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Brain-eating amoebae halted by silver nanoparticles
Halloween is just around the corner, and some people will celebrate by watching scary movies about brain-eating zombies. But even more frightening are real-life parasites that feed on the human brain, and they can be harder to kill than their horror-movie counterparts. Now, researchers have developed silver nanoparticles coated with anti-seizure drugs that can kill brain-eating amoebae while sparing human cells. The researchers report their results in ACS Chemical Neuroscience.
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+24 +1
How to mass produce cell-sized robots
Tiny robots no bigger than a cell could be mass-produced using a new method developed by researchers at MIT. The microscopic devices, which the team calls “syncells” (short for synthetic cells), might eventually be used to monitor conditions inside an oil or gas pipeline, or to search out disease while floating through the bloodstream.
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Flexible nanotubes pack a punch
Since they are flexible, high-aspect-ratio nanostructures store elastic energy. When released, this energy could be used to destroy bacteria by physically stretching and rupturing their cell membranes. This technique was inspired by the bactericidal nature of insect wings and destroys both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria at extremely high rates. The nanostructures could make for a new type of highly efficient mechano-responsive antibacterial surface.
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+21 +1
Nanobots kill off cancerous tumours as fiction becomes reality
A new prospect for cancer treatment opened up last month, when researchers for the first time successfully used tiny, nanometre-sized robots to treat cancerous tumours in mice. Researchers from Arizona State University
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Azul Maya: not only a pigment but a high-end nanomaterial used by the ancient Maya
When we talk about Maya heritage, one of the most important legacies in the Yucatan Peninsula is the “Azul Maya” (Maya Blue), a pigment developed widely by this civilization and used by different Mesoamerican cultures for the decoration of ceramics, textiles and murals, as explained by Romeo de Coss Gómez, researcher attached to the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav) in Mérida, Yucatán.
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A graphene roll-out
MIT engineers have developed a continuous manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene. The team’s results are the first demonstration of an industrial, scalable method for manufacturing high-quality graphene that is tailored for use in membranes that filter a variety of molecules, including salts, larger ions, proteins, or nanoparticles. Such membranes should be useful for desalination, biological separation, and other applications.
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+19 +1
A vaccine for edible plants? A new plant protection method on the horizon
Novel technologies are being sought to replace the traditional pesticides used to protect plants, particularly edible plants such as cereals. A new collaborative project between the University of Helsinki and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) is shedding light on the efficacy of environmentally friendly RNA-based vaccines that protect plants from diseases and pests. Plant diseases and pests cause considerable crop losses and threaten global food security.
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How Graphene Research Is Taking Aim at 5 of the World’s Biggest Problems
Though headlines have regularly touted graphene as the next wonder material in the last decade, the trip from promise to practicality has felt a bit lengthy. Still, graphene research has yielded a long list of reasons to keep at it, and there will be no shortage of problems solved when the graphene revolution arrives.
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+34 +1
Engineers Develop Flexible, Water-Repellent Graphene Circuits for Washable Electronics
Jonathan Claussen and the nanoengineers in his research group continue to find new ways to use graphene printing technology. They're now treating printed graphene with lasers to create electronic circuits that repel water. That could lead to washable electronics.
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+25 +1
Scientists Invent a Way to Measure Impossibly Tiny Amounts of Liquid
The device can measure how quickly liquid travels through a tube smaller than a human hair.
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Graphene-based armor could stop bullets by becoming harder than diamonds
While bullet-proof body armor does tend to be thick and heavy, that may no longer be the case if research being conducted at The City University of New York bears fruit. Scientists there have determined that two layers of stacked graphene can harden to a diamond-like consistency upon impact.
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Chip Reprograms Cells to Regenerate Damaged Tissue
A device delivers infusions of DNA and other molecules restored injured limbs in mice. By Simon Makin.
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+15 +1
A Brain Built From Atomic Switches Can Learn
A tiny self-organized mesh full of artificial synapses recalls its experiences and can solve simple problems. Its inventors hope it points the way to devices that match the brain’s energy-efficient computing prowess.
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Carbon nanotubes worth their salt
Scientists have developed carbon nanotube pores that can exclude salt from seawater. The team also found that water permeability in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with diameters smaller than a nanometer (0.8 nm) exceeds that of wider carbon nanotubes by an order of magnitude.
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+45 +1
For the First Time Tiny Robots Treat Infection in a Living Organism
Scientists from the department of NanoEngineering at the University of California San Diego were able to successfully use chemically-powered micromotors to deliver antibiotics in the gut of a mouse and treat a gastric bacterial infection. It is the first use of such technology in a living organism and could pave the way for further applications in treating various types of diseases. The study was published in Nature Communications.
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The story of graphene | The University of Manchester
This is the story of graphene. Discovered at The University of Manchester in 2004, this 2D material is set to revolutionise every part of everyday life.
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Drivers gear up for world’s first nanocar race
Chemists will navigate molecular wagons along a tiny golden track.
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+12 +1
Researchers Just 3-D Printed the Strongest Lightweight Material Ever
It might be weird looking, but it gets the job done. Researchers at MIT have 3-D printed one of the strongest lightweight materials ever. It's 10 times stronger than steel--yet only 1/20th its density. The researchers published their findings in a new report in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. Their material has a strange shape to it, which is exactly what makes it so strong. It was made by taking flakes of graphene--a strong, lightweight, 2-dimensional form of carbon--compressing them, and fusing them together using 3-D printing.
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Porous, 3-D forms of graphene developed at MIT can be 10 times as strong as steel but much lighter
A team of researchers at MIT has designed one of the strongest lightweight materials known, by compressing and fusing flakes of graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon. The new material, a sponge-like configuration has a density of just 5 percent.
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+23 +1
Scientists created the thinnest wires yet made of atoms coated in diamonds
Put together diamonds, copper, and sulfur, and you can make the thinnest wires humanly possible. These nanometer-scale wires could help shrink electronic circuits, cramming more computing power into ever-smaller devices, and allow researchers to explore exotic material physics. A team of scientists from Stanford University and the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory recently took molecule-sized diamond fragments, attached them to atoms of sulfur, and dropped them into a solution with copper atoms. The result: a wire three atoms across sheathed in diamond.
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