Phys.org July 21, 2021 A problem associated with recombinant spider silk fiber is the need to create β-nanocrystals, a main component of natural spider silk, which contributes to its strength. Researchers at Washington University redesigned the silk sequence by introducing amyloid sequences that have high tendency to form β-nanocrystals. They created different polymeric amyloid proteins using three well-studied amyloid sequences as representatives. The resulting proteins had less repetitive amino acid sequences than spider silk, making them easier to be produced by engineered bacteria. The longer the protein, the stronger and tougher the resulting fiber. The 128-repeat proteins resulted in a […]
Nanostructures enable record high-harmonic generation
Phys.org July 21, 2021 Resonantly enhanced High harmonic generation (HHG) from hot spots in nanostructures is an attractive route to overcoming the well-known limitations of gases and bulk solids. An international team of researchers (USA – Cornell University, Ohio State University, Singapore) demonstrated an ultra-thin resonant gallium phosphide platform for highly efficient HHG driven by intense mid-infrared laser pulses. The gallium-phosphide material permits harmonics of all orders without reabsorbing them, and the specialized structure can interact with the laser pulse’s entire light spectrum. The enhanced conversion efficiency facilitates single-shot measurements that avoid material damage and pave the way to study […]
New material could mean lightweight armor, protective coatings
Science Daily July 19, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, Caltech, Switzerland) has fabricated nanoarchitectured materials, that absorb the impact of microscopic projectiles accelerated to supersonic speeds. According to their calculations the new material absorbs impacts more efficiently than steel, Kevlar, aluminum, and other impact-resistant materials of comparable weight. Tests revealed that consistent mechanisms such as compaction cratering and microparticle capture enable this superior response. They introduced predictive tools for crater formation in these materials using dimensional analysis. These results substantially uncover the dynamic regime over which nanoarchitecture enables the design of ultralightweight, impact-resistant materials that could […]
New method predicts ‘stealth’ solar storms before they wreak geomagnetic havoc on Earth
Phys.org July 20, 2021 Unlike coronal mass ejections which typically show up clearly on the Sun as dimming or brightening, the ‘stealth CMEs’ often originate at higher altitudes in the Sun’s corona, in regions with weaker magnetic fields and they are usually only visible on coronagraphs designed to reveal the corona. An international team of researchers (USA – UC Berkeley, industry, University of Maryland, NASA, Belgium, Romania, UK, India, Russia) has shown that many stealth CMEs can be detected in time if current analysis methods for remote sensing are adapted. They compared remote sensing images of the Sun with the […]
Novel coronavirus discovered in British bats
Science Daily July 19, 2021 Researchers in the UK have identified and sequenced a novel sarbecovirus (RhGB01) from a British horseshoe bat at the western extreme of the rhinolophid range. Their results extend both the geographic and species ranges of sarbecoviruses and suggest their presence throughout the horseshoe bat distribution. Within the spike protein receptor binding domain, but excluding the receptor binding motif, RhGB01 has a 77% (SARS-CoV-2) and 81% (SARS-CoV) amino acid homology. While apparently lacking hACE2 binding ability, and hence unlikely to be zoonotic without mutation, RhGB01 presents opportunity for SARS-CoV-2 and other sarbecovirus homologous recombination. Their findings […]
The paradox of a free-electron laser without the laser
Phys.org July 16, 2021 An international team of researchers (UK, the Netherlands) conducted a proof-of-principle experiment in the ultraviolet spectral range to demonstrate a new way of producing coherent light. In FELs the intensity of light is amplified by a feedback mechanism that locks the phases of individual radiators. This is achieved by passing a high energy electron beam through the undulator. As they wiggle through the undulator light emitted from the electrons bunch together causing amplification of the light and the increase in its coherence. If the electron bunch is shorter than the wavelength of the light produced by […]
Scientists create rechargeable swimming microrobots using oil and water
Science Daily July 15, 2021 Many microorganisms exploit the fact that elasticity breaks the time-reversal symmetry of motion at low Reynolds numbers, but this principle has been notably absent from model systems of active, self-propelled micro swimmers. An international team of researchers (Bulgaria, Poland, UK) has introduced a class of micro swimmers that spontaneously self-assembles and swims without using external forces, driven instead by surface phase transitions induced by temperature variations. The swimmers are made from alkane droplets dispersed in an aqueous surfactant solution, which start to self-propel on cooling, pushed by rapidly growing thin elastic tails. When heated, the […]
Toward one drug to treat all coronaviruses
Science Daily July 21, 2021 A strategy to develop broad-spectrum inhibitors is to pharmacologically target binding sites on SARS-CoV-2 proteins that are highly conserved in other known coronaviruses, the assumption being that any selective pressure to keep a site conserved across past viruses will apply to future ones. An international team of researchers (Canada, UK) systematically mapped druggable binding pockets on the experimental structure of 15 SARS-CoV-2 proteins and analyzed their variation across 27 α- and β-coronaviruses and across thousands of SARS-CoV-2 samples from COVID-19 patients. They found that the two most conserved druggable sites are a pocket overlapping the […]
‘Wrapping’ anodes in 3D carbon nanosheets: The next big thing in li-ion battery technology
Science Daily July 22, 2021 The anodes of lithium ion batteries in use today have multiple inadequacies. Researchers in South Korea focused on manganese selenide (MnSe) for its high electrical conductivity. To prevent the drastic volume change it undergoes, they uniformly infused the MnSe nanoparticles into a three-dimensional porous carbon nanosheet matrix. In the new anode material (MnSe ⊂ 3DCNM), the carbon nanosheet scaffold provided MnSe nanoparticles with a high number of active sites and an enhanced contact area with the electrolyte and protected them from drastic volume expansion. They synthesized a variety of MnSe ⊂ 3DCNM materials. Among these, […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of July 16, 2021
01. The hidden culprit killing lithium-metal batteries from the inside 02. The next generation of information processing is through coherent gate operations 03. New evidence of an anomalous phase of matter brings energy-efficient technologies closer 04. Preventing oxygen release leads to safer high-energy-density batteries 05. Scientists develop novel DNA logic circuits 06. Scientists Have Created a New Bendy And Flexible Form of Ice 07. Cooling high power electronics – boron arsenide spreads heat better than diamond 08. Electrons in quantum liquid gain energy from laser pulses 09. Harnessing the dark side 10. New ‘Metafabric’ Passively Cools The Human Body by […]