ScienceDaily: Matter & Energy News |
| Want to 3D print a kidney? Start by thinking small Posted: 13 Apr 2022 12:11 PM PDT Human organ transplants offer a crucial lifeline to people with serious illnesses, but there are too few organs to go around: in the U.S. alone, there are more than 112,000 people currently waiting for transplants. The promise of 3D printing organs is one possible solution to address this shortage but has been fraught with complexity and technical barriers, limiting the type of organs that can be printed. Researchers are now pushing through these barriers by leveraging a decades-old technique to reproduce any tissue type. |
| Joystick-operated robot could help surgeons treat stroke remotely Posted: 13 Apr 2022 11:16 AM PDT Engineers developed a telerobotic system to help surgeons remotely treat patients experiencing stroke or aneurysm. With a modified joystick, surgeons may control a robotic arm at another hospital to operate on a patient. |
| New polymer materials make fabricating optical interconnects easier Posted: 13 Apr 2022 10:12 AM PDT Researchers have developed new polymer materials that are ideal for making the optical links necessary to connect chip-based photonic components with board-level circuits or optical fibers. These materials can be used to easily create interconnects between photonic chips and optical printed circuit boards, the light-based equivalent of electronic printed circuit boards. |
| A new heat engine with no moving parts is as efficient as a steam turbine Posted: 13 Apr 2022 10:11 AM PDT Engineers have developed a heat engine with no moving parts that is as efficient as a steam turbine. The design could someday enable a fully decarbonized power grid, researchers say. |
| Posted: 13 Apr 2022 07:42 AM PDT A team of researchers has demonstrated that some plant species could help to remove toxic heavy metals and metalloids from contaminated soil. |
| Undersea detector proves it’s swell Posted: 13 Apr 2022 07:42 AM PDT Highly energetic particles called muons are ever present in the atmosphere and pass through even massive objects with ease. Sensitive detectors installed along the Tokyo Bay tunnel measure muons passing through the sea above them. This allows for changes in the volume of water above the tunnel to be calculated. For the first time, this method was used to accurately detect a mild tsunami following a typhoon in 2021. |
| Real-time ultrafast humidity sensing optical sensor Posted: 13 Apr 2022 07:41 AM PDT A research team develops a real-time humidity sensing optical sensor. The response time of the new sensor is 10,000 times faster than the conventional sensors and can be mass-produced at low cost. |
| Validating models for next-generation fusion facilities Posted: 13 Apr 2022 06:10 AM PDT The National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) could serve as the model for a fusion energy pilot plant. |
| Feel the attraction of zwitterionic Janus Particles Posted: 13 Apr 2022 06:09 AM PDT Researchers have created a more accurate computer simulation of double-faced nanoparticles that form self-assembled structures based on electrostatic attraction. By including temporary charge fluctuations, compact clusters are shown to be a possible outcome, which may lead to new smart nanomaterials. |
| A 4 V-class metal-free organic lithium-ion battery gets closer to reality Posted: 13 Apr 2022 06:08 AM PDT Organic, metal free, high-energy batteries are a pathway to a greener future. Yet scientists have struggled to find ways to boost the voltage in organic lithium-ion batteries. Now, a study has proposed a small organic molecule known as croconic acid that can maintain a working voltage of around 4 Volts. |
| Solution to world’s largest waste stream: Make sand Posted: 12 Apr 2022 01:16 PM PDT After water, sand is the most exploited natural resource on the planet. However, its extraction from seas, rivers, beaches and quarries has an impact on the environment and surrounding communities. A new study has found that a step-change in mineral processing could drastically reduce mineral waste -- the world's largest waste stream -- while creating a sustainable source of sand. Coined 'ore-sand' this material has the potential to address two global sustainability challenges simultaneously. |
| Bioprinting for bone repair improved with genes Posted: 12 Apr 2022 01:16 PM PDT Given enough time and energy, the body will heal, but when doctors or engineers intervene, the processes do not always proceed as planned because chemicals that control and facilitate the healing process are missing. Now, an international team of engineers is bioprinting bone along with two growth factor encoding genes that help incorporate the cells and heal defects in the skulls of rats. |
| Researchers generate high-quality quantum light with modular waveguide device Posted: 12 Apr 2022 01:16 PM PDT Researchers have successfully generated strongly nonclassical light using a modular waveguide-based light source. By combining a waveguide optical parametric amplifier (OPA) module created for quantum experiments and a specially designed photon detector, researchers were able to produce light in a superposition of coherent states. The achievement represents a crucial step toward creating faster and more practical optical quantum computers. |
| Scientists find 'knob' to control magnetic behavior in quantum material Posted: 12 Apr 2022 01:15 PM PDT Magnetism, one of the oldest technologies known to humans, is at the forefront of new-age materials that could enable next-generation lossless electronics and quantum computers. Researchers have discovered a new 'knob' to control the magnetic behavior of one promising quantum material, and the findings could pave the way toward novel, efficient and ultra-fast devices. |
| You've heard of water droughts. Could 'energy' droughts be next? Posted: 12 Apr 2022 01:15 PM PDT Drawing on 70 years of historic wind and solar-power data, researchers built an AI model to predict the probability of a network-scale 'drought,' when daily production of renewables fell below a target threshold. Under a threshold set at the 30th percentile, when roughly a third of all days are low-production days, the researchers found that Texas could face a daily energy drought for up to four months straight. Batteries would be unable to compensate for a drought of this length, and if the system relied on solar energy alone, the drought could be expected to last twice as long -- for eight months. |
| Lack of marshaling ports hindering offshore wind industry Posted: 12 Apr 2022 11:10 AM PDT A new study finds that the nation's existing and planned marshaling ports, the assembly areas critical to building and deploying offshore wind turbines, will be insufficient by 2023 to meet commitments and will fail to meet projected demand through 2050. |
| How to find anti-cancer agents Posted: 12 Apr 2022 11:10 AM PDT Researchers have developed a novel substance that disables a protein in the cell skeleton, leading to cell death. In this way, substances of this type can prevent, for example, the growth of tumors. To accomplish this, the researchers combined a structural biological method with the computational design of active agents. |
| Simulating supernova remnants, star formation in earthbound lab Posted: 12 Apr 2022 11:10 AM PDT When triggered by some external agent, shockwaves can propagate through molecular clouds of gas and dust to create pockets of dense material. At a certain limit, that dense gas and dust collapses and begins to form new stars. Researchers modeled this interaction using a high-power laser and a foam ball. The foam ball represents a dense area within a molecular cloud. The high-power laser creates a blast wave that propagates through a surrounding chamber of gas and into the ball, where the team observed the compression using X-ray images. |
| Modeling Earth's magnetosphere in the laboratory Posted: 12 Apr 2022 11:10 AM PDT Scientists report a method to study smaller magnetospheres, sometimes just millimeters thick, in the laboratory. The new experimental platform combines the magnetic field of the Large Plasma Device with a fast laser-driven plasma and a current-driven dipole magnet. The LAPD magnetic field provides a model of the solar system's interplanetary magnetic field, while the laser-driven plasma models the solar wind and the dipole magnet provides a model for the Earth's inherent magnetic field. Motorized probes allow system scans in three dimensions by combining data from tens of thousands of laser shots. |
| How biomolecule mixtures communicate, interact and adapt to their environment Posted: 12 Apr 2022 11:10 AM PDT New research breakthrough bridges a complexity gap between chemistry and biology and provides a new methodology that uses designed mixtures to engineer adaptive properties that are normally only associated with living systems. |
| Research pioneers new frontiers in plant-based food science Posted: 12 Apr 2022 11:09 AM PDT Modern methods of creating plant-based meat can yield high optical similarities and targeted molecular-sensory methods, but on a molecular scale, it appears completely different from the food it tries to mimic. Scientists investigate the molecular function and effects of vegetable proteins of different origins to identify sensory weak points in plant-based substitutes, employing rheology and tribology and bringing greater insight than pure sensory analyses. They said muscle proteins emulsify fats and oils in a very different way while lending to a different biting behavior. |
| What is causing the rise in black lung disease? Posted: 12 Apr 2022 11:09 AM PDT Silica exposure is a driving force behind rising rates of coal workers' pneumoconiosis, according to a new study that compared the pathology and mineralogy of the disease across generations. The study offers scientific evidence explaining why progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe form of black lung disease, is occurring more frequently and among younger coal workers in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky. |
| Method efficiently breaks down plastic bottles into component parts Posted: 12 Apr 2022 11:09 AM PDT A research team has demonstrated that a material called a metal-organic framework (MOF) is a stable and selective catalyst for breaking down polyester-based plastic into its component parts. Only three things are needed: plastic, hydrogen and the catalyst. An important bonus is that one of the component parts the plastic is broken down into is terephthalic acid, a chemical used to produce plastic. |
| LED lights developed from rice husks Posted: 12 Apr 2022 06:54 AM PDT Milling rice to separate the grain from the husks, produces about 100 million tons of rice husk waste globally each year. Scientists searching for a scalable method to fabricate quantum dots have developed a way to recycle rice husks to create the first silicon quantum dot LED light. Their new method transforms agricultural waste into state-of-the-art light-emitting diodes in a low-cost, environmentally friendly way. |
| New 3D printing technique: A game changer for medical testing devices Posted: 12 Apr 2022 06:54 AM PDT Researchers have developed a 3D printing technique to fabricate microfluidic devices for biomedical applications at a microscale not previously possible. |
| Ultrasound gave us our first baby pictures can it also help the blind see? Posted: 12 Apr 2022 06:54 AM PDT While there are no successful non-invasive therapeutics currently available for the treatment of vision loss, researchers at have come up with a new idea to address this growing problem. Currently, ophthalmologists use electronic technology to directly stimulate retinal neurons by implanting electrode devices inside the eye, a technique that requires expensive and invasive surgery. A research team is now exploring a non-surgical solution that could restore sight by using another of the five senses: Sound. |
| Bacteria generate electricity from methane Posted: 12 Apr 2022 06:53 AM PDT Generating power while purifying the environment of greenhouse gases should be achievable using bacteria. Microbiologists have demonstrated that it is possible to make methane-consuming bacteria generate power in the lab. |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2022 06:53 AM PDT Medical imaging is an important part of modern healthcare, enhancing both the precision, reliability and development of treatment for various diseases. Artificial intelligence has also been widely used to further enhance the process. However, conventional medical image diagnosis employing AI algorithms require large amounts of annotations as supervision signals for model training. To acquire accurate labels for the AI algorithms -- radiologists, as part of the clinical routine, prepare radiology reports for each of their patients, followed by annotation staff extracting and confirming structured labels from those reports using human-defined rules and existing natural language processing (NLP) tools. The ultimate accuracy of extracted labels hinges on the quality of human work and various NLP tools. The method comes at a heavy price, being both labour intensive and time consuming. An engineering team has now developed a new approach which can cut human cost down by 90%, by enabling the automatic acquisition of supervision signals from hundreds of thousands of radiology reports at the same time. It attains a high accuracy in predictions, surpassing its counterpart of conventional medical image diagnosis employing AI algorithms. |
| Long-term in vivo imaging technique developed to better understand and treat spinal cord injury Posted: 12 Apr 2022 06:53 AM PDT A research team has developed an innovative technology for in vivo imaging of the important biological processes involved in the injury and repair of spinal cords, paving the way for a better understanding of the pathology and potential treatment of spinal cord injury (SCI). |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2022 06:53 AM PDT When looking at images of the magnetism generated by nano-magnets, researchers revealed the phenomenon of 'edge magnetism': the magnetic material only retained magnetism on its edge -- in fact only within 10 nanometers of the edge. |
| Microscaffolds: A new strategy in tissue engineering Posted: 12 Apr 2022 06:53 AM PDT A new strategy in tissue engineering has been developed: Tiny spherical microscaffolds are created in a high precision 3D printer. They are cultivated with living cells and then assembled. The cells keep multiplying, creating a tissue, the scaffolds are eventually degraded. |
| Collision hotspots for migrating birds revealed in new study Posted: 11 Apr 2022 05:23 PM PDT New research highlights the areas in Europe and North Africa where the construction of wind turbines or power lines is likely to increase the risk of death for migrating birds. |
| Study links fracking, drinking water pollution, and infant health Posted: 11 Apr 2022 08:37 AM PDT New research documents the pollution of public water supplies caused by shale gas development, commonly known as fracking, and its negative impact of infant health. These findings call for closer environmental regulation of the industry, as levels of chemicals found in drinking water often fall below regulatory thresholds. |
| No small measure: Probing the mechanics of gold contacts at the nanoscale Posted: 11 Apr 2022 07:13 AM PDT The physical properties at the surface of nanomaterial structures become much more prominent as they approach atomic scales. In a recent study, scientists accurately measured the mechanical strength at the surface of gold nanocontacts as they were progressively stretched down to only a few atoms. Their findings, along with their innovative nanomechanics measurement method, could open doors to nanoelectromechanical systems and next-generation sensors. |
| Higher solar yield, less power effort Posted: 07 Apr 2022 07:10 AM PDT Organic solar cells that are based on nonfullerene-acceptors, or NFAs, have now been found to generate electricity efficiently even with a relatively low offset of 0.1 eV. |
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