Nanowerk March 12, 2022 Superabsorbent polymer gels can absorb large amounts of water (100–1000× their dry weight). However, gels that are both superabsorbent and able to expand rapidly have not yet been realized. Researchers at the University of Maryland created such gels by in situ foaming of a monomer solution (acrylic acid and acrylamide) using a double-barreled syringe which has acid and base in its two barrels. The gas generated by the acid–base reaction, was stabilized by an amphiphilic polymer in one of the barrels. The monomers are then polymerized by UV light to form the gel around the bubbles, […]
Tag Archives: Biotechnology
Freshwater from thin air
Science Daily February 28, 2022 Hygroscopic materials have attracted widespread attention because of their water harvesting performance. However, the introduction of many inorganic salts often leads to aggregation and leakage issues in practical use. Researchers at UT Austin have developed polyzwitterionic hydrogels as an effective Atmospheric Water Harvesting (AWH) material platform. Via anti-polyelectrolyte effects, the hygroscopic salt coordinated with polymer chains could capture moisture and enhance the swelling property, leading to a strong moisture sorption capacity. The hydrogel showed (0.62 g g−1, 120 minutes for equilibrium at 30 % relative humidity) and produced 5.87 L kg−1 freshwater per day. According to the researchers […]
Novel biosensors set to revolutionize brain-controlled robotics
Science Daily December 22, 2021 Researchers in Australia have detected the EEG signals with high sensitivity using epitaxial graphene (EG) grown on silicon carbide on silicon. The dry and non-invasive approach exhibited a markedly improved skin contact impedance when benchmarked to commercial dry electrodes, as well as superior robustness, allowing prolonged and repeated use also in a highly saline environment. They observed a new phenomenon of surface conditioning of the EG electrodes. The prolonged contact of the EG with the skin electrolytes functionalize the grain boundaries of the graphene, leading to the formation of a thin surface film of water […]
DARPA Successfully Transitions Synthetic Biomanufacturing Technologies to Support National Security Objectives
DARPA December 8, 2021 The Living Foundries program was launched in 2010 to enable adaptable, scalable, and on-demand production of critical, high-value molecules by programming the fundamental metabolic processes of biological systems to generate a vast number of complex molecules. As a proof of concept, DARPA intended to produce 1,000 molecules and material precursors spanning a wide range of defense-relevant applications including industrial chemicals, fuels, coatings, and adhesives. The performer teams collectively have produced over 1630 molecules and materials to-date, and DARPA is transitioning a subset of these technologies to five military research teams from Army, Navy, and Air Force […]
Innovative silicon nanochip can reprogram biological tissue in living body
Science Daily December 10, 2021 A team of researchers in the US (Indiana University, Purdue University, industry, Veterans Administration Medical Center, University of Chicago) has developed a silicon device that can change skin tissue into blood vessels and nerve cells has advanced from prototype to standardized fabrication. The technology, called tissue nano transfection, is a non-invasive nanochip device that can reprogram tissue function by applying a harmless electric spark to deliver specific genes in a fraction of a second. The nanofabrication process typically takes five to six days, and in vivo takes 30 min. In laboratory studies, the device successfully […]
A step toward “living biotherapeutics”
MIT News December 10, 2021 One of the obstacles to developing “living biotherapeutics” is that many of the species that could be beneficial are harmed by oxygen, making it difficult to manufacture, store, and deliver them. Researchers at MIT have shown that they can protect those bacteria with a coating that helps them to survive the manufacturing process. They developed a self-assembling cellular coating to improve the viability and stability of the next generation biotherapeutic Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. They have demonstrated protection from both harsh processing conditions and oxygen exposure, even in the absence of canonical cryoprotectants. According to the researchers […]
Storing energy in plants with electronic roots
Science Daily November 8, 2021 By watering bean plants with a solution that contains conjugated oligomers an international team of researchers (Sweden, France, Spain, Greece) has shown that the roots of the plant become electrically conducting and can store energy. To circumvent biological barriers encountered in previous attempts, and access the internal tissue, the researchers leveraged the biocatalytic machinery of the plant cell wall to seamlessly integrate conductors with mixed ionic–electronic conductivity along the root system of the plants. They used a trimer, ETE-S, which is polymerized by a natural process in the plant. The roots remained electrically conducting for […]
Nature’s strongest glue now works in both wet and salty environments
Phys.org October 27, 2021 An aquatic bacterium called Caulobacter crescentus produces an extremely powerful glue called “holdfast,” which adheres to its surrounding wet surfaces, such as pipes and fresh water. To improve holdfast adhesion in high salinity environments researchers in Canada compared Caulobacter crescentus with a marine relative called Hirschia baltica. They found both had the same genes to synthesize holdfast indicating they used the same type of glue. Hirschia baltica holdfast also appeared to perform very well in a saline environment, which is its natural environment. By manipulating the level of expression of a particular gene whose function is […]
New device can diagnose Covid-19 from saliva samples
MIT News August 6, 2021 A team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, MIT, Boston Children’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deconus Hospital, Mass General Hospital) has developed a low-cost, self-contained, POC diagnostic called miSHERLOCK (minimally instrumented SHERLOCK) that is capable of concurrent universal detection of SARS-CoV-2 as well as specific detection of the B.1.1.7, B.1.351, or P.1 variants. The miSHERLOCK platform integrates an optimized one-pot SHERLOCK reaction with an RNA paper-capture method compatible with in situ nucleic acid amplification and Cas detection. miSHERLOCK combines instrument-free, built-in sample preparation from saliva, room temperature stable reagents, battery-powered incubation, and simple visual and […]
Physicists Have Developed a New Way to Levitate Objects Using Sound Only
Science Alert July 26, 2021 There are significant limitations hindering acoustic tweezers for broad practical application. Although hemispherical arrays of acoustic transducers can be used to create the sound trap, creating just the right sound field to lift an object and move it far from the transducers is very difficult if there is a surface that reflects sound. Researchers in Japan have developed a technique splitting the transducer array into blocks and used an inverse filter to reproduce sounds based on the acoustic waveform. This helps optimize the phase and amplitude of each transducer channel to produce the desired acoustic […]