Lifeboat Foundation

Reactive molecules, such as free radicals, can be produced in the body after exposure to certain environments or substances and go on to cause cell damage. Antioxidants can minimize this damage by interacting with the radicals before they affect cells.

Led by Enrique Gomez, professor of chemical engineering and materials science and engineering, Penn State researchers have applied this concept to prevent imaging damage to conducting polymers that comprise soft electronic devices, such as organic solar cells, organic transistors, bioelectronic devices and flexible electronics. The researchers published their findings in Nature Communications today (Jan. 8).

According to Gomez, visualizing the structures of conducting polymers is crucial to further develop these materials and enable commercialization of soft electronic devices—but the actual imaging can cause damage that limits what researchers can see and understand.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink has a straightforward outlook on artificial intelligence: “If you can’t beat em, join em.” The company means that quite literally — it’s building a device that aims to connect our brains with electronics, which would enable us, in theory, to control computers with our thoughts.

But how? What material would companies like Neuralink use to connect electronics with human tissue?

One potential solution was recently revealed at the American Chemical Society’s Fall 2020 Virtual Meeting & Expo. A team of researchers from the University of Delaware presented a new biocompatible polymer coating that could help devices better fuse with the brain.

Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes.

Scientists have figured out a cheaper, more efficient way to conduct a chemical reaction at the heart of many biological processes, which may lead to better ways to create biofuels from plants.

Scientists around the world have been trying for years to create biofuels and other bioproducts more cheaply; this study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, suggests that it is possible to do so.

“The process of converting sugar to alcohol has to be very efficient if you want to have the end product be competitive with fossil fuels,” said Venkat Gopalan, a senior author on the paper and professor of chemistry and biochemistry at The Ohio State University. “The process of how to do that is well-established, but the cost makes it not competitive, even with significant government subsidies. This new development is likely to help lower the cost.”

It’s like the hydrogen bonds found in water, but way stronger.

Similar to the bonds found in water, but way more powerful, this new bond could offer deep insight into the true workings of chemical reactions.

Looks like living cells may have a lot more surprises to offer. 😃

Seeing our world through the eyes of a migratory bird would be a rather spooky experience. Something about their visual system allows them to ‘see’ our planet’s magnetic field, a clever trick of quantum physics and biochemistry that helps them navigate vast distances.

Now, for the first time ever, scientists from the University of Tokyo have directly observed a key reaction hypothesised to be behind birds’, and many other creatures’, talents for sensing the direction of the planet’s poles.

Continue reading “Birds Have a Mysterious ‘Quantum Sense’. For The First Time, Scientists Saw It in Action” »

Summary: Heating up cancer cells as they are being targeted with chemotherapy appears to be a highly effective way of killing them off.

Source: UCL

The study, published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, found that “loading” a chemotherapy drug on to tiny magnetic particles that can heat up the cancer cells at the same time as delivering the drug to them was up to 34% more effective at destroying the cancer cells than the chemotherapy drug without added heat.

A team working with Roland Fischer, Professor of Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry at the Technical University Munich (TUM) has developed a highly efficient supercapacitor. The basis of the energy storage device is a novel, powerful and also sustainable graphene hybrid material that has comparable performance data to currently utilized batteries.

Usually, energy storage is associated with batteries and accumulators that provide energy for electronic devices. However, in laptops, cameras, cellphones or vehicles, so-called supercapacitors are increasingly installed these days.

Unlike batteries they can quickly store large amounts of energy and put it out just as fast. If, for instance, a train brakes when entering the station, supercapacitors are storing the energy and provide it again when the train needs a lot of energy very quickly while starting up.

Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed a new type of adhesive that could lead to a different form of 3D printing.

Magnetocuring

Continue reading “Magnetocuring Technology Could Point To A New Form Of 3D Printing” »