Lifeboat Foundation

From repairing deadly brain bleeds to tackling tumors with precise chemotherapy, micro/nano-robots (MNRs) are a promising, up-and-coming tool that have the power to substantially advance health care. However, this tool still has difficulty navigating within the human body—a limitation that has prevented it from entering clinical trials.

Mathematical models are crucial to the optimal design and navigation of MNRs, but the current models are inadequate. Now, new, promising research from the University of Saskatchewan (USask) may allow MNRs to overcome the limitations that previously prevented their widespread use.

USask College of Engineering professor Dr. Chris Zhang (Ph. D.) and two Ph.D. students (Lujia Ding, N.N Hu) along with two USask alumni (Dr. Bing Zhang (Ph. D.), Dr. R. Y. Yin (Ph. D.)) are the first team to develop a highly accurate mathematical model that optimizes the design of MNRs which improves their navigation, allowing them to travel efficiently through the bloodstream. Their work was recently published in Nature Communications.

Surfaces play a key role in numerous chemical reactions, including catalysis and corrosion. Understanding the atomic structure of the surface of a functional material is essential for both engineers and chemists. Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan used atomic-resolution secondary electron (SE) imaging to capture the atomic structure of the very top layer of materials to better understand the differences from its lower layers. The researchers published their findings in the journal Microscopy.

Some materials exhibit “surface reconstruction,” where the surface atoms are organized differently from the interior atoms. To observe this, especially at the atomic level, surface-sensitive techniques are needed.

Traditionally, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has been an effective tool to examine nanoscale structures. SEM works by scanning a sample with a focused electron beam and capturing the SEs emitted from the surface. SEs are typically emitted from a shallow depth below the surface, making it difficult to observe phenomena like surface reconstruction, especially if only a single atomic layer is involved.

Researchers in the Nanoscience Center at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, have used machine learning and supercomputer simulations to investigate how tiny gold nanoparticles bind to blood proteins. The studies discovered that favorable nanoparticle-protein interactions can be predicted from machine learning models that are trained from atom-scale molecular dynamics simulations. The new methodology opens ways to simulate the efficacy of gold nanoparticles as targeted drug delivery systems in precision nanomedicine.

Hybrid nanostructures between biomolecules and inorganic nanomaterials constitute a largely unexplored field of research, with the potential for novel applications in bioimaging, biosensing, and nanomedicine. Developing such applications relies critically on understanding the dynamical properties of the nano–bio interface.

Modeling the properties of the nano-bio interface is demanding since the important processes such as electronic charge transfer, chemical reactions or restructuring of the biomolecule surface can take place in a wide range of length and time scales, and the atomistic simulations need to be run in the appropriate aqueous environment.

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The book “Intelciety. Intelligent Society. Are We Ready for the Challenge?” explores the profound changes that artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies are causing in modern society. Vicente Ferreira da Silva addresses how these technologies are transforming various fields, from medicine and biotechnology to robotics and nanotechnology, and questions whether we are truly prepared to deal with these advances.

Water, a molecule essential for life, exhibits unusual properties—referred to as anomalies—that define its behavior. Despite extensive study, many mysteries remain about the molecular mechanisms underlying these anomalies that make water unique. Deciphering and replicating this distinctive behavior across various temperature ranges remains a significant challenge for the scientific community.

Now, a study presents a new theoretical model capable of overcoming the limitations of previous methodologies to understand how water behaves in extreme conditions. The paper, featured on the cover of The Journal of Chemical Physics, is led by Giancarlo Franzese and Luis Enrique Coronas, from the Faculty of Physics and the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology of the University of Barcelona (IN2UB).

The study not only broadens our understanding of the physics of water, but also has implications for technology, biology and biomedicine, in particular for addressing the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and the development of advanced biotechnologies.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a nanomedicine that increases the penetration and accumulation of chemotherapy drugs in tumor tissues and effectively kills cancer cells in mice.

The study, published in Science Advances, addresses a…

Research effectively used nanoparticles to deliver chemo drugs directly to tumors in mice.

Continue reading “UChicago scientists develop new nanomedicine approach to improve cancer treatment” »

Akash Systems has signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms with the U.S. Department of Commerce for $18.2 million in direct funding and $50 million in federal and state tax credits through the CHIPS Act. Although this isn’t yet a binding contract that will give the company the promised funds, it’s an important first step in the negotiation process for the Oakland-based startup, which shows that both the company and the U.S. government are gradually moving towards a formal agreement. According to Akash Systems (h/t Axios), it will use the funds to ramp up its operations for producing diamond-cooled semiconductors for AI, data centers, space applications, and defense markets.

Diamond-cooling technology goes deeper than just thermal paste with nano-diamond technology. For example, some use synthetic diamonds as the chip substrate, utilizing the material’s thermal conductivity to more efficiently move heat away from the processor. So, let’s look closer at Akash’s solution.

I believe that nanotechnology could be imbedded into paper so a paper computer could give one the same information as a smartphone but at pennies per smartphone. Right now we can print out 3D copies of paper phones and other things next would be nanotechnology made of paper with quantum mechanical engineering.

Irish company Mcor’s unique paper-based 3D printers make some very compelling arguments. For starters, instead of expensive plastics, they build objects out of cut-and-glued sheets of standard 80 GSM office paper. That means printed objects come out at between 10–20 percent of the price of other 3D prints, and with none of the toxic fumes or solvent dips that some other processes require.

Secondly, because it’s standard paper, you can print onto it in full color before it’s cut and assembled, giving you a high quality, high resolution color “skin” all over your final object. Additionally, if the standard hard-glued object texture isn’t good enough, you can dip the final print in solid glue, to make it extra durable and strong enough to be drilled and tapped, or in a flexible outer coating that enables moving parts — if you don’t mind losing a little of your object’s precision shape.

Continue reading “Layered paper 3D printers: Full color, durable objects at a fraction of the cost” »

Being able to precisely manipulate interacting spins in quantum systems is of key importance for the development of reliable and highly performing quantum computers. This has proven to be particularly challenging for nanoscale systems with many spins that are based on quantum dots (i.e., tiny semiconductor devices).