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Category: engineering – Page 124

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reiterated his support for terraforming Mars, as part of his long-term goal to make humanity into a multi-planetary species.

On Sunday, the day after SpaceX’s all-civilian mission to orbit returned to Earth, the CEO took to Twitter to suggest that he’s still got his sights set on the long-term goal of making Mars a more Earth-like world. In response to a post about Mars temperatures, which claimed the average surface temperature is around minus 63 degrees Celsius (minus 82 degrees Fahrenheit), Musk responded: “Needs a little warming up.”

The comments hint at Musk’s goal, stated multiple times over the years, that he would like to transform the planet’s atmosphere to make it more hospitable to human life. It forms part of his overall goal with SpaceX: reduce spaceflight costs, use it to establish permanent human presences elsewhere in space, and transform humanity into a multi-planetary species.

In the wake of the Inspiration4 mission, it’s a reminder that Musk wants to do more than send private citizens into space for orbital trips.

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Scientists in the U.S. and U.K. have recently grown seven miniature human organs and housed them together on a chip to create a human-on-a-chip, a whole body biomimetic device. These clusters of assembled cells mimic how organs in the body function, both separately and in tandem.

The chip could take the place of animal and tissue testing for drugs in pharmaceutical development, say its creators. It will have to win regulatory approval in each country looking to use it for tests, and it could allow for insights into how organs interact, says Linda Griffith, professor of biological and mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Griffith heads The PhysioMimetics program at MIT, which has collaborated with CN Bio Innovations, a British company that creates live organ-on-a-chip devices. The $26.3-million development program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

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September 15 2021 — Breathe in, breathe out. That’s how easy it is for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to enter your nose. And though remarkable progress has been made in developing intramuscular vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 such as the readily available Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, nothing yet – like a nasal vaccine – has been approved to provide mucosal immunity in the nose, the first barrier against the virus before it travels down to the lungs.

But now, we’re one step closer.

Navin Varadarajan, University of Houston M.D. Anderson Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and his colleagues, are reporting in iScience the development of an intranasal subunit vaccine that provides durable local immunity against inhaled pathogens.

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A team of researchers from Texas A&M University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering has designed and 3D bioprinted a highly realistic model of a blood vessel.

The model is made of a newly nanoengineered, purpose-built hydrogel bioink and closely mimics the natural vascular function of a real blood vessel, as well as its disease response. The team hopes its work can pave the way for advanced cardiovascular drug development, expediting treatment approval while eliminating the need for animal and human testing altogether.

“A remarkably unique characteristic of this nanoengineered bioink is that regardless of cell density, it demonstrates a high printability and ability to protect encapsulated cells against high shear forces in the bioprinting process,” said Akhilesh Gaharwar, associate professor at the university and co-author of the study. “Remarkably, 3D bioprinted cells maintain a healthy phenotype and remain viable for nearly one month post-fabrication.”

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Simply by adding sugar, researchers from the Monash Energy Institute have created a longer-lasting, lighter, more sustainable rival to the lithium-ion batteries that are essential for aviation, electric vehicles and submarines.

The Monash team, assisted by CSIRO, report in today’s edition of Nature Communications that using a glucose-based additive on the positive electrode they have managed to stabilize lithium-sulfur battery technology, long touted as the basis for the next generation of batteries.

“In less than a decade, this technology could lead to vehicles including electric busses and trucks that can travel from Melbourne to Sydney without recharging. It could also enable innovation in delivery and agricultural drones where light weight is paramount,” says lead author Professor Mainak Majumder, from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Associate Director of the Monash Energy Institute.

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Scientists have found a new chemical process to turn a stinky, toxic gas into a clean-burning fuel.

The process, detailed recently in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Sustainable Chemical Engineering, turns —more commonly called “sewer gas”—into . Hydrogen sulfide is emitted from manure piles and sewer pipes and is a key byproduct of industrial activities including refining oil and gas, producing paper and mining.

The process detailed in this study uses relatively little energy and a relatively cheap material—the chemical iron sulfide with a trace amount of molybdenum as an additive.

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The long-awaited $355 million development of Little Island New York has finally been made reality, offering the Big Apple a unique new space.

Although it’s unlikely travel to the US will be on the cards for Aussies anytime soon, it’s good to keep track of the developments that await us when we eventually graduate from tiny travel bubbles to full-scale international adventure once again. The latest development: the ambitious new US$260 million (AU$335 million) Little Island New York, an offshore public park in the Hudson River that has been one of the city’s most anticipated openings for a couple of years now.

Located at Pier 55 the fascinating public park has been designed to resemble a supersized leaf drifting on the Hudson, buoyed by a base of 280 concrete piles and precast columns driven down as far as 60 metres below water, as well as 132 tulip-shaped concrete pots positioned at various elevations from 4 metres to 18 metres above water, designed specifically by Heatherwick Studio, and developed by engineering firm Arup, to hold the soil, overlooks, and trees. This support base allows for the two-acre park to stay securely afloat so its 687-seat amphitheatre, smaller stage, and plaza don’t suddenly drop to the depths of the Hudson.

The waterborne engineering is almost as fascinating as the park itself, but it’s what’s on top this mini-island that represents what many reports are (hopefully not naively) likening to a bridge between New York City’s pre-and post-COVID era.

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A new quantum radar technology developed by a team of Chinese researchers would be able to detect stealth planes, the South China Morning Post is reporting.

The news service reports that the radar technology generates a mini electromagnetic storm to detect objects. Professor Zhang Chao and his team at Tsinghua University’s aerospace engineering school, reported their findings in a paper in Journal of Radars.

A quantum radar is different from traditional radars in several ways, according to the paper. While traditional radars have on a fixed or rotating dish, the quantum design features a gun-shaped instrument that accelerates electrons. The electrons pass through a winding tube of a strong magnetic fields, producing what is described as a tornado-shaped microwave vortex.

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