Jan 11, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Using nanotechnology that enabled mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, a new approach to gene therapy may improve how physicians treat inherited forms of blindness. A collaborative team of researchers with Oregon Health & Science University and Oregon State University have developed an approach that uses lipid nanoparticles — tiny,...
Physicists develop a new method that strengthens electron-triggered light emission
Jan 11, 2023 (Nanowerk News) The way electrons interact with photons of light is a key part of many modern technologies, from lasers to solar panels to LEDs. But the interaction is inherently a weak one because of a major mismatch in scale: A wavelength of visible light is about...
Converting temperature fluctuations into clean energy with novel nanoparticles and heating strategy
Jan 11, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Pyroelectric catalysis (pyro-catalysis) can convert environmental temperature fluctuations into clean chemical energy, like hydrogen. However, compared with the more common catalysis strategy, such as photocatalysis, pyro-catalysis is inefficient due to slow temperature changes in the ambient environment. Recently, a team co-led by researchers at City...
How scientists can benefit from blockchain technology
Jan 11, 2023 (Nanowerk Spotlight) A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of a chain of blocks, each containing a list of transactions. Each block also contains a reference to the previous block, forming a chain. This chain of blocks is stored across a decentralized...
Model-independent method to weigh protoplanetary disks
Jan 11, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Astronomers have found a way to directly measure the amount of gas in protoplanetary disks without needing to make assumptions about the relative amounts of different types of gas, making this method more accurate and robust than previous methods. Planets form in protoplanetary disks of...
NASA’s TESS discovers planetary system’s second Earth-size world
Jan 11, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Using data from NASAâs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, scientists have identified an Earth-size world, called TOI 700 e, orbiting within the habitable zone of its star â the range of distances where liquid water could occur on a planetâs surface. The world is 95% Earthâs...
Distant star’s dimming was likely a ‘dusty’ companion getting in the way, astronomers say
Jan 11, 2023 (Nanowerk News) By their own admission, Anastasios “Andy” Tzanidakis and James Davenport are interested in unusual stars. The University of Washington astronomers were on the lookout for “stars behaving strangely” when an automated alert from the Gaia survey pointed them to Gaia17bpp. Survey data indicated that this...
Astronomers find the most distant stars in our galaxy halfway to Andromeda
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Astronomers have discovered more than 200 distant variable stars known as RR Lyrae stars in the Milky Way’s stellar halo. The most distant of these stars is more than a million light years from Earth, almost half the distance to our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, which...
Humidity may be the key to super-lubricity ‘switch’
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Sometimes friction is good, such the friction between a road and a car’s tires to prevent the vehicle from skidding. But sometimes friction is bad – if you did not put oil in that very same car, there would be so much friction in the...
The thermodynamics of quantum computing
Jan 10, 2023 (Nanowerk News) In research on quantum computers, one aspect that has been mostly neglected until now is the generation of heat. Physicists from Konstanz, Grenoble and Helsinki now focus their attention on heat as an interference factor – and have developed a method to experimentally measure the...