Luv it; and this is only the beginning too.
In the continued effort to make a viable quantum computer, scientists assert that they have made the first scalable quantum simulation of a molecule.
Continue reading “One of the First Real-World Quantum Computer Applications Was Just Realized” »
It looks like a small piece of transparent film with tiny engravings on it, and is flexible enough to be bent into a tube. Yet, this piece of “smart” plastic demonstrates excellent performance in terms of data storage and processing capabilities. This novel invention, developed by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS), hails a breakthrough in the flexible electronics revolution, and brings researchers a step closer towards making flexible, wearable electronics a reality in the near future.
The technological advancement is achieved in collaboration with researchers from Yonsei University, Ghent University and Singapore’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering. The research team has successfully embedded a powerful magnetic memory chip on a flexible plastic material, and this malleable memory chip will be a critical component for the design and development of flexible and lightweight devices. Such devices have great potential in applications such as automotive, healthcare electronics, industrial motor control and robotics, industrial power and energy management, as well as military and avionics systems.
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A new finding in experiments studying the dry preservation of living cells — a potentially revolutionary alternative to cryopreservation — has defined a clear limit where continuing dehydration kills cells. The data, combined with molecular dynamics simulations, provides insight into an important processing factor that has limited recent attempts at dry preservation.
“What we have done is identified what appears to be a materials constraint in our method of dry preservation. I think this new understanding suggests some interesting avenues to pursue in developing a successful process,” said Gloria Elliott, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, one of the study’s authors.
The findings, reported in the July 8 issue of Scientific Reports, analyzes changes in the molecular arrangements of trehalose (a sugar) and water molecules during a typical dehydration process that they use to immobilize cells in a stable trehalose glass for long-term storage.
Continue reading “Study shows continuous dehydration kills cells during dry preservation” »
For years, scientists and engineers have synthesized materials at the nanoscale level to take advantage of their mechanical, optical, and energy properties, but efforts to scale these materials to larger sizes have resulted in diminished performance and structural integrity.
Now, researchers led by Xiaoyu “Rayne” Zheng, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech have published a study in the journal Nature Materials that describes a new process to create lightweight, strong and super elastic 3D printed metallic nanostructured materials with unprecedented scalability, a full seven orders of magnitude control of arbitrary 3D architectures.
Strikingly, these multiscale metallic materials have displayed super elasticity because of their designed hierarchical 3D architectural arrangement and nanoscale hollow tubes, resulting in more than a 400 percent increase of tensile elasticity over conventional lightweight metals and ceramic foams.
Columbia Engineering Professor Changxi Zheng’s new approach could lead to better tagging and coding, leveraging 3D printing of complex geometries.
New York — July 18, 2016 — Columbia Engineering researchers, working with colleagues at Disney Research and MIT, have developed a new method to control sound waves, using a computational approach to inversely design acoustic filters that can fit within an arbitrary 3D shape while achieving target sound filtering properties. Led by Computer Science Professor Changxi Zheng, the team designed acoustic voxels, small, hollow, cube-shaped chambers through which sound enters and exits, as a modular system. Like Legos, the voxels can be connected to form an infinitely adjustable, complex structure. Because of their internal chambers, they can modify the acoustic filtering property of the structure—changing their number and size or how they connect alters the acoustic result.
“In the past, people have explored computational design of specific products, like a certain type of muffler or a particular shape of trumpet,” says Zheng, whose team is presenting their paper, “Acoustic Voxels: Computational Optimization of Modular Acoustic Filters,” at SIGGRAPH 2016 on July 27. “The general approach to manipulating sound waves has been to computationally design chamber shapes. Our algorithm enables new designs of noise mufflers, hearing aids, wind instruments, and more — we can now make them in any shape we want, even a 3D-printed toy hippopotamus that sounds like a trumpet.” VIDEO: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/cg/lego/
Graphene, a two-dimensional wonder-material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms linked in a hexagonal chicken-wire pattern, has attracted intense interest for its phenomenal ability to conduct electricity. Now University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have used rod-shaped bacteria — precisely aligned in an electric field, then vacuum-shrunk under a graphene sheet — to introduce nanoscale ripples in the material, causing it to conduct electrons differently in perpendicular directions.
The resulting material, sort of a graphene nano-corduroy, can be applied to a silicon chip and may add to graphene’s almost limitless potential in electronics and nanotechnology. The finding is reported in the journal ACS Nano.
“The current across the graphene wrinkles is less than the current along them,” says Vikas Berry, associate professor and interim head of chemical engineering at UIC, who led the research.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demonstrated a new mathematical framework that works to help researchers discover patterns in complex scientific and engineering systems. DARPA said Thursday researchers at Stanford University created algorithms designed to explore patterns in data in order to gain insights into network structure and function under the Simplifying Complexity in Scientific Discovery [ ].
Nice.
“Our study suggests for the first time that the doping-induced modulation of the charge carrier density in graphene influences its wettability and adhesion,” explained SungWoo Nam, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at Illinois. “This work investigates this new doping-induced tunable wetting phenomena which is unique to graphene and potentially other 2D materials in complementary theoretical and experimental investigations.”
Graphene, being optically transparent and possessing superior electrical and mechanical properties, can revolutionize the fields of surface coatings and electrowetting displays, according to the researchers. A material’s wettability (i.e. interaction with water) is typically constant in the absence of external influence and are classified as either water-loving (hydrophilic) or water-repelling (hydrophobic; water beads up on the surface). Depending on the specific application, a choice between either hydrophobic or hydrophilic material is required. For electrowetting displays, for example, the hydrophilic characteristics of display material is enhanced with the help of a constant externally impressed electric current.
Continue reading “Tunable wetting and adhesion of graphene demonstrated” »
Robots so small they can enter the bloodstream and perform surgeries are one step closer, a research team from Monash University has discovered.
Led by Dr Zhe Liu, the Monash Engineering team has focused on graphene oxide — which is a single atom thick — as an effective shape memory material.
Graphene has captured world scientific and industrial interest for its miracle properties, with potential applications across energy, medicine, and even biomedical nano-robots.
Continue reading “Fantastic voyage to the nanoverse one step closer” »
Could augmented reality headsets help helicopter rescue pilots to fly more safely in extreme weather conditions — including heavy fog — in which they have poor visibility? That’s the question set out by a group of researchers at Germany’s Technical University of Munich (TUM). Their answer? An overwhelming yes.
Carried out in collaboration with the Institute of Helicopter Technology, the project uses a helicopter-mounted LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system to create virtual images of upcoming hazards and other obstacles. This signal data is then processed onboard the helicopter and transmitted to the transparent head-mounted display worn by pilots.
“Databases containing obstacles and terrain data are used together with real-time data from sensors in order to substitute the lost visual cues in degraded visual environment” Franz Viertler, a professor of aeronautical engineering who worked on the project, told Digital Trends. “The other part of the research then deals with how to best visualize the data for the pilot in order to enable a safe flight. The head-mounted display is a perfect means to do this, because the pilots can keep their eyes out of the window, while they get additional information about hazardous obstacles.”
Continue reading “Augmented-reality headsets could help helicopter rescue pilots fly in dense fog” »
