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Compact new microscope chemically identifies micrometer-sized particles

Low-cost, ten-times-higher-resolution spectroscopy technique could allow for detection of microscopic amounts of chemicals for applications in security, law enforcement, and research
January 13, 2017

Multiple species of micron-sized particles are simultaneously illuminated by an infrared laser and a green laser beam. Absorption of the infrared laser light by the particles increases their temperatures, causing them to expand and slightly altering their optical properties. These changes are unique to the material composition of each particle and can be measured by examining the modulation of scattered green light from each particle. (credit: Ryan Sullenberger, MIT Lincoln Laboratory)

MIT researchers have developed a radical design for a low-cost, miniaturized microscope that can chemically identify individual micrometer-sized particles. It could one day be used in airports or other high-security venues as a highly sensitive and low-cost way to rapidly screen people for microscopic amounts of potentially dangerous materials. It could also be used for scientific analysis of very small samples or for measuring the optical properties of materials.… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology

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Synthetic stem cells offer benefits of natural stem cells without the risks

Can be applied to multiple stem cell types and to repair of various organ systems
January 13, 2017

Synthetic cardiac stem cells could offer therapeutic benefits without associated risks. (credit: Alice Harvey, NC State University)

Scientists have created the first synthetic version of a cardiac stem cell, offering therapeutic benefits comparable to those from natural stem cells — but without the risks and limitations, according to researchers from North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in China.

The newly created “synthetic stem cells” (not actual stem cells —… read more

Topics: Biotech

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Intricate microdevices that can be safely implanted

Applications include a drug-delivery system to provide tailored drug doses for precision medicine, catheters, stents, cardiac pacemakers, and soft microbotics
January 13, 2017

Implantable microrobots ft

Columbia Engineering researchers have invented a technique for manufacturing complex microdevices with three-dimensional, freely moving parts made from biomaterials that can safely be implanted in the body. Potential applications include a drug-delivery system to provide tailored drug doses for precision medicine, catheters, stents, cardiac pacemakers, and soft microbotics.

Most current implantable microdevices have static components rather than moving parts and, because they require batteries or other toxic… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Nanotech/Materials Science

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A transparent, self-healing, highly stretchable conductive material

Can be electrically activated to power artificial muscles or used to improve batteries, electronic devices, and robots
January 6, 2017

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A team of scientists has developed a transparent, self-healing, highly stretchable conductive material that can be electrically activated to power artificial muscles or used to improve batteries, electronic devices, and robots.

The findings, published Dec. 23 in the journal Advanced Materials, combine the fields of self-healing materials and ionic conductors (a material that ions can flow through). Ionic conductors are a class of materials with key roles… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science

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Nanowire ‘inks’ enable low-cost paper- or plastic-based printable electronics

Highly conductive ink-jet-printed silver films enable electronic circuits without requiring high heat; lower-cost solar cells, RFID chips, batteries, other devices now possible
January 6, 2017

Duke University chemists have found that silver nanowire films like these conduct electricity well enough to form functioning circuits without applying high temperatures, enabling printable electronics on heat-sensitive materials like paper or plastic. (credit: Ian Stewart and Benjamin Wiley)

By suspending tiny metal nanoparticles in liquids, Duke University scientists can use conductive ink-jet-printed conductive “inks” to print inexpensive, customizable RFID and other electronic circuit patterns on just about any surface — even on paper and plastics.

Printed electronics, which are already being used widely in devices such as the anti-theft radio frequency identification (RFID) tags you might find on the back of new DVDs, currently have… read more

Topics: Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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MIT researchers design one of the strongest, lightest materials known

10 times as strong as steel but much lighter
January 6, 2017

3-D-printed gyroid models such as this one were used to test the strength and mechanical properties of a new lightweight material (credit: Melanie Gonick/MIT)

MIT scientists said today they’ve just created one the strongest materials known (ten times stronger than steel, but also one of the lightest, with a density of just 5 percent of that of steel) by compressing and fusing flakes of graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon.

In its two-dimensional form, graphene is thought to be the strongest of all known materials. But researchers until now have had a hard… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science

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Tesla Autopilot predicts collision ahead seconds before it happens

Before visible signs of trouble
December 30, 2016

Tesla autopilot predicts

Hans Noordsij, a Dutch Tesla driver, uploaded a Dec. 27 dashcam video that dramatically shows the new radar processing capacity of Tesla’s Autopilot and resulting auto-breaking, DarkVision Hardware reports. The system’s radar saw ahead of the car in front and tracked two cars ahead on the road. Note the audible warning a second or so before the accident.

pic.twitter.com/70MySRiHGR

December 27, 2016

Topics: AI/Robotics

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How to form the world’s smallest self-assembling nanowires — just 3 atoms wide

December 30, 2016

This animation shows molecular building blocks joining the tip of a growing nanowire. Each block consists of a diamondoid – the smallest possible bit of diamond – attached to sulfur and copper atoms (yellow and brown spheres). Like LEGO blocks, they only fit together in certain ways that are determined by their size and shape. The copper and sulfur atoms form a conductive wire in the middle, and the diamondoids form an insulating outer shell. (credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a way to use diamondoids* — the smallest possible bits of diamond — to self-assemble atoms, LEGO-style, into the thinnest possible electrical wires, just three atoms wide.

The new technique could potentially be used to build tiny wires for a wide range of applications, including fabrics that generate electricity, optoelectronic devices… read more

Topics: Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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MRI breakthroughs include ultra-sensitive MRI magnetic field sensing, more-sensitive monitoring without chemical or radioactive labels

Heart mechanical contractions recorded in MRI machine for first time; hope to monitor neurotransmitters at 100 times lower levels
December 30, 2016

Highly sensitive magnetic field sensor (credit: ETH Zurich / Peter Rüegg)

Swiss researchers have succeeded in measuring changes in strong magnetic fields with unprecedented precision, they report in the open-access journal Nature Communications. The finding may find widespread use in medicine and other areas.

In their experiments, the researchers at the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, which is operated jointly by ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, magnetized a water droplet inside a magnetic resonance imaging… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Apple’s first AI paper focuses on creating ‘superrealistic’ image recognition

December 28, 2016

Simulated+Unsupervised learning ft

Apple’s first paper on artificial intelligence, published Dec. 22 on arXiv (open access), describes a method for improving the ability of a deep neural network to recognize images.

To train neural networks to recognize images, AI researchers have typically labeled (identified or described) each image in a dataset. For example, last year, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers developed a deep-learning method to recognize images taken at regular… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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Immune cells in covering of brain discovered; may play critical role in battling neurological diseases

December 28, 2016

A composite image showing the immune cells. In addition to being important defenders of the brain, the cells may also may be the missing link connecting the brain's immune response to the microbiome in the gut. That relationship already has been shown important in Parkinson's disease. (credit: Sachin Gadani | University of Virginia School of Medicine)

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have discovered a rare and powerful type of immune cell in the meninges (protective covering) of the brain that are activated in response to central nervous system injury — suggesting that these cells may play a critical role in battling Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, meningitis, and other neurological diseases, and in supporting healthy mental functioning.

By harnessing the power of the cells, known as… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Nanoarray sniffs out and distinguishes ‘breathprints’ of multiple diseases

December 23, 2016

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An international team of 63 scientists in 14 clinical departments have identified a unique “breathprint” for 17 diseases with 86% accuracy and have designed a noninvasive, inexpensive, and miniaturized portable device that screens breath samples to classify and diagnose several types of diseases, they report in an open-access paper in the journal ACS Nano.

As far back as around 400 B.C., doctors diagnosed some diseases by smelling a patient’s exhaled… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biotech | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Method discovered to remove damaging amyloid plaques found in Alzheimer’s disease

December 23, 2016

Illustration of formation of beta-amyloid plaques. Enzymes act on the APP (amyloid precursor protein) and cut it into fragments. The beta-amyloid fragment is crucial in the formation of senile plaques in Alzheimer’s disease. (credit: National Institute on Aging/NIH)

German scientists have discovered a strategy for removing amyloid plaques — newly forming clumps in a brain with Alzheimer’s disease that are created by misfolded proteins that clump together and damage nerve cells.

The scientists from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) in Munich and the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) Munich took aged microglia cells (the  scavenger cells of the brain’s… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Using graphene to detect brain cancer cells

December 20, 2016

GBM cell on graphene ft

By interfacing brain cells with graphene, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have differentiated a single hyperactive Glioblastoma Multiforme cancerous astrocyte cell from a normal cell in the lab — pointing the way to developing a simple, noninvasive tool for early cancer diagnosis.

In the study, reported in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, the researchers looked at lab-cultured human brain astrocyte cells taken from a… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Nanotech/Materials Science

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How to enable soft robots to better mimick biological motions

A future version of Star Wars Rogue One's K-2SO robot might look less dorky if Harvard engineers designed his joints and fingers
December 20, 2016

Researchers used mathematical modeling to optimize the design of an actuator to perform biologically inspired motions (credit: Harvard SEAS)

Harvard researchers have developed a method for automatically designing actuators that enable fingers and knees in a soft robot to move more organically, a robot arm to move more smoothly along a path, or a wearable robot or exoskeleton to help a patient move a limb more naturally.

Designing such actuators is currently a complex design challenge, requiring a sequence of actuator segments, each performing a different motion. “Rather… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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