Feb 09, 2022 (Nanowerk News) ETH Zurich researchers have created artificial colours by 3D printing certain nanostructures inspired by those of a butterfly (Advanced Materials, "Replicating the Cynandra opis Butterfly's Structural Color for Bioinspired Bigrating Color Filters"). This principle can be used in the future to produce colour screens. The...
New soft robot morphs from a ground to air vehicle using liquid metal
Feb 09, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Imagine a small autonomous vehicle that could drive over land, stop, and flatten itself into a quadcopter. The rotors start spinning, and the vehicle flies away. Looking at it more closely, what do you think you would see? What mechanisms have caused it to morph...
Tiny electrical vortexes bridge gap between ferroelectric and ferromagnetic materials
Feb 09, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Ferromagnetic materials have a self-generating magnetic field, ferroelectric materials generate their own electrical field. Although electric and magnetic fields are related, physics tells us that they are very different classes of material. Now the discovery by University of Warwick-led scientists of a complex electrical ‘vortex’-like...
Nanopatch antennas made with liquid metal trap light to identify biological and chemical molecules
Feb 09, 2022 (Nanowerk News) The proliferation of point-of-care testing, from at-home blood glucose meters to COVID-19 rapid tests, is accelerating and improving medical care. Continuing to upgrade the sensing technology that is fueling the growth of these products, however, is becoming increasingly challenging. Some optical sensing chips, for example,...
Sustainable batteries roadmap to 2030 and beyond
Feb 09, 2022 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Batteries are a key technology for battling carbon dioxide emissions from the transport, power, and industry sectors. To be effective towards that goal, batteries must exhibit ultra-high performance beyond their capabilities today: energy and power performance approaching theoretical limits, outstanding lifetime and reliability, and enhanced...
Harnessing sea pineapples and blood waste for metal-air-battery catalysts
Feb 09, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Sea pineapples, an edible ascidian, are a delicacy in Japan. The Tohoku region is famed for its sea pineapple production - known as hoya in Japanese. Now, a research group has established a new use for the scores of sea pineapple shells that get discarded...
High-resolution 3D study of pine pollen reveals nanofoams are key to surviving mass extinctions
Feb 09, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Scientists from the Natural History Museum, London (United Kingdom), and the ESRF, the European Synchrotron, Grenoble (France), have found that some pollen has survived mass extinctions thanks, in part, to its nanofoam wall structure. This may explain why the survival of certain plants. It is...
How Mars lost its oceans
Feb 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) It has long been known that Mars once had oceans due in part to a protective magnetic field similar to Earth’s. However, the magnetic field disappeared, and new research may finally be able to explain why. Researchers recreated conditions expected in the core of Mars...