Cellular membranes serve as an ideal example of a system that is multifunctional, tunable, precise and efficient. Efforts to mimic these biological wonders haven’t always been successful. However, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have created polymer-based membranes with 1.5-nanometer carbon nanotube pores that mimic the architecture of cellular membranes. […]
Different eras of civilization are defined by the discovery of new materials, as new materials drive new capabilities. And yet, identifying the best material for a given application—catalysts, light-harvesting structures, biodiagnostic labels, pharmaceuticals and electronic devices—is traditionally a slow and daunting task. The options are nearly infinite, particularly at the […]
A team of researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering and NYU Center for Neural Science has solved a longstanding puzzle of how to build ultra-sensitive, ultra-small electrochemical sensors with homogenous and predictable properties by discovering how to engineer graphene structure on an atomic level. Finely tuned […]
Tiny, disordered particles of magnesium chromium oxide may hold the key to new magnesium battery energy storage technology, which could possess increased capacity compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries, find UCL and University of Illinois at Chicago researchers. The study, published today in Nanoscale, reports a new, scalable method for making […]
The story of the lysosome is a classic smear campaign. Once dismissed as the garbage disposal of the cell—it does break down unneeded cell debris—it is now valued by scientists who realized all that dirty work also controls survival, metabolism, longevity and even neurodegenerative diseases. An innovative tool invented by […]
Surfers spend much of their time watching long waves come onto the shoreline as they attempt to catch one right as it begins to curve and break. In a similar vein, scientists are working to create twisting helical electromagnetic waves whose curvature allows more accurate imaging of the magnetic properties […]
Move over Mona Lisa, here comes tic-tac-toe. It was just about a year ago that Caltech scientists in the laboratory of Lulu Qian, assistant professor of bioengineering, announced they had used a technique known as DNA origami to create tiles that could be designed to self-assemble into larger nanostructures that […]
The transition from electronic integrated circuits to faster, more energy-efficient and interference-free optical circuits is one of the most important goals in the development of photon technologies. Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are already used today for transmitting and processing signals in optical networks and communication systems, including, for example, I/O […]
