Jul 28, 2023 (Nanowerk News) When considering ways to sustainably generate environmentally friendly products, bacteria might not immediately spring to mind. However, in recent years scientists have created microbe-semiconductor biohybrids that merge the biosynthetic power of living systems with the ability of semiconductors to harvest light. These microorganisms use solar...
Engineers use diamond microparticles to create high security anti-counterfeit labels
Jul 28, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Counterfeiting is a serious problem affecting a wide range of industries - from medicine to electronics, inflicting enormous economic losses, posing safety concerns and putting health at risk. Counterfeiters and anti-counterfeiters are now locked in a technological arms race. Despite anti-counterfeiting tools becoming more and...
‘Andreev chemistry’ on a nanowire
Jul 28, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Researchers at the University of Basel and Lund University have generated superconducting pair states of electrons on several segments of a nanowire, separated by grown barriers. Depending on the height of the barriers, these pair states can be coupled and fused. The results were recently...
Bacteria as blacksmiths – new method to assemble unconventional materials
Jul 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) You never know when dazzling ideas will strike you. Sometimes they emerge from the most unexpected places, like a boulder gym in Vienna. Such was the case for ISTA’s Daniel Grober, a graduate student in the research group of physicist Jérémie Palacci, who had been...
Turning bacteria into solar factories with semiconductor nanoclusters
Jul 28, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the University of Chicago have discovered semiconductor nanocluster precipitation within the periplasmic space of Gram-negative bacteria for efficient solar-driven chemical production. The findings were published in Science Advances...
This 3D printed gripper doesn’t need electronics to function (w/video)
Jul 28, 2023 (Nanowerk News) This soft robotic gripper is not only 3D printed in one print, it also doesn’t need any electronics to work. The researchers wanted to design a soft gripper that would be ready to use right as it comes off the 3D printer, equipped with built...
Hubble sees evaporating planet getting the hiccups
Jul 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) A young planet whirling around a petulant red dwarf star is changing in unpredictable ways orbit-by-orbit. It is so close to its parent star that it experiences a consistent, torrential blast of energy, which evaporates its hydrogen atmosphere — causing it to puff off the...
Scientists caught Hofstadter’s butterfly in graphite
Jul 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Researchers in the National Graphene Institute (NGI) at The University of Manchester have revisited one of the most ancient materials on Earth – graphite, and discovered new physics that has eluded the field for decades. Despite being made entirely of layers of carbon atoms arranged...
Fiber-infused ink enables 3D-printed heart muscle to beat
Jul 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Over the last decade, advances in 3D printing have unlocked new possibilities for bioengineers to build heart tissues and structures. Their goals include creating better in vitro platforms for discovering new therapeutics for heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, responsible...
Researchers develop low-cost sensor to enhance robots’ sense of touch
Jul 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Achieving human-level dexterity during manipulation and grasping has been a long-standing goal in robotics. To accomplish this, having a reliable sense of tactile information and force is essential for robots. A recent study, published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters ("L3 F-TOUCH: A Wireless GelSight...