Lifeboat Foundation

Constructing a tiny robot from DNA and using it to study cell processes invisible to the naked eye… You would be forgiven for thinking it is science fiction, but it is in fact the subject of serious research by scientists from Inserm, CNRS and Université de Montpellier at the Structural Biology Center in Montpellier[1]. This highly innovative “nano-robot” should enable closer study of the mechanical forces applied at microscopic levels, which are crucial for many biological and pathological processes. It is described in a new study published in Nature Communications.

Our cells are subject to mechanical forces exerted on a microscopic scale, triggering biological signals essential to many cell processes involved in the normal functioning of our body or in the development of diseases.

For example, the feeling of touch is partly conditional on the application of mechanical forces on specific cell receptors (the discovery of which was this year rewarded by the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine).

As the amount of data stored in devices and shared over the internet continuously increases, computer scientists worldwide are trying to devise new approaches to secure communications and protect sensitive information. Some of the most well-established and valuable approaches are cryptographic techniques, which essentially encrypt (i.e., transform) data and texts exchanged between two or more parties, so that only senders and receivers can view it in its original form.

Physical unclonable functions (PUFs), devices that exploit “random imperfections” unavoidably introduced during the manufacturing of devices to give physical entities unique “fingerprints” (i.e., trust anchors). In recent years, these devices have proved to be particularly valuable for creating cryptographic keys, which are instantly erased as soon as they are used.

Researchers at Peking University and Jihua Laboratory have recently introduced a new system to generate cryptographic primitives, consisting of two identical PUFs based on aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays. This system, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, could help to secure communications more reliably, overcoming some of the vulnerabilities of previously proposed PUF devices.

A research team led by Rice University neuroengineers has created wireless technology to remotely activate specific brain circuits in fruit flies in under one second.

The team – an assemblage of experts in genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and electrical engineering – used magnetic signals to activate targeted neurons that controlled the body position of freely moving fruit flies in an enclosure.

Continue reading “Neuroengineers hack fruit fly brain and remotely control its movements” »

Why we need AI to compete against each other. Does a Great Filter Stop all Alien Civilizations at some point? Are we Doomed if We Find Life in Our Solar System?

David Brin is a scientist, speaker, technical consultant and world-known author. His novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards.
A 1998 movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on his book The Postman.
His Ph.D in Physics from UCSD — followed a masters in optics and an undergraduate degree in astrophysics from Caltech. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Space Institute and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Brin serves on advisory committees dealing with subjects as diverse as national defense and homeland security, astronomy and space exploration, SETI and nanotechnology, future/prediction and philanthropy. He has served since 2010 on the council of external advisers for NASA’s Innovative and Advanced Concepts group (NIAC), which supports the most inventive and potentially ground-breaking new endeavors.

Continue reading “A.I. Wars, The Fermi Paradox and Great Filters with David Brin” »

A trapped nanoparticle interacting with a laser provides a simple way to generate squeezed light, which has an unusually low level of fluctuations.

Project Mosquito barely got underway before it hit a dead end, with potential overseas designs waiting in the wings.

Antoine Galand, Director of Technology, GraphWear

Nanotechnology was once the stuff of science fiction, but today the concept of creating devices and machines that are several thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair is a well-established fact. The rise of nanotechnology has already transformed industries ranging from consumer electronics to textile manufacturing and cosmetics by unlocking new materials and processes at the nanoscale. The device you’re reading this on, for example, is only possible because of techniques adopted in the semiconductor industry that enable us to pattern silicon and metals to create the microscopic circuits and switches that are at the heart of modern computers.

One of the most promising applications of our newfound ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules is in healthcare, where the ability of doctors to treat disease has been hamstrung by relatively blunt “macro” solutions. The human body is a remarkably complex system where, fundamentally, nanoscale processes occurring inside cells are what determine whether we are sick or healthy. If we’re ever going to cure diseases like diabetes, cancer or Alzheimer’s, we need technologies that work at their scale. Although medical nanotechnologies are relatively new, they’re already impacting the way we diagnose, treat and prevent a broad range of diseases.

Studies of dense carbon materials formed by bolide impacts or produced by laboratory compression provide key information on the high-pressure behavior of carbon and for identifying and designing unique structures for technological applications. However, a major obstacle to studying and designing these materials is an incomplete understanding of their fundamental structures. Here, we report the remarkable structural diversity of cubic/hexagonally (c/h) stacked diamond and their association with diamond-graphite nanocomposites containing sp³-/sp²-bonding patterns, i.e., diaphites, from hard carbon materials formed by shock impact of graphite in the Canyon Diablo iron meteorite. We show evidence for a range of intergrowth types and nanostructures containing unusually short (0.31 nm) graphene spacings and demonstrate that previously neglected or misinterpreted Raman bands can be associated with diaphite structures. Our study provides a structural understanding of the material known as lonsdaleite, previously described as hexagonal diamond, and extends this understanding to other natural and synthetic ultrahard carbon phases. The unique three-dimensional carbon architectures encountered in shock-formed samples can place constraints on the pressure–temperature conditions experienced during an impact and provide exceptional opportunities to engineer the properties of carbon nanocomposite materials and phase assemblages.

Nonlinear dielectric nanostructures could control the flow of light in next-generation devices for information processing and communications.

In most sci-fi settings, the writer doesn’t have magic to work with, so unstoppable machines too small to see are often the next best thing.