Science Daily September 18, 2019 By utilising DNA nanotechnology, a team of researchers in Japan designed DNA nanoplates as a nanopore device for ion transportation and stabilised the oil–water interface. Microscopic examination revealed the microcapsule formed by the accumulation of amphiphilic DNA nanoplates at the oil–water interface. Ion current measurements revealed the nanoplate pores functioned as channel to transport ions. These findings provide a general strategy for the programmable design of microcapsules to engineer artificial cells and molecular robots. Such systems could be used to develop artificial neural networks…read more. TECHINCAL ARTICLE
Striving towards a fusion future
Physics World September 17, 2019 An international consortium is currently building the most ambitious fusion experiment to date in rural southern France. ITER will ultimately produce 10 times more energy than is needed to heat its fusion fuel – generating 500 MW of power for 20 minutes using only 50 MW of input power. One of its core objectives is to prepare the ground for the first large-scale fusion power plants. A new development is a major upgrade to the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST), a UK facility that represents a different approach to fusion power. MAST exploits a spherical […]
Uncovering the hidden “noise” that can kill qubits
MIT News September 16, 2019 Statistics-based models to estimate the impact of unwanted noise sources surrounding qubits to create new ways to protect them generally capture simplistic Gaussian noise. A team of researchers (MIT, Dartmouth College) developed a technique to separate non-Gaussian noise from the background Gaussian noise, and then used signal-processing techniques to reconstruct highly detailed information about those noise signals. The key innovation behind the work is carefully engineering the pulses to act as specific filters that extract properties of the “bispectrum,” a two-dimension representation that gives information about distinctive time correlations of non-Gaussian noise. Those reconstructions can […]
Welcome indoors, solar cells
Eurekalert September 16, 2019 An international team of researchers (China, Sweden) developed a new combination of donor and acceptor materials, with a carefully determined composition, to be used as the active layer in an organic solar cell. The power they produce is low but is probably enough to feed the millions of products IoT products. They designed a non-fullerene acceptor named IO-4Cl and blend it with a polymer donor named PBDB-TF to obtain a photoactive layer whose absorption spectrum matches that of indoor light sources. The photovoltaic characterizations reveal a low energy loss below 0.60 eV. As a result, the organic […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of September 13, 2019
01. Researchers produce synthetic Hall Effect to achieve one-way radio transmission 02. Molecule properties change through light 03. Researchers show atoms can receive common communications signals 04. Hearing through the clatter 05. New metamaterial morphs into new shapes, taking on new properties 06. Measuring changes in magnetic order to find ways to transcend conventional electronics 07. Conductivity at the edges of graphene bilayers 08. Engineers Build a Device That Effectively Transforms CO2 Into Liquid Fuel 09. ‘The Alexa of chemistry’: NSF puts VCU and partners on fast track to build open network 10. How the United States Is Developing Post-Quantum […]
‘The Alexa of chemistry’: NSF puts VCU and partners on fast track to build open network
EurekAlert September 12, 2019 Currently, there is no shared network or central portal where molecular scientists and engineers can harness artificial intelligence and data science tools to build models to support their needs. There is no standard way to represent — or predict — molecular performance. Under the NSF Convergence Accelerator program it has funded a multi-university pilot project seeking to use artificial intelligence to help scientists come up with the perfect molecule for everything from a better shampoo to coatings on advanced microchips. They will develop a central platform for collecting data, creating molecular imprints and developing algorithms for […]
Beyond borders: Understanding migration requires understanding changing land systems
Science Daily September 9, 2019 With a focus on Latin America, an international team of researchers (USA – Utah State University, Ohio University, Pennsylvania State University, Indiana State University, Mexico, Chile, Norway, Germany) reviews research on how land change affects migration and how migration affects land systems, to demonstrate that the relationship is complex and context-specific. Various types of migration evidence the challenges of managing land for multiple goals and the needs of diverse groups. Land system science must understand how the movement of people is integral to land system transitions both at the origin of migration and at its […]
China Sky Eye, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, is now fully operational
Phys.org September 9, 2019 China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, known as FAST is the world’s most sensitive listening device. The single-dish radio telescope is made of 4,450 individual panels that scan the sky to explore the universe. It’s cradled in a natural Earth depression the size of 30 soccer fields. It has more than twice the collecting area of the world’s previous largest radio telescope, the 305-meter dish in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. With construction completed in 2016, FAST has undergone rigorous testing and has one more hurdle before it’s considered fully operational. While solely funded by the Chinese government, […]
Conductivity at the edges of graphene bilayers
EurekAlert September 11, 2019 At the edges of graphene bilayers atoms can exist in a quantum spin Hall state (QSH) depending on spin-orbit coupling (SOC). While the QSH state is allowed for ‘intrinsic’ SOC, it is destroyed by ‘Rashba’ SOC. Researchers in India have shown that the interaction between the two types of SOC are responsible for variations in the ways in which graphene bilayers conduct electricity. For nanoribbons of bilayer graphene, whose edge atoms are arranged in zigzag patterns, the bands of electron energies which are allowed and forbidden are significantly different to those found in monolayer graphene. This […]
Engineers Build a Device That Effectively Transforms CO2 Into Liquid Fuel
Science Alert September 8, 2019 Usually people reduce carbon dioxide in liquid electrolyte like salty water. The dissolved salts help convert the gas into a molecule that stores energy. Formic acid is sifted out of the thick briny soup. An international team of researchers (USA – Rice University, Harvard University, Northeastern University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Saudi Arabia) reports that continuous electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 to pure liquid fuel solutions in cells which utilize solid electrolytes, where electrochemically generated cations (such as H+) and anions (such as HCOO−) are combined to form pure product solutions without mixing with other ions. They […]