Mar 22, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Researchers have developed a process to turn crab shells into a bioplastic that can be used to make optical components known as diffraction gratings. The resulting lightweight, inexpensive gratings are biodegradable and could enable portable spectrometers that are also disposable. “The Philippines is known for...
Is ‘Oumuamua’s odd propulsion a hydrogen fart?
Mar 22, 2023 (Nanowerk News) In 2017, a mysterious comet dubbed 'Oumuamua fired the imaginations of scientists and the public alike. It was the first known visitor from outside our solar system, it had no bright coma or dust tail, like most comets, and a peculiar shape — something between...
Semiconductor lattice marries electrons and magnetic moments
Mar 22, 2023 (Nanowerk News) A model system created by stacking a pair of monolayer semiconductors is giving physicists a simpler way to study confounding quantum behavior, from heavy fermions to exotic quantum phase transitions. The group’s paper published in Nature ("Gate-Tunable Heavy Fermions in a Moiré Kondo Lattice"). The...
Photosynthesis ‘hack’ could lead to new ways of generating renewable energy
Mar 22, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Researchers have ‘hacked’ the earliest stages of photosynthesis, the natural machine that powers the vast majority of life on Earth, and discovered new ways to extract energy from the process, a finding that could lead to new ways of generating clean fuel and renewable energy....
Physicists investigate the dynamics of active protein droplets in cells
Mar 22, 2023 (Nanowerk News) The phase separation of oil and water is a classic example of a process ubiquitous in nature, in which mixtures separate into their constituent parts. Scientists have also repeatedly identified biomolecular droplets in cells that originate from the phase-separation of proteins and nucleic acids. These...
Detection of methanol using a soft photonic crystal robot
Mar 22, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Robots are currently employed in industrial sites and fields, including disaster rescue, medicine, security, and national defense. Conventional metal-based robots exert strong operating power due to rigid body construction with joints connected to actuators such as motors. However, they may have difficulty with flexible movements...
‘Y-ball’ compound yields quantum secrets
Mar 21, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Scientists investigating a compound called “Y-ball” – which belongs to a mysterious class of “strange metals” viewed as centrally important to next-generation quantum materials – have found new ways to probe and understand its behavior. The results of the experiments, aided by the insights of...
Smart nanotechnology for more accurate delivery of insulin
Mar 21, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Glucose-responsive insulin that eliminates the need for people with type 1 diabetes to check their blood sugar levels could be a step closer thanks to research led by RMIT and Monash University. Published in Advanced Materials ("An engineered nanosugar enables rapid and sustained glucose-responsive insulin...
Sky’s the limit with spray-on electronics
Mar 21, 2023 (Nanowerk News) An international team of scientists is developing an inkable nanomaterial that they say could one day become a spray-on electronic component for ultra-thin, lightweight and bendable displays and devices. The material, zinc oxide, could be incorporated into many components of future technologies including mobile phones...
going green in the field of soft robotics
Mar 21, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Artificial muscles are a progressing technology that could one day enable robots to function like living organisms. Such muscles open up new possibilities for how robots can shape the world around us; from assistive wearable devices that can redefine our physical abilities at old age,...