Lifeboat Foundation

Reconfigurable antennas—those that can tune properties like frequency or radiation beams in real time, from afar—are integral to future communication network systems, like 6G. But many current reconfigurable antenna designs can fall short: they dysfunction in high or low temperatures, have power limitations or require regular servicing.

To address these limitations, electrical engineers in the Penn State College of Engineering combined electromagnets with a compliant mechanism, which is the same mechanical engineering concept behind binder clips or a bow and arrow. They published their proof-of-concept reconfigurable compliant mechanism-enabled patch antenna today (Feb. 13) in Nature Communications.

“Compliant mechanisms are engineering designs that incorporate elements of the materials themselves to create motion when force is applied, instead of traditional rigid body mechanisms that require hinges for motion,” said corresponding author Galestan Mackertich-Sengerdy, who is both a doctoral student and a full-time researcher in the college’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). “Compliant mechanism-enabled objects are engineered to bend repeatedly in a certain direction and to withstand harsh environments.”

Scientists from the Micro, Nano and Molecular Systems Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and the Institute for Molecular Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials at Heidelberg University have created a new technology to assemble matter in 3D. Their concept uses multiple acoustic holograms to generate pressure fields with which solid particles, gel beads and even biological cells can be printed.

These results pave the way for novel 3D cell culture techniques with applications in biomedical engineering. The results of the study were published in the journal Science Advances.

Additive manufacturing or 3D printing enables the fabrication of complex parts from functional or biological materials. Conventional 3D printing can be a slow process, where objects are constructed one line or one layer at a time. Researchers in Heidelberg and Tübingen now demonstrate how to form a 3D object from smaller building blocks in just a single step.

Dr. Nick Melosh at the BrainMind Summit hosted at Stanford, interviewed by BrainMind member Christian Bailey.

Nick Melosh is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University. Nick’s research at Stanford focuses on how to design new inorganic structures to seamlessly integrate with biological systems to address problems that are not feasible by other means. This involves both fundamental work such as to deeply understand how lipid membranes interact with inorganic surfaces, electrokinetic phenomena in biologically relevant solutions, and applying this knowledge into new device designs. Examples of this include “nanostraw” drug delivery platforms for direct delivery or extraction of material through the cell wall using a biomimetic gap-junction made using nanoscale semiconductor processing techniques. We also engineer materials and structures for neural interfaces and electronics pertinent to highly parallel data acquisition and recording. For instance, we have created inorganic electrodes that mimic the hydrophobic banding of natural transmembrane proteins, allowing them to ‘fuse’ into the cell wall, providing a tight electrical junction for solid-state patch clamping. In addition to significant efforts at engineering surfaces at the molecular level, we also work on ‘bridge’ projects that span between engineering and biological/clinical needs. My long history with nano-and microfabrication techniques and their interactions with biological constructs provide the skills necessary to fabricate and analyze new bio-electronic systems.”

Continue reading “Nanotechnology meets Neuroscience — Nicholas Melosh at BrainMind” »

The organoids can be used to study the development of diseases and the effects of drugs.

Michael Helmrath, a pediatric surgeon at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and his colleagues made headlines last week when they revealed trials where they had transplanted balls of human intestinal tissue into mice, according to a report by *Wired* published on Thursday.

After a few weeks, these transplants developed key features of the human immune system, introducing a model that could be used to effectively simulate the human intestinal system.

Continue reading “Scientists Grew Mini Human Guts Inside Mice” »

The Tesla transformation to a fully integrated design.

Join me and Cory Steuben as he reviews all the different ways Tesla has an advantage over their competitors from manufacturing, the factories, the business model and the team.

Continue reading “We’ve torn down over 100 cars (Here are Tesla advantages) | Cory Steuben Munro and Associates” »

The “one-shot” process paves the path for cutting-edge 3D cell culture methods with biomedical engineering applications, claim the scientists.

German scientists have created a new technology that helps them print 3D objects with sound waves.

The design creates pressure fields using several acoustic holograms, which can be used to print solid particles, gel beads, and even living cells, according to the study released on Thursday.

Continue reading “This tech can print 3D objects with sound in ‘one-shot’ process” »

A new North Carolina State University study, performed in collaboration with battery testing researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, shows that extremely short pulses from a high-powered laser can cause tiny defects in lithium-ion battery materials—defects that can enhance battery performance.

The technique, called nanosecond pulsed laser annealing, lasts for only 100 nanoseconds and is generated by the same type of laser used in modern-day eye surgeries. Researchers tested the technique on graphite, a material widely used in lithium-ion battery anodes, or positive electrodes. They tested the technique in batches of 10 pulses and 80 pulses and compared the differences in current capacity; power is calculated by multiplying voltage by current.

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in portable electronic devices and electric cars. With further improvements, these batteries could have a major impact on transportation and as storage devices for renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

When Srikanth Singamaneni and Guy Genin, both professors of mechanical engineering and materials science at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, established a new collaboration with researchers from the School of Medicine in late 2019, they didn’t know the landscape of infectious disease research was about to shift dramatically. In a conference room overlooking Forest Park on a beautiful fall day, the team had one goal in mind: tackle the biggest infectious disease problem facing the world right then.

“Srikanth and I had a vision of a simple, quantitative diagnostic tool, so we connected with infectious disease physicians here at WashU and asked them, ‘What are the most important questions that could be answered if you could get really detailed information cheaply at the point of care?’” said Genin, the Harold and Kathleen Faught Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

“Greg Storch told us that one of the most important challenges facing the field of infectious disease is finding a way to figure out quickly if a patient has a bacterial infection and should get antibiotics or has a viral infection, for which antibiotics will not be effective.”

Scientists at the University of Connecticut Health, Yale University, and Johns Hopkins University have discovered that certain cancer cells possess the ability to evade limitations caused by oxygen deprivation, enabling the cancer cells to continue to grow.

The findings were recently published in the journal Cell Systems. The research was led by Kshitiz, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, in collaboration with scientists Chi V. Dang from Johns Hopkins and Andre Levchenko from Yale.

Nearly a decade ago, the researchers observed a strange phenomenon while looking at cancer cells under hypoxia—or a lack of oxygen.