Dec 23, 2021 (Nanowerk News) We can test the quality and freshness of fruits and vegetables with our fingers, and even industrial robots have been performing successfully at tactile applications for years. But how is it possible to grab and rotate objects with the width of a human hair? Prof....
Researchers uncover the mechanism of electric field detection in microscale graphene sensors
Dec 23, 2021 (Nanowerk News) The ability to sense the magnitude and polarity of the electric field is of great scientific interest. It has various real-life applications, such as early prediction of lightning and detection of supersonic aircraft. Presently, field mills are the widely used electric field sensors. While they...
Fabrication of flexible electronics improved using gold and water-vapor plasma
Dec 23, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) and the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) in Japan have developed a technique to improve the flexibility of ultra-thin electronics, such as those used in bendable devices or clothing. Published in Science Advances ("Direct...
New graphene-based neural probes improve detection of epileptic brain signals
Dec 22, 2021 (Nanowerk News) The ability to record and map the full range of brain signals using electrophysiological probes will greatly advance our understanding of brain diseases and aid the clinical management of patients with diverse neurological disorders. However, current technologies are limited in their ability to accurately obtain...
New technique tunes into graphene nanoribbons’ electronic potential
Dec 22, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Ever since graphene – a thin carbon sheet just one-atom thick – was discovered more than 15 years ago, the wonder material became a workhorse in materials science research. From this body of work, other researchers learned that slicing graphene along the edge of its...
Integrated photonics meets electron microscopy
Dec 22, 2021 (Nanowerk News) The transmission electron microscope (TEM) can image molecular structures at the atomic scale by using electrons instead of light, and has revolutionized materials science and structural biology. The past decade has seen a lot of interest in combining electron microscopy with optical excitations, trying, for...
Astronomers capture black hole eruption spanning 16 times the full Moon in the sky
Dec 22, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Astronomers have produced the most comprehensive image of radio emission from the nearest actively feeding supermassive black hole to Earth. The emission is powered by a central black hole in the galaxy Centaurus A, about 12 million light years away. As the black hole feeds...
how active DNA molecules with therapeutic potential work
Dec 22, 2021 (Nanowerk News) DNAzymes – a word made up of DNA and enzyme – are catalytically active DNA sequences. They comprise a catalytic core comprising around 15 nucleic acids flanked by short binding arms on the right- and left-hand sides, each with around ten nucleic acids. While the...
Tracking down the forces that shaped our Solar System’s evolution
Dec 22, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Meteorites are remnants of the building blocks that formed Earth and the other planets orbiting our Sun. Recent analysis of their isotopic makeup led by Carnegie’s Nicole Nie and published in Science Advances ("Imprint of chondrule formation on the K and Rb isotopic compositions of...
Billions of starless planets haunt dark cloud cradles
Dec 22, 2021 (Nanowerk News) In Lovecraftian horror, the Universe is filled with “dark planets” ungraced by the light of a host star. New research shows that reality might be even scarier. An international team composed of French, Japanese, and Spanish astronomers has found about 100 planets floating freely in...