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Category: nanotechnology

Scientists have found a new way molecules can cooperate at room temperature

What if glowing molecules could synchronize, much like fireflies flashing in unison? Researchers have discovered that molecules confined within tiny gold nanostructures can behave collectively, coordinating their interactions even under conditions where this was previously thought impossible. The finding challenges long standing assumptions about how optical coherence forms and opens new possibilities for highly sensitive sensors, molecular photonics, and future quantum technologies capable of operating at room temperature.

Optical coherence describes a state in which light—or the molecules producing it—behaves in a highly coordinated way. It is the principle behind technologies such as lasers, advanced imaging systems and quantum communication. Traditionally, scientists believed this kind of coordinated behavior required specially designed optical cavities that trap light for relatively long periods.

Helical nanoparticles trigger cancer alarms and deliver gene therapy

Cancer cells survive by hiding from the immune system’s surveillance. A KAIST research team has developed a new anticancer platform that makes cancer cells send out their own danger signals—prompting immune cells to attack—while simultaneously delivering gene therapy. The approach is expected to offer a new treatment strategy that combines cancer immunotherapy and gene therapy in a single nanoparticle.

Immunogenic cell death (ICD) is a process in which dying cancer cells send danger signals to nearby immune cells, prompting them to attack. A polypeptide is a polymer made of a long chain of amino acids.

A team led by Professor Yeu-Chun Kim from the KAIST Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering developed a “helical polypeptide nanoparticle” platform that induces severe stress inside cancer cells to trigger immunogenic cell death while also delivering a range of gene therapeutics into the cells. The findings are published in the journal Biomaterials.

Nanoreactor Mimics Living Cells To Supercharge Artificial Photosynthesis

A biomimetic nanoreactor combines cellular design principles to produce hydrogen peroxide efficiently under visible light.

Inside a hollow nanoscale structure, researchers have recreated two strategies that living cells use to control chemical reactions. The resulting CdS@polydopamine nanoreactor offers a synthetic way to reproduce some of the organization and efficiency found in biological systems.

The work was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Can Li of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), led the research with Jian Liu’s group at Inner Mongolia University.

Scientists decipher how T cells sense enemies—such as cancer—at point of contact

Every encounter between a T cell and a potential target—especially when that target is a developing tumor—begins with a rapid series of molecular decisions. Within seconds, the immune cell must determine whether to launch an attack or stand down. T cells are so potent, so potentially devastating, that misreading the situation can cause serious tissue injury.

But cancer cells come equipped with a bag of tricks that allows them to disarm these powerful warriors of the immune system. All of these activities, whether mediated by T cells or their targets, occur at split-second speed and unfold at the point of cell-to-cell contact.

Now, scientists have identified tiny nanoscale contact points where those decisions are made, revealing how activation and inhibitory signals are integrated at the first moments of a cell-to-cell encounter.

James Martin: We Can Control Accelerating Technology

In February 2011, I spent an hour on Skype asking one of the most influential computer scientists alive whether we could still steer the technologies we were building.

James Martin said yes.

He had earned the right to that answer. Computerworld ranked him fourth among the 25 people who most shaped computer science. The Sunday Times called him Britain’s leading futurist. He wrote 104 textbooks, picked up a Pulitzer nomination, collected honorary doctorates from six continents, then gave away more than $100 million to found the Oxford Martin School so 30 institutes could work on the hardest problems of the century.

So when he told me accelerating technology is controllable, he was not being naive. He was being deliberate. Control, in his telling, was never a technical property of the machines. It was a civilizational choice, and he thought this century was the narrow window in which we get to make it.

We talked about exponential growth in genetics, robotics, nanotech and #AI. We talked about The Meaning of the 21st Century and the project he was working on then, the Transformation of Humankind. He was not selling optimism. He was assigning homework.

Fifteen years later, the claim in the title is a lot harder to defend than it was when he made it. Or maybe that is precisely his point, and we are the ones who failed the assignment.

Continue reading “James Martin: We Can Control Accelerating Technology” | >

Membrane nanostructures reshape in water, revealing route to better ion transport

Next-generation energy devices like fuel cells and water electrolyzers depend on ion-exchange membranes that allow only water and certain ions to pass through.

The design of these membranes affects how efficient these devices can be. Understanding how the materials used in them influence their performance is key to advancing these technologies.

At the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME), researchers collaborated with scientists at New York University to study the backbone chemistry of different types of ion-exchange membranes to better understand how their chemical makeup governs their structure and performance.

World’s first ‘zinc oxide spin qubit’ could advance scalable quantum devices

A research team led by SKKU professor Hosung Seo of the Department of Quantum Information Engineering and the SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology, working with the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Washington, has identified—for the first time—an atomic defect structure in the zinc oxide (ZnO) semiconductor with outstanding properties for use as a “spin qubit,” a core building block of future quantum computers, quantum communications and quantum sensors.

The results are published in PRX Quantum.

Electron spins trapped at point defects in solid-state crystals can operate at room temperature and retain quantum information for long periods, making them a leading platform not only for quantum computing but also for quantum communications and ultrasensitive quantum sensing. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond has been the most prominent candidate, but diamond is difficult to grow into large-area, high-quality crystals and is poorly suited to standard semiconductor fabrication, posing major obstacles to the integration and mass production of quantum devices.

Quantum dots reveal hidden light waves on metal surfaces

Photographs can reveal things that are otherwise impossible for the naked eye to see, be they distant galaxies or microscopic cells. Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University have developed a practical and versatile imaging technique that makes another usually invisible phenomenon visible: surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), light waves that travel along metal surfaces.

The new method, published in the journal Nano Letters, could boost the development of next-generation optical and plasmonic technologies.

SPPs are electromagnetic waves that travel along the boundary between a metal and a dielectric material, such as air or glass. Unlike ordinary light, which spreads freely through three-dimensional space, SPPs remain tightly confined to this interface, allowing them to be guided and manipulated at the nanoscale. This unique property makes them fundamental to emerging technologies including ultrasensitive sensors, optical circuits and quantum devices.

A petavoxel fragment of human cerebral cortex reconstructed at nanoscale resolution

From the article:

“In a 2024 Science study, researchers performed a high-resolution EM reconstruction of the ultrastructure of a cubic millimeter of human temporal cortex. According to the authors, the reconstruction contains roughly 57,000 cells, about 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and nearly 150 million synapses, comprising 1,400 terabytes of data.”

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