ScienceDaily: Matter & Energy News

Researchers have taken inspiration from origami to create inflatable structures that can bend, twist and move in complex, distinct ways from a single source of pressure.

Scientists add artificial components to bacteria for better control and an extra therapeutic effect in seeking and destroying tumor cells.

To ensure bicyclists' needs are considered when improving a transportation system, planners and engineers need to know how many people are biking, and where. Traditional bike counters provide data for limited sections of the bike network, often these counters are installed at important locations like trails or bridges. While limited in location, they count everyone who bikes through. Meanwhile, GPS & mobile data cover the entire transportation network, but that data only represents those travelers who are using smartphones or GPS. Combining the traditional location-based data sources with this new, crowdsourced data offer better accuracy than any could provide alone.

Intrigued by the properties of ion channel proteins commonly observed in cells, researchers have developed the first synthetic mechanosensitive potassium channel using a newly developed aromatic fluorinated amphiphilic cyclophane. Displaying both 'stimuli responsiveness' and 'selective ion transport' abilities, their new ion channel could open new doors for the future therapeutic and industrial usage of synthetic mechanosensitive channels.