Dec 17, 2021 (Nanowerk News) When it comes to robots, bigger isn’t always better. Someday, a swarm of insect-sized robots might pollinate a field of crops or search for survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building. MIT researchers have demonstrated diminutive drones that can zip around with bug-like agility...
Scientists successfully manipulate a single skyrmion at room temperature
Dec 17, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Scientists from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and collaborators have shown that they can manipulate single skyrmions—tiny magnetic vortices that could be used as computing bits in future ultra-dense information storage devices—using pulses of electric current, at room temperature. Skyrmions—tiny particles that can...
Fabricating stable, high-mobility transistors for next-generation display technologies
Dec 16, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Amorphous oxide semiconductors (AOS) are a promising option for the next generation of display technologies due to their low costs and high electron (charge carrier) mobility. The high mobility, in particular, is essential for high-speed images. But AOSs also have a distinct drawback that is...
Nanodiamonds are key to efficient hydrogen purification
Dec 16, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Nanodiamonds may be tiny, but they can help with one of the biggest problems facing humanity today: Climate change. Hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel, leaves nothing but water when consumed. Many countries view hydrogen as a way to a zero-carbon future, but switching to a hydrogen...
Energy-saving glass ‘self-adapts’ to heating and cooling demand
Dec 16, 2021 (Nanowerk News) An international research team led by scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a material that, when coated on a glass window panel, can effectively self-adapt to heat or cool rooms across different climate zones in the world, helping to cut energy...
New smart-roof coating enables year-round energy savings
Dec 16, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Scientists have developed an all-season smart-roof coating that keeps homes warm during the winter and cool during the summer – without consuming natural gas or electricity. Research findings reported in the journal Science ("Temperature-adaptive radiative coating for all-season household thermal regulation") point to a groundbreaking...
Breakthrough in using CRISPR-Cas9 to target fat cells
Dec 16, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Fat—it is vital for life but too much can lead to a host of health problems. Studying how fat, or adipose, tissue functions in the body is critical for understanding obesity and other issues, yet structural differences in fat cells and their distribution throughout the...
Negative capacitance in topological transistors could reduce computing’s unsustainable energy load
Dec 16, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Australian researchers have discovered that negative capacitance could lower the energy used in electronics and computing, which represents 8% of global electricity demand. The researchers at four universities within the ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET) applied negative capacitance to make...
Scientists predict the rotation periods of stars
Dec 16, 2021 (Nanowerk News) The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) announces the completion of a major three-publication survey of one of the richest accessible open star clusters. The final study features a method of deriving the rotation periods of stars from just one observation of the stellar activity...
Researchers developed simple method to upcycle okara using 3D printing
Dec 16, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) developed a method to perform direct ink writing (DIW) 3D printing of okara—a soybean byproduct generated from the production of soy milk and bean curd—without using food thickeners (ACS Food Science and Technology, "3D Printing...