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Sub-nanometre resolution in 3D position measurements of light-emitting molecules has been achieved by physicists in Germany. Jörg Enderlein and colleagues at the University of Göttingen achieved the result by replacing metal films used in previous super-resolution techniques with single layers of graphene. Their innovation could allow researchers in a wide variety of fields to measure molecular positions to unprecedented degrees of accuracy.

Recently, the technique of single-molecule localization super-resolution microscopy (SMLM) has become an incredibly useful tool for researchers in fields ranging from fundamental physics to medical research. By analysing images of single light-emitting molecules, researchers can pinpoint the positions of their centres to within single atomic widths. However, SMLM faces one significant shortcoming: it can only locate molecules in 2D, giving no information about their positions along the out-of-plane axis.

This problem can be partially overcome through the technique of metal-induced energy transfer (MIET), which introduces a thin metal film to the setup. The idea is that the apparatus picks up changes in the molecule’s fluorescence that are caused by the molecule coupling to collective excitations of surface plasmons in the film. Since this light emission varies with distance from the film, researchers can use MIET to calculate the molecule’s distance relative to the film surface, allowing them to locate it along the third axis. Yet with current versions of the technique, the accuracy of this out-of-plane measurement is 3–5 times worse than that of lateral localization, in the plane of the film.

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Once tooth enamel breaks or wears away it’s over – it doesn’t grow back. That’s why dentists have to plug in the gaps with artificial fillings. But now, a team of scientists from China’s Zhejiang University and Jiujiang Research Institute says it has finally figured out how to regrow tooth enamel, a development that could totally upend dental care. The team developed a gel that has been found to help mouse teeth regrow enamel within 48 hours. The research has been published in the journal Science Advances.

What exactly is enamel and why can’t it regrow? It is a mineralized substance with a highly complicated structure that covers the surface of teeth. The structure is made up of enamel rods interwoven with inter-rods in a fish scale pattern which makes it the hardest tissue in the human body. It is initially formed biologically but once mature it becomes acellular, meaning it becomes devoid of the ability to self-repair. This is why cavities (tooth decay) are one of the most prevalent chronic diseases in humans.

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Proposed “Spaceline” space elevator to the moon could be feasible, and could simplify efforts to mine raw materials from the lunar surface.

With apologies to “Spinal Tap,” it appears that black can, indeed, get more black.

MIT engineers report today that they have cooked up a material that is 10 times blacker than anything that has previously been reported. The material is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, or CNTs—microscopic filaments of carbon, like a fuzzy forest of tiny trees, that the team grew on a surface of chlorine-etched aluminum foil. The foil captures more than 99.96 percent of any incoming light, making it the blackest material on record.

The researchers have published their findings today in the journal ACS-Applied Materials and Interfaces. They are also showcasing the cloak-like material as part of a new exhibit today at the New York Stock Exchange, titled “The Redemption of Vanity.”

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have replicated one of the most well-known electromagnetic effects in physics, the Hall Effect, using radio waves (photons) instead of electric current (electrons). Their technique could be used to create advanced communication systems that boost signal transmission in one direction while simultaneously absorbing signals going in the opposite direction.

The Hall Effect, discovered in 1879 by Edwin Hall, occurs because of the interaction between charged particles and electromagnetic fields. In an electric field, negatively charged particles (electrons) experience a force opposite to the direction of the field. In a magnetic field, moving electrons experience a force in the direction perpendicular to both their motion and the magnetic field. These two forces combine in the Hall Effect, where perpendicular electric and magnetic fields combine to generate an electric current. Light isn’t charged, so regular electric and magnetic fields can’t be used to generate an analogous “current of light.” However, in a recent paper published in Physical Review Letters, researchers have done exactly this with the help of what they call “synthetic electric and magnetic fields.”

Principal investigator Gaurav Bahl’s research group has been working on several methods to improve radio and optical data transmission as well as fiber optic communication. Earlier this year, the group exploited an interaction between light and sound waves to suppress the scattering of light from material defects and published its results in Optica. In 2018, team member Christopher Peterson was the lead author in a Science Advances paper which explained a technology that promises to halve the bandwidth needed for communications by allowing an antenna to send and receive signals on the same frequency simultaneously through a process called nonreciprocal coupling.

The Netherlands is building roads out of plastic waste. Take a journey down the plastic highway 😍😍.

The Netherlands is building roads out of plastic waste. Take a journey down the plastic highway 😍 😍

🎥 : World Economic Forum #lovethenetherlands #1sttheworld

The growing popularity of lithium-ion batteries in recent years has put a strain on the world’s supply of cobalt and nickel—two metals integral to current battery designs—and sent prices surging.

In a bid to develop alternative designs for lithium-based batteries with less reliance on those scarce metals, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a promising new cathode and electrolyte system that replaces expensive metals and traditional liquid electrolyte with lower cost transition metal fluorides and a solid polymer electrolyte.

“Electrodes made from transition metal fluorides have long shown stability problems and rapid failure, leading to significant skepticism about their ability to be used in next generation batteries,” said Gleb Yushin, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering. “But we’ve shown that when used with a solid polymer electrolyte, the metal fluorides show remarkable stability—even at higher temperatures—which could eventually lead to safer, lighter and cheaper lithium-ion batteries.”

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the California NanoSystems Institute in Los Angeles have recently developed a soft swimming robot based on a self-sustained hydrogel oscillator. This robot, presented in a paper published in Science Robotics, operates under constant light input without the need for a battery.

“When I shone light on a soft, fast responsive hydrogel pillar, I observed the pillar started to oscillate around the optical beam,” Yusen Zhao, a Ph.D. student involved in the research, said. “It looked very intriguing to me, and I wondered: How can a constant input produce intermittent output? Under what conditions does the oscillation happen? Would it be powerful enough to propel and swim in water, and eventually lead to solar sails? With these questions, I continued systematic studies aiming to achieve these objectives.”

Zhao and his colleagues developed a soft oscillator made of a light-responsive soft gel, which is molded into the shape of a pillar or strip. When light hits a spot of this gel pillar, it is automatically absorbed and converted into heat. The locally heated spot on the robot causes it to eject some of its water and shrink in volume, resulting in its tail bending towards the light source.