Lifeboat Foundation

A solar distillation device can purify brine from reverse osmosis plants with over 10 percent salinity, as well as water taken directly from the Red Sea. The technology offers double the freshwater production rate of existing salt-rejection solar stills.

Inspired by the floating solar still in “The Life of Pi” movie, KAUST professor Qiaoqiang Gan has developed several nanomaterials and thermal isolation processes to enhance the evaporation of brackish water into pure steam. In 2016 he launched a startup, Sunny Clean Water, that produces low-cost inflatable stills capable of generating 10–20 liters of fresh water per day.

Continue reading “Salt-rejecting microchannels help make seawater drinkable using the power of the sun” »

Scientists how now developed a mini tractor beam that can pull atoms and nanoparticles. Scientists have built a real working tractor beam, albeit at a very small scale. The device, which attracts one object to another from a distance, originates in fiction. The term was coined by E. E. Smith who mentioned the technology in his 1931 novel Spacehounds of IPC, and since the 1990s, researchers have worked to make it a reality.

A neuromorphic camera can localize single fluorescent particles to below 20 nm resolution and evaluate the diffusion trajectory with millisecond temporal precision.

Researchers may have made a massive breakthrough in quantum computing. According to a new study published in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers may have discovered a cheaper way to push large-scale quantum computers.

Quantum computing is an intriguing field that has seen quite a bit of growth over the past several years. However, there’s still a lot holding back the massive computers that researchers are working with – namely, their size and the sheer amount of control required to keep large-scale quantum computers running smoothly.

That’s because the larger you make a quantum computer, the more quantum bits, or qubits, it requires to run. And the entire idea of a quantum computer requires you to control every single one of those qubits to keep things running smoothly and efficiently. So, when you make large-scale quantum computers, you end up with a lot of processing power and a lot more qubits to control.

Part 1: the future of medicine: nanobots part 2: a new era in mental health: nanobots part 3: the healing power of nanobots part 4: the genetic and data-connected revolution: nanobots part 5: the end of plastic surgery: nanobots part 6: the fertility revolution: nanobots part 7: the job-specific human: nanobots part 8: the end of education as we know it: nanobots part 9: the rise of programmable matter: nanobots part 10: the next generation of humans: nanobots.

Nanotechnology is a rapidly evolving field with the potential to revolutionize medicine in the future. One of the most promising applications of nanotechnology is the use of nanobots in medicine. Nanobots are microscopic robots that can be programmed to perform specialized activities such as disease diagnosis and treatment. They can be used to diagnose and treat a wide range of conditions, including mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, as well as physical injuries and illnesses.

One of the most interesting potential applications of nanobots in medicine is the treatment of mental illnesses. Mental illnesses are among the most common and devastating diseases of our time. They can be programmed to constantly map the brain and correct faults as they develop. Alzheimer’s disease may theoretically be treated if a person was implanted with nanobots at birth.

Researchers report a new, highly unusual, structured-light family of 3D topological solitons, the photonic hopfions, where the topological textures and topological numbers can be freely and independently tuned.

We can frequently find in our daily lives a localized wave structure that maintains its shape upon propagation—picture a smoke ring flying in the air. Similar stable structures have been studied in various research fields and can be found in magnets, nuclear systems, and particle physics. In contrast to a ring of smoke, they can be made resilient to perturbations. This is known in mathematics and physics as topological protection.

A typical example is the nanoscale hurricane-like texture of a magnetic field in magnetic thin films, behaving as particles—that is, not changing their shape—called skyrmions. Similar doughnut-shaped (or toroidal) patterns in 3D space, visualizing complex spatial distributions of various properties of a wave, are called hopfions. Achieving such structures with light waves is very elusive.

Scientists from UNSW Sydney have demonstrated a novel technique for creating tiny 3D materials that could eventually make fuel cells like hydrogen batteries cheaper and more sustainable.

In the study published in Science Advances (“Synthesis of hierarchical metal nanostructures with high electrocatalytic surface areas”), researchers from the School of Chemistry at UNSW Science show it’s possible to sequentially ‘grow’ interconnected hierarchical structures in 3D at the nanoscale which have unique chemical and physical properties to support energy conversion reactions.

In chemistry, hierarchical structures are configurations of units like molecules within an organisation of other units that themselves may be ordered. Similar phenomena can be seen in the natural world, like in flower petals and tree branches. But where these structures have extraordinary potential is at a level beyond the visibility of the human eye – at the nanoscale.

Novel drugs, such as vaccines against COVID-19, among others, are based on drug transport using nanoparticles. Whether this drug transport is negatively influenced by an accumulation of blood proteins on the nanoparticle’s surface was not clarified for a long time.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have now followed the path of such a particle into a cell using a combination of several microscopy methods. They were able to observe a cell-internal process that effectively separates blood components and nanoparticles.

Nanoparticles are a current field of research and it is impossible to imagine modern medicine without them. They serve as microscopic drug capsules that are less than a thousandth of a millimeter in diameter. Among other things, they are used in current vaccines against COVID-19 to effectively deliver active ingredients to where they are actually needed. In most cases, the capsules dock onto cells, are enveloped by them, and are absorbed into them. Inside the cell, chemical processes can then open the capsules, releasing the active ingredient.

We can frequently find in our daily lives a localized wave structure that maintains its shape upon propagation—picture a smoke ring flying in the air. Similar stable structures have been studied in various research fields and can be found in magnets, nuclear systems, and particle physics. In contrast to a ring of smoke, they can be made resilient to perturbations. This is known in mathematics and physics as topological protection.

A typical example is the nanoscale hurricane-like texture of a magnetic field in magnetic thin films, behaving as particles—that is, not changing their shape—called skyrmions. Similar doughnut-shaped (or toroidal) patterns in 3D space, visualizing complex spatial distributions of various properties of a wave, are called hopfions. Achieving such structures with light waves is very elusive.

Recent studies of structured light revealed strong spatial variations of polarization, phase, and amplitude, which enable the understanding of—and open up opportunities for designing—topologically stable optical structures behaving like particles. Such quasiparticles of light with control of diversified topological properties may have great potential, for example as next-generation information carriers for ultra-large-capacity optical information transfer, as well as in quantum technologies.