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Until recently, it was widely believed among physicists that it was impossible to compress light below the so-called diffraction limit (see below), except when using metal nanoparticles, which unfortunately also absorb light. It therefore seemed impossible to compress light strongly in dielectric materials such as silicon, which are key materials in information technologies and come with the important advantage that they do not absorb light.

Interestingly, it was shown theoretically in 2006 that the diffraction limit also does not apply to dielectrics. Still, no one has succeeded in showing this in the , simply because no one has been able to build the necessary nanostructures until now.

A research team from DTU has successfully designed and built a structure, a so-called dielectric nanocavity, which concentrates light in a volume 12 times below the diffraction limit. The result is groundbreaking in optical research and has just been published in Nature Communications.

Scientists have shown that they can detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the air by using a nanotechnology-packed bubble that spills its chemical contents like a broken piñata when encountering the virus.

Such a could be positioned on a wall or ceiling, or in an air duct, where there’s constant air movement, to alert occupants immediately when even a trace level of the virus is present.

The heart of the nanotechnology is a , a composed of oils, fats and sometimes water with inner space that can be filled with air or another substance. Micelles are often used to deliver anticancer drugs in the body and are a staple in soaps and detergents. Almost everyone has encountered a micelle in the form of soap bubbles.

Researchers from North Carolina State University and The University of Texas at Austin have discovered a unique property in complex nanostructures that had previously only been seen in simple nanostructures. They have also uncovered the internal mechanics of the materials that allow for this property to exist.

The findings were reported in a recent paper that was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The scientists found these properties in oxide-based “nanolattices,” which are tiny, hollow materials with a structure resembling that of sea sponges.

“This has been seen before in simple nanostructures, like a nanowire, which is about 1,000 times thinner than a hair,” said Yong Zhu, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NC State, and one of the lead authors on the paper. “But this is the first time we’ve seen it in a 3D nanostructure.”

Insider obtained documents that reveal the topics, goals and challenges discussed. Together, they show Amazon’s ambition to take on Google’s DeepMind, a pioneer in AI-powered scientific discovery. This could take Amazon from dabbling in healthcare services, and turn it into a potentially serious player in the future of medicine.

“The demarcation line between core Amazon/AWS business and life science and healthcare is shifting,” said Amazon scientist and senior solutions architect Sergey Menis, according to a transcript of his comments seen by Insider. “We are increasingly more specialized in healthcare and life sciences.” An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.

Menis developed a nanoparticle that underpins a promising HIV vaccine candidate. He was joined at last week’s Amazon Machine Learning Conference by Amazon’s chief medical officer Taha Kass-Hout.

Tandem solar cells made of perovskite and silicon enable significantly higher efficiencies than silicon solar cells alone. Tandem cells from HZB have already achieved several world records. Most recently, in November 2021, HZB research teams achieved a certified efficiency of 29.8% with a tandem cell made of perovskite and silicon. This was an absolute world record that stood unbeaten at the top for eight months. It was not until the summer of 2022 that a Swiss team at EPFL succeeded in surpassing this value.

Three HZB teams worked closely together for the record-breaking tandem cell. Now they present the details in Nature Nanotechnology. The journal also invited them to write a research briefing, in which they summarize their work and give an outlook on future developments.

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Brain tumors are among the most deadly and difficult-to-treat cancers. Glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive form, kills more than 10,000 Americans a year and has a median survival time of less than 15 months.

For patients with brain tumors, treatment typically includes open-skull surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible followed by chemotherapy or radiation, which come with serious side effects and numerous hospital visits.

What if a patient’s brain tumor could be treated painlessly, without anesthesia, in the comfort of their home? Researchers at Stanford Medicine have developed, and tested in mice, a small wireless device that one day could do just that. The device is a remotely activated implant that can heat up nanoparticles injected into the tumor, gradually killing cancerous cells.

This could enable for microgrids for sewage disposal and more lucrative businesses in waste reclaiming through making essentially computers with waste.


A synthesis procedure developed by NITech scientists can convert fish scales obtained from fish waste into a useful carbon-based nanomaterial. Their approach uses microwaves to break the scales down thermally via pyrolysis in less than 10 seconds, yielding carbon nano-onions with unprecedented quality compared with those obtained from conventional methods. Credit: Takashi Shirai from NITech, Japan.

Carbon-based nanomaterials are increasingly being used in electronics, energy conversion and storage, catalysis, and biomedicine due to their low toxicity, chemical stability, and extraordinary electrical and optical properties. CNOs, or carbon nano-onions, are by no means an exception. CNOs, which were first described in 1980, are nanostructures made up of concentric shells of fullerenes that resemble cages inside cages. They have several desired qualities, including a large surface area and high electrical and thermal conductivities.

Two-dimensional material-based transistors are being extensively investigated for CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology extension; nevertheless, downscaling appears to be challenging owing to high metal-semiconductor contact resistance.

Two-dimensional (2D) nano-materials could be a replacement for conventional CMOS semiconductors for high-speed integrated circuits and very low power usage. CMOS is reaching the physical limits of about 1 nanometer circuits.

Lab performance of these devices has been found to meet the international roadmap for devices and systems (IRDS) requirements for several benchmark metrics.