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Category: nanotechnology – Page 203

Scientists at Osaka University develop a label-free method for identifying respiratory viruses based on changes in electrical current when they pass through silicon nanopores, which may lead to new rapid COVID-19 tests.

The ongoing global pandemic has created an urgent need for rapid tests that can diagnose the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19, and distinguish it from other respiratory viruses. Now, researchers from Japan have demonstrated a new system for single-virion identification of common respiratory pathogens using a machine learning algorithm trained on changes in current across silicon nanopores. This work may lead to fast and accurate screening tests for diseases like COVID-19 and influenza.

In a study published this month in ACS Sensors scientists at Osaka University have introduced a new system using silicon nanopores sensitive enough to detect even a single virus particle when coupled with a machine learning algorithm.

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A material that mimics human skin in strength, stretchability and sensitivity could be used to collect biological data in real time. Electronic skin, or e-skin, may play an important role in next-generation prosthetics, personalized medicine, soft robotics and artificial intelligence.

“The ideal e-skin will mimic the many natural functions of human skin, such as sensing temperature and touch, accurately and in real time,” says KAUST postdoc Yichen Cai. However, making suitably flexible electronics that can perform such delicate tasks while also enduring the bumps and scrapes of everyday life is challenging, and each material involved must be carefully engineered.

Most e-skins are made by layering an active nanomaterial (the sensor) on a stretchy surface that attaches to human skin. However, the connection between these layers is often too weak, which reduces the durability and sensitivity of the material; alternatively, if it is too strong, flexibility becomes limited, making it more likely to crack and break the circuit.

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What if with the new wave of technologies, such as nanotechnology which would enable us to reprogram matter at a molecular level, we can overcome scarcity once and for all? Design would then become the most important part from start to end product which can be freely shared or have a premium in the marketplace. At any rate, this will dismantle the current social, economic, and political system, because it will become irrelevant; every institution, every value system, every aspect of our lives have been governed by scarcity: the problem of distributing a finite amount of “stuff.” There will be no need for any of today’s social institutions. In other words, when nanotech and ultra-realistic VR are commonplace, the system built on scarcity will crumble and that would herald the forthcoming “economic singularity.” #EconomicSiingularity

The current faltering economic model is suboptimal, hinders economic growth, and is not sustainable going forward.

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When light falls on a material, such as a green leaf or the retina, certain molecules transport energy and charge. This ultimately leads to the separation of charges and the generation of electricity. Molecular funnels, so-called conical intersections, ensure that this transport is highly efficient and directed.

An international team of physicists has now observed that such conical intersections also ensure a directed energy transport between neighboring of a nanomaterial. Theoretical simulations have confirmed the . Until now, scientists had observed this phenomenon only within one molecule. In the long term, the results could help to develop more efficient nanomaterials for organic solar cells, for example. The study, led by Antonietta De Sio, University of Oldenburg, and Thomas Frauenheim, University of Bremen, Germany, was published in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Photochemical processes play a major role in nature and in technology: When molecules absorb light, their electrons transit to an excited state. This transition triggers extremely fast molecular switching processes. In the human eye, for example, the molecule rhodopsin rotates in a certain way after absorbing light and thus ultimately triggers an electrical signal—the most elementary step in the visual process.

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The work was conducted in the laboratory of Dan Peer, PhD, VP for R&D and Head of the Laboratory of Precision Nanomedicine at the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research at TAU. The research was conducted by Daniel Rosenblum, PhD, together with PhD student Anna Gutkin and colleagues in Peer’s laboratory and other collaborators.

The study “CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing using targeted lipid nanoparticles for cancer therapy” appears in Science Advances.

“Harnessing CRISPR-Cas9 technology for cancer therapeutics has been hampered by low editing efficiency in tumors and potential toxicity of existing delivery systems. Here, we describe a safe and efficient lipid nanoparticle (LNP) for the delivery of Cas9 mRNA and sgRNAs that use a novel amino-ionizable lipid,” write the investigators.

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The motion of magnetic particles as they pass through a magnetic field is called magnetophoresis. Until now, not much was known about the factors influencing these particles and their movement. Now, researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago describe several fundamental processes associated with the motion of magnetic particles through fluids as they are pulled by a magnetic field.

Their findings are reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Understanding more about the motion of magnetic particles as they pass through a magnetic field has numerous applications, including , biosensors, molecular imaging, and catalysis. For example, loaded with drugs can be delivered to discrete spots in the body after they are injected into the bloodstream or using magnets. This process currently is used in some forms of chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer.

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Current state-of-the-art techniques have clear limitations when it comes to imaging the smallest nanoparticles, making it difficult for researchers to study viruses and other structures at the molecular level.

Scientists from the University of Houston and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have reported in Nature Communications a new optical imaging technology for nanoscale objects, relying upon unscattered to detect as small as 25 nanometers in diameter. The technology, known as PANORAMA, uses a glass slide covered with gold nanodiscs, allowing scientists to monitor changes in the and determine the target’s characteristics.

PANORAMA takes its name from Plasmonic Nano-aperture Label-free Imaging (PlAsmonic NanO-apeRture lAbel-free iMAging), signifying the key characteristics of the technology. PANORAMA can be used to detect, count and determine the size of individual dielectric nanoparticles.

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Physicists from MIPT and Vladimir State University, Russia, have converted light energy into surface waves on graphene with nearly 90% efficiency. They relied on a laser-like energy conversion scheme and collective resonances. The paper was published in Laser & Photonics Reviews.

Manipulating light at the nanoscale is a task crucial for being able to create ultracompact devices for optical conversion and storage. To localize light on such a small scale, researchers convert optical radiation into so-called plasmon-polaritons. These SPPs are oscillations propagating along the interface between two materials with drastically different refractive indices—specifically, a metal and a dielectric or air. Depending on the materials chosen, the degree of surface wave localization varies. It is the strongest for light localized on a material only one atomic layer thick, because such 2-D materials have high refractive indices.

The existing schemes for converting light to SPPs on 2-D surfaces have an efficiency of no more than 10%. It is possible to improve that figure by using intermediary signal converters—nano-objects of various chemical compositions and geometries.

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