Nanowerk January 6, 2019 By using multiscale porous Styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene (SEBS) as supporting substrates a team of researchers in the US (University of Missouri, Argonne National Laboratory) has developed multifunctional on-skin electronics with outstanding passive-cooling capabilities, delivering around 6 °C cooling effects under a solar intensity of 840 W⋅m−2. Other desired properties, rooted in porous SEBS substrates, include high breathability and outstanding waterproofing. In addition, a variety of bioelectronic devices are made on porous SEBS substrates via spray printing of silver nanowires. The enabled devices demonstrate high performance and are recyclable. Currently, the device is a small wired patch, and researchers […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of January 3, 2020
01. The experimental demonstration of a spin quantum heat engine 02. Scientists develop ceramic materials that are IR-transparent 03. High-performance anode for all-solid-state Li batteries is made of Si nanoparticles 04. Physicists find ways to overcome signal loss in magnonic circuits 05. Scientists create tiny lasers from nanoparticles and plastic beads 06. Buckyballs release electron-positron pairs in forward directions 07. Molecular Electronics Chip With 100 Million DNA Reading Devices 08. Soundwaves carry information between quantum systems 09. U.S. military tests radiation belt cleanup in space 10. Physics in the 2020s: what will happen over the decade ahead And others… These […]
These 6 Incredible Discoveries From The Past Decade Have Changed Science Forever
Science Alert January 1, 2010 From finding the building blocks for life on Mars to breakthroughs in gene editing and the rise of artificial intelligence, here are six major scientific discoveries that shaped the 2010s and what leading experts say could come next – Are we alone?, Einstein was right (again), Welcome to the CRISPR era, Immunotherapy to the fore, Meet the relatives, and AI levels up…read more.
Back To The Elusive Future
IEEE Spectrum January 3, 2020 Spectrum’s editors make every effort to bring the coming year’s important technologies to your attention. Some they get right, others less so. The software pioneer Alan Kay has said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it, and that’s what we’ve been busy doing. The public understands that we’re creating the future, but they think that we know what we’re doing and that there’s a master plan in there somewhere. However, the world evolves haphazardly, bumbling along in unforeseen directions. Some seemingly great inventions just don’t take hold, while overlooked innovations […]
Buckyballs release electron-positron pairs in forward directions
EurekAlert December 23, 2019 An international team of researchers (France, USA – Northwest Missouri State University) has shown positronium formation within football-shaped nanoparticles, C60. They showed that positronium emission dominates in the same direction as the incoming antiparticles. As C60 is stable, easily synthesised and sustainable at room temperatures, the findings could have important implications for fields including astrophysics, materials physics, and pharmaceutical research. In particular, they could offer improvements in tests of how antimatter responds to gravity, which can involve structures including dipositronium and antihydrogen atoms; each of which feature positronium in the first steps of their fabrication processes…read […]
The experimental demonstration of a spin quantum heat engine
Phys.org December 30, 2019 An international team of researchers (Canada, Singapore, Brazil) successfully demonstrated that the proof-of-concept quantum heat engine is able to reach an efficiency for work extraction very close to its thermodynamic limit. They used a nuclear spin placed in a chloroform molecule and nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. They specifically manipulated the nuclear spin of a Carbon 13 isotope using a radiofrequency field, ultimately producing an Otto cycle (i.e., the thermodynamic cycle used in most common motors). They were able to characterize all energy fluctuations in work and heat, besides the irreversibility at the quantum scale…read more. TECHNICAL […]
High-performance anode for all-solid-state Li batteries is made of Si nanoparticles
EurekAlert December 23, 2019 In conventional liquid electrolytes, the use of polymeric binders is necessary to hold the active material particles in the electrode together and maintain their adhesion to the surface of metal current collectors. The repeated huge volume change of Si causes the particle isolation and thus leads to losing the active material, which results in a continuous capacity loss. Researchers in Japan have shown that in solid electrolytes, an Si anode composed only of commercial Si nanoparticles prepared by spray deposition exhibits excellent electrode performance, which has previously been observed only for film electrodes prepared by evaporation […]
Molecular Electronics Chip With 100 Million DNA Reading Devices
Next Big Future December 30, 2019 Utilizing advances in semiconductor technology, nano-fabrication and bio-sensors, a company in America has created standard CMOS chips that directly integrate sensor molecules into the CMOS integrated circuits. The current chip is designed to read DNA; future chips will be designed for protein detection and other diverse bio-sensing applications. It reduces whole genome sequencing from days to minutes, through direct electrical sensing delivered at the speed of natural DNA synthesis. Using a single molecule workflow eliminates the time and complexity of sample preparation, delivering ultimate simplicity, speed and lower costs. This also improves the data […]
More Chinese scientists in America are going back home
Eurekalert December 30, 2019 Researchers at the Ohio State University made use of Elsevier database to track researchers based on their publications in scientific journals and concluded that that more than 16,000 researchers have returned to China from other countries since that nation has opened to international engagement. More than 4,500 left the United States for China in 2017 – nearly double the number who left in 2010. Chinese scientists are more likely to return to their home from Europe than from the United States. The most elite Chinese scientists are more likely to stay in the United States than […]
Physics in the 2020s: what will happen over the decade ahead
Physics World December 31, 2019 Many of the successes in physics over the last decade were honoured by Physics World through our annual Breakthrough of the Year . According to Physics World there will be plenty of downs as well as ups over the next 10 years. Physicists discoveries have transformed everyday life, not least in how we communicate. Powered by developments in semiconductor physics and optics, smartphones continue to be ever lighter, faster and more powerful over the next decade; Quantum computing and communication will become mainstream; Physics experiments will generate ever more data and analysing that information using artificial […]