Lifeboat Foundation

When most people think of crystals, they picture suncatchers that act as rainbow prisms or the semi-transparent stones that some believe hold healing powers. However, to scientists and engineers, crystals are a form of materials in which their constituents—atoms, molecules, or nanoparticles—are arranged regularly in space. In other words, crystals are defined by the regular arrangement of their constituents. Common examples are diamonds, table salt, or sugar cubes.

However, in research just published in Soft Matter, a team led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Sangwoo Lee, associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, discovered that crystal structures are not necessarily always regularly arranged. The discovery advances the field of materials science and has unrealized implications for the materials used for semiconductors, solar panels, and electric vehicle technologies.

One of the most common and important classes of crystal structures is the close-packed structures of regular spheres constructed by stacking layers of spheres in a honeycomb arrangement. There are many ways to stack the layers to construct close-packed structures, and how nature selects specific stacking is an important question in materials and physics research. In the close-packing construction, there is a very unusual structure with irregularly spaced constituents known as the random stacking of two-dimensional hexagonal layers (RHCP). This structure was first observed from cobalt metal in 1942, but it has been regarded as a transitional and energetically unpreferred state.

Scientists from the Finnish Hub for Development and Validation of Integrated Approaches (FHAIVE FHAIVE) and Tampere University have uncovered a novel response mechanism related to nanoparticle exposure that’s shared across various species.

A species is a group of living organisms that share a set of common characteristics and are able to breed and produce fertile offspring. The concept of a species is important in biology as it is used to classify and organize the diversity of life. There are different ways to define a species, but the most widely accepted one is the biological species concept, which defines a species as a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce viable offspring in nature. This definition is widely used in evolutionary biology and ecology to identify and classify living organisms.

A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team has developed a first-of-its-kind, breakthrough method that makes it easier to create high-quality metal oxide thin films out of “stubborn” metals that have historically been difficult to synthesize in an atomically precise manner. This research paves the way for scientists to develop better materials for various next-generation applications including quantum computing, microelectronics, sensors, and energy catalysis.

The researchers’ paper is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

“This is truly remarkable discovery, as it unveils an unparalleled and simple way for navigating material synthesis at the atomic scale by harnessing the power of epitaxial strain,” said Bharat Jalan, senior author on the paper and a professor and Shell Chair in the University of Minnesota Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.

A nanoprinting technique developed by a chemist allows 3D printing of materials atom by atom and opens up various opportunities in electrochemistry. Read the article to find out more.

The biology underpinning a rare genetic mutation that allows its carrier to live virtually pain-free, heal more rapidly and experience reduced anxiety and fear, has been uncovered by new research from UCL.

The study, published in Brain, follows up the team’s discovery in 2019 of the FAAH-OUT gene and the rare mutations that cause Jo Cameron to feel virtually no pain and never feel anxious or afraid. The new research describes how the mutation in FAAH-OUT “turns down” FAAH gene expression, as well as the knock-on effects on other molecular pathways linked to wound healing and mood. It is hoped the findings will lead to new drug targets and open up new avenues of research in these areas.

Jo, who lives in Scotland, was first referred to pain geneticists at UCL in 2013, after her doctor noticed that she experienced no pain after major surgeries on her hip and hand. After six years of searching, they identified a new gene that they named FAAH-OUT, which contained a rare genetic mutation. In combination with another, more common mutation in FAAH, it was found to be the cause of Jo’s unique characteristics.

High-frequency light is useful. The higher the frequency of light, the shorter its wavelength—and the shorter the wavelength, the smaller the objects and details the light can be used to see.

So violet light can show you smaller details than red light, for example, because it has a shorter wavelength. But to see really, really small things—down to the scale of billionths of a meter, thousands of times less than the width of a human hair—to see those things, you need extreme ultraviolet light (and a good microscope).

Extreme ultraviolet light, with wavelengths between 10 and 120 nanometers, has many applications in medical imaging, studying biological objects, and deciphering the fine details of computer chips during their manufacture. However, producing small and affordable sources of this light has been very challenging.

Metalenses migrate to smartphones.

Metalenz came out of stealth mode in 2021, announcing that it was getting ready to scale up production of devices. Manufacturing was not as big a challenge as design because the company manufactures metasurfaces using the same materials, lithography, and etching processes that it uses to make integrated circuits.

In fact, metalenses are less demanding to manufacture than even a very simple microchip because they require only a single lithography mask as opposed to the dozens required by a microprocessor. That makes them less prone to defects and less expensive. Moreover, the size of the features on an optical metasurface are measured in hundreds of nanometers, whereas foundries are accustomed to making chips with features that are smaller than 10 nanometers.

A new method of controlling the shape of tiny particles about one tenth of the width of human hair could make the technology that powers our daily lives more stable and more efficient, scientists claim.

The process, which transforms the structure of microscopic semiconductor materials known as quantum dots, provides industry with opportunities to optimize optoelectronics, energy harvesting, photonics, and biomedical imaging technologies, according to the Cardiff University-led team.

Their study, published in Nano Letters, used a process called nanofaceting—the formation of small, flat surfaces on nanoparticles—to manipulate the quantum dots into a variety of shapes called nanocrystals.

Aubrey: 50% chance to LEV in 12–15 years, and a variety of topics from Rey Kurzweil to A.I. to Singularity, and so on.

In this podcast, Aubrey de Grey discusses his work as President and CSO at Lev Foundation and co-founder at Sense Research Foundation in the field of longevity. He explains how the Foundation’s focus is to combine rejuvenation and damage repair interventions to have greater efficacy in postponing aging and saving lives. De Grey believes that within 12 to 15 years, they have a 50% chance of achieving longevity escape velocity, which is postponing aging and rejuvenating the body faster than time passes. De Grey acknowledges the limitations of traditional approaches like exercise and diet in postponing aging and feels that future breakthroughs will come from high-tech approaches like skin and cell therapies. He discusses the potential of AI and machine learning in drug discovery and the possibility of using it to accelerate scientific experimentation to optimize decisions about which experiments to do next. De Gray cautions that the quality of conclusions from AI depends on the quality and quantity of input data and that the path towards defeating aging would require a symbiotic partnership between humans and AI. Finally, he discusses his excitement about the possibilities of hardware and devices like Apple Watch and Levels in tracking blood sugar levels and their potential to prolong life.