Sci-Fi Tips

IMAGE: Yizhi Jane Tao view more  Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University HOUSTON – (April 23, 2020) – Rice University researchers plan to reconfigure their “trap and zap” wastewater-treatment technology to capture and deactivate the virus that causes COVID-19. Rice civil and environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez and bioscientist Yizhi Jane Tao have won a National Science Foundation (NSF)

IMAGE: EDITORIAL VIEWS: Hans Zappe, left, and Harry Levinson. view more  Credit: SPIE BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA – SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, has announced the launch of a new Gold Open Access journal, the Journal of Optical Microsystems (JOM), which will publish cutting-edge research of optical and photonic microsystems. Hans Zappe, co-editor-in-chief of

IMAGE: It can be used to distinguish MS from neuromyelitis optica, another demyelinating disorder view more  Credit: UFSCar Researchers at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) in Sorocaba (state of São Paulo, Brazil) have developed a technique to diagnose early-stage multiple sclerosis, a disease of the central nervous system, and distinguish it from neuromyelitis optica,

IMAGE: Figure 1. Schematic illustration of multi-functional graphene. view more  Credit: JAIST, CNRS “Three” kinds of regalia such as crown, orb, and sward are often necessary to be a high king for conquering the world. For fighting off cancerous diseases, what do we need? This “triple” chemical modified nanomaterial might be save the patient. Cancer is

Electron spin–a fundamentally quantum property–is central to spintronics, a technology that revolutionized data storage,[1] and that could play a major role in creating new computer processors. In order to generate and detect spin currents, spintronics traditionally uses ferromagnetic materials whose magnetization switching consume high amounts of energy. In the April 22, 2020 issue of Nature,

IMAGE: Drawing inspiration from spider’s back legs, researchers have developed a new nonstick surface for nanomaterials.   view more  Credit: American Chemical Society Cribellate spiders spin thousands of tiny nanofibers into sticky threads. To keep from getting caught in their own webs, these spiders use a nonstick comb on their back legs. Now, researchers reporting in

IMAGE: A semi-transparent perovskite solar cell with contrasting levels of light transparency. view more  Credit: Dr Jae Choul Yu Semi-transparent solar cells that can be incorporated into window glass are a “game-changer” that could transform architecture, urban planning and electricity generation, Australian scientists say in a paper in Nano Energy. The researchers – led by Professor

IMAGE: A hydrogel can cool off electronics and generate electricity from their waste heat. Scale bar, 2 cm. view more  Credit: Adapted from Nano Letters 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c00800 Using electronic devices for too long can cause them to overheat, which might slow them down, damage their components or even make them explode or catch fire. Now,

IMAGE: Despite weighing about a third of a milligram, Penn Engineers are now testing their “nanocardboard ” flyers ability to lift payloads. In this artist’s conception, fleets of flyers could be launched… view more  Credit: Bargatin Group, Penn Engineering This summer, NASA plans to launch its next Mars rover, Perseverance, which will carry with it the

IMAGE: Graphene Flagship researchers reported a significant step forward in growing monoisotopic hexagonal boron nitride at atmospheric pressure for the production of large and very high-quality crystals. view more  Credit: Graphene Flagship Graphene Flagship researchers at RWTH Aachen University, Germany and ONERA-CNRS, France, in collaboration with researchers at the Peter Grunberg Institute, Germany, the University of

When looking at a left hand in the mirror, it looks like a right hand. However, the left hand never overlaps the right hand. Such a geometrical relationship that an image of the object in a plane mirror cannot be brought to coincide with itself is called chirality. A clockwise or counterclockwise helical staircase is

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego are working on a COVID-19 vaccine using an unconventional candidate: a plant virus. The team’s goal is to use plants to create a stable, easy to manufacture vaccine that can be shipped around the globe. It will be packaged in slow-release microneedle patches that patients can wear

IMAGE: ‘Metrology at a glance’ is the Helmholtz Prize’s motto. view more  Credit: (PTB) From fundamental physics related to Einstein’s special theory of relativity to fundamentals of metrological applications in the range of thousandths of micrometers (i.e. nanometers) – the bandwidth of this year’s Helmholtz Prize is considerable. The Helmholtz Prize, which recognizes outstanding scientific and

The team, led by physicists at the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern (TUK) in Germany and University of Vienna in Austria, generated the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) through a sudden change in temperature: first heating up quasi-particles slowly, then rapidly cooling them down back to room temperature. They demonstrated the method using quasi-particles called magnons, which represent the