its neurons—and determines whether the resulting patterns of behavior are better at finding a solution. Over time, the network discovers which patterns are best at computing results. It then adopts these patterns as defaults, mimicking the process of learning in the human brain.

Nov 2, 2022

All-Optical Modulation of Single Defects in Nanodiamonds: Revealing Rotational and Translational Motions in Cell Traction Force Fields

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, nanotechnology

Measuring the mechanical interplay between cells and their surrounding microenvironment is vital in cell biology and disease diagnosis. Most current methods can only capture the translational motion of fiduciary markers in the deformed matrix, but their rotational motions are normally ignored. Here, by utilizing single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in nanodiamonds (NDs) as fluorescent markers, we propose a linear polarization modulation (LPM) method to monitor in-plane rotational and translational motions of the substrate caused by cell traction forces. Specifically, precise orientation measurement and localization with background suppression were achieved via optical polarization selective excitation of single NV centers with precisions of ∼0.5°/7.5 s and 2 nm/min, respectively.

Oct 31, 2022

New Device Creates Electricity Out Of Thin Air

Posted by in categories: energy, engineering, nanotechnology

While we may struggle with the production of electricity and green power now, a recent discovery by the University of Massachusetts in Amherst has discovered something quite amazing. One day, in the not far away future-we may have the ability to create electricity from thin air.

Well, technically we already do, but let me explain how this happened and what that means for us. The study was published in the journal Nature in February 2020. The title is “Power generation from ambient humidity using protein nanowires” and through this study, the researchers stumbled upon something quite amazing.

The project was started by electrical engineering student Xiaomeng Liu, who works in the lab with the study author Jun Yao, discovered a prototype that he had been working on and began doing something he didn’t expect. Even when he wasn’t running the machine, he was picking up on power output. “We were initially very perplexed,” Yao says.

Oct 28, 2022

Scientists Discover Mechanism of Hearing in Near-Atomic Detail

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, nanotechnology

Discovery made possible by state-of-the-art imaging and more than 60 million worms.

For the first time and in near-atomic detail, scientists at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) have revealed the structure of the key part of the inner ear responsible for hearing.

“This is the last sensory system in which that fundamental molecular machinery has remained unknown,” said senior author Eric Gouaux, Ph.D. He is a senior scientist with the OHSU Vollum Institute and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “The molecular machinery that carries out this absolutely amazing process has been unresolved for decades.”

Oct 28, 2022

Existential Hope: Creon Levit | On space and the long-term future

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, engineering, food, nanotechnology, space, supercomputing

Are we alone in the universe? What could a future for humans in space look like? And what would Creon’s advise to Elon Musk be if he wants to make a self-sufficient mass colony there? This Hope Drop features Creon Levit, chief technologist and director of R&D at Planet Labs.

Creon Levit is chief technologist at Planet Labs, where he works to move the world toward existential hope via novel satellite technologies. He also hosts Foresight Institute’s Space Group.

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Oct 26, 2022

New class of porous metal nanoparticles will yield new capabilities in absorption, chemical sensing and separations

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, nanotechnology

Researchers from Northwestern University have made a significant advance in the way they produce exotic open-framework superlattices made of hollow metal nanoparticles.

Using tiny hollow particles termed metallic nanoframes and modifying them with appropriate sequences of DNA, the team found they could synthesize open-channel superlattices with pores ranging from 10 to 1,000 nanometers in size—sizes that have been difficult to access until now. This newfound control over porosity will enable researchers to use these colloidal crystals in molecular absorption and storage, separations, chemical sensing, catalysis and many optical applications.

The new study identifies 12 unique porous nanoparticle superlattices with control over symmetry, geometry and pore connectivity to highlight the generalizability of new design rules as a route to making novel materials.

Oct 26, 2022

Researchers compress light 12 times below the diffraction limit in a dielectric material

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, physics

Until recently, it was widely believed among physicists that it was impossible to compress light below the so-called diffraction limit (see below), except when using metal nanoparticles, which unfortunately also absorb light. It therefore seemed impossible to compress light strongly in dielectric materials such as silicon, which are key materials in information technologies and come with the important advantage that they do not absorb light.

Interestingly, it was shown theoretically in 2006 that the diffraction limit also does not apply to dielectrics. Still, no one has succeeded in showing this in the , simply because no one has been able to build the necessary nanostructures until now.

A research team from DTU has successfully designed and built a structure, a so-called dielectric nanocavity, which concentrates light in a volume 12 times below the diffraction limit. The result is groundbreaking in optical research and has just been published in Nature Communications.

Oct 26, 2022

COVID-causing virus in air detected with high-tech bubbles

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, nanotechnology

Scientists have shown that they can detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the air by using a nanotechnology-packed bubble that spills its chemical contents like a broken piñata when encountering the virus.

Such a could be positioned on a wall or ceiling, or in an air duct, where there’s constant air movement, to alert occupants immediately when even a trace level of the virus is present.

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