Global Biodefence October 31, 2020 The ReDIRECT Program is a new initiative from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) which aims to identify existing, commonly available therapeutics that can be used to save lives during a chemical emergency. The program is focused on repurposing therapeutics against any of the following agents: Pulmonary Agents, Opioids, Vesicants, Blood/Metabolic Agents, Nerve Agents and Organophosphorus (OP) Pesticides, Computational approaches to identify candidates for drug repurposing. Under the EZ BAA Area of Interest (AOI), BARDA will review concise abstract submissions for funding development that repurposes easily accessible therapeutics as medical countermeasures. The effort is […]
Laying the groundwork for ultra-thin, energy efficient photodetector on Gorilla glass
Nanowerk November 2, 2020 Direct growth of high-performance, scalable, and reliable electronic materials on glass is difficult owing to low thermal budget. Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University have addressed the issue by relatively low-temperature (<600 °C) metal–organic chemical vapor deposition growth of atomically thin MoS2 on multicomponent glass and fabrication of low-power phototransistors using atomic layer deposition (ALD)-grown, high-k, and ultra-thin Al2O3 as the top-gate dielectric, circumventing the challenges associated with the ALD nucleation of oxides on inert basal planes of van der Waals materials. The MoS2 photodetectors demonstrate the ability to detect low-intensity visible light at high speed […]
New drone technology improves ability to forecast volcanic eruptions
Science Daily October 30, 2020 An international team of researchers (UK, Italy, Costa Rica, Sweden, Germany, USA – Michigan Tech. University, University of New Mexico, Canada, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand) has shown that aerial measurements of volcanic gases using unoccupied aerial systems (UAS) transform our ability to measure and monitor plumes remotely and to constrain global volatile fluxes from volcanoes. They combined multi-scale measurements from ground-based remote sensing, long-range aerial sampling, and satellites to construct comprehensive gas fluxes emitted by previously uncharacterized volcano Manam in Papua New Guinea. Their data emphasize the need to account for time averaging of […]
New technology allows cameras to capture colors invisible to the human eye
Phys.org November 5, 2020 In upconversion imaging phase matching severely limits the spectral bandwidth, therefore requires serial acquisitions to cover a large spectrum. Researchers in Israel have designed an upconversion imaging scheme covering the mid‐IR based on adiabatic frequency conversion. They presented mid‐IR multicolor imaging and demonstrated simultaneous imaging on a CMOS camera of radiation spanning a spectrum from 2 to 4 µm. This approach being coherent and ultrafast in essence, spectrally resolved spatiotemporal imaging is further demonstrated that allows spatially distinguishing the temporal evolution of spectral components. The findings has applications in a variety of fields from computer gaming […]
Physicists develop efficient modem for a future quantum internet
Phys.org November 5, 2020 A central research object is the interface between local quantum devices and light quanta that enable the remote transmission of highly sensitive quantum information. Researchers in Germany integrated a thin crystal of erbium-doped yttrium orthosilicate a cryogenic Fabry-Perot resonator leading to 56-fold enhancement of the emission rate with an out-coupling efficiency of 46%. They demonstrated that the emitter properties are not degraded. They observed ensemble-averaged optical coherence up to 0.54 ms, which exceeds the 0.19 ms lifetime of dopants at the cavity field maximum. The approach is also applicable to other solid-state quantum emitters, such as […]
Researchers develop a high-power, portable terahertz laser
MIT News November 2, 2020 Until now, generation of terahertz radiation powerful enough to perform real-time imaging and fast spectral measurements required temperatures far below 200 kelvins (-100 degrees Fahrenheit) or lower. An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, Canada) has developed THz QCLs (at ~4 THz) with a maximum operating temperature of 250 K. The high operating temperature enables portable THz systems to perform real-time imaging with a room-temperature THz camera, as well as fast spectral measurements with a room-temperature detector…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Researchers invent flexible and highly reliable sensor
Science Daily November 2, 2020 Real-time health monitoring and sensing abilities of robots require soft electronics. Unlike rigid devices, being elastic and pliable makes their performance less repeatable due to hysteresis. Researchers in Singapore have developed a sensor, Tactile Resistive Annularly Cracked E-Skin (TRACE) which addresses the trade-off between sensitivity and hysteresis in tactile sensors when using soft materials. They discovered that piezoresistive sensors made using an array of three-dimensional metallic annular cracks on polymeric microstructures possess high sensitivities, low hysteresis over a wide pressure range and have fast response. They have demonstrated that TRACE sensors can accurately detect and […]
Scientists in Japan Just Found a Detailed Record of Earth’s Last Magnetic Switcharoo
Science Alert October 31, 2020 Every 200,000 to 300,000 years, Earth’s magnetic poles reverse. The last reversal was unusual because for some reason, the poles have remained oriented the way they are now for about three-quarters of a million years. Researchers in Japan collected new samples and conducted paleo- and rock-magnetic analyses of samples from the Chiba composite section which is considered to contain the most detailed marine sedimentary record of the Matuyama-Brunhes geomagnetic reversal. It provides the most reliable chronostratigraphic framework of the time period around the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal. According to their study it took about 20,000 years, including […]
Sea-level rise will have complex consequences
Science Daily November 4, 2020 According to an international team of researchers (UK, Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands) while the change from land to sea represents a dramatic and permanent shift for preexisting human populations, the process of change is driven by a complex set of physical and cultural processes with long transitional phases of landscape and socioeconomic change. The team used reconstructions of prehistoric sea-level rise, paleogeographies, terrestrial landscape change, and human population dynamics to show how the gradual inundation of an island archipelago resulted in decidedly nonlinear landscape and cultural responses to rising sea levels. Interpretation of past […]
An underwater navigation system powered by sound
MIT News November 2, 2020 Researchers at MIT have designed and demonstrated the first underwater backscatter localization (UBL) system. The networks communicate by simply backscattering acoustic signals. While such backscatter-based communication enables them to operate at net-zero power, it also introduces new and unique challenges for underwater localization. They explored various challenges for bringing localization to underwater backscatter, including extreme multipath, acoustic delay spread, and mobility. In the article they describe how an adaptive and context-aware algorithm may address some of these challenges and adapt to diverse underwater environments (such as deep vs shallow water, and high vs low mobility). […]