Apr 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Scientists at the University of Illinois Chicago have developed a treatment for pulmonary fibrosis by using nanoparticles coated in mannose — a type of sugar — to stop a population of lung cells called macrophages that contribute to lung tissue scarring (PNAS, "Nanoparticle targeting of...
Shedding new light on controlling material properties
Apr 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Materials scientists may soon be able to control material properties with light. A team consisting of researchers at Kyoto University and Kurume Institute of Technology have discovered a scaling law that determines high-order harmonic generation in the solid-layered perovskite material, Ca2RuO4 (Physical Review Letters, "High-order...
Engineering single-molecule DNA computing with magnetic tweezers
Apr 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Deoxyribonucleaic acid, DNA, can store vast amounts of information encoded as sequences of the molecules, known as nucleotides, cytosine (C), guanine (G), adenine (A), or thymine (T). The complexity and enormous variance of different species’ genetic codes demonstrates how much information can be stored within...
better method for measuring genes
Apr 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) All cells have the same genes, but for their various functions what matters is which genes are active when, where, and to what extent. Active genes are copied in the cell into the messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule, which acts as a construction manual for the...
Honey holds potential for making brain-like computer chips
Apr 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Honey might be a sweet solution for developing environmentally friendly components for neuromorphic computers, systems designed to mimic the neurons and synapses found in the human brain. Hailed by some as the future of computing, neuromorphic systems are much faster and use much less power...
‘Freeze-thaw battery’ is adept at preserving its energy
Apr 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Scientists have created a battery designed for the electric grid that locks in energy for months without losing much storage capacity. The development of the “freeze-thaw battery,” which freezes its energy for use later, is a step toward batteries that can be used for seasonal...
Ringing black holes could put general relativity to the test
Apr 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Typical overtone chords in the gravitational waves produced when black holes collide could be used to test general relativity, a mathematical analysis by a RIKEN physicist has shown (Physical Review D, "Ease of excitation of black hole ringing: Quantifying the importance of overtones by the...
Thermal electrons play key role in determining emissions from gamma-ray-burst afterglows
Apr 04, 2022 (Nanowerk News) The presence of unusually energetic gamma rays seen in some afterglows from intense gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) could be explained by a new mathematical model developed by RIKEN researchers (The Astrophysical Journal, "A semianalytic afterglow with thermal electrons and synchrotron self-Compton emission"). This finding could help...
Using gene scissors to specifically eliminate individual cell types
Apr 04, 2022 (Nanowerk News) With the help of the CRISPR/Cas molecular scissors, genetic information in a plant can be modified to make the latter more robust to pests, diseases, or extreme climatic conditions. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now developed this method further to eliminate the...
Shape-shifting slimebots (w/video)
Combining the benefits of both fluid and solids, researchers have demonstrated various functions for their slimebots, including navigation in narrow channels much smaller than their size; object capture operations via the curl or endocytosis modes; and circuit repair and controlled switching using their own conductive properties that can even be...