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Knowledge of how DNA folds and bends could offer new perspective on how it is handled within cells while also aiding in the design of DNA-based nano-scale devices, says a biomedical engineer at Texas A&M University whose new motion-based analysis of DNA is providing an accurate representation of the molecule’s flexibility.

The model, which is shedding new light on the physical properties of DNA, was developed by Wonmuk Hwang, associate professor in the university’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, and his Ph.D. student Xiaojing Teng. Hwang uses computer simulation and theoretical analysis to study biomolecules such as DNA that carry out essential functions in the human body. His latest model, which provides a motion-based analysis of DNA is detailed in the scientific journal ACS Nano. The full article can be accessed at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.5b06863.

In addition to housing the genetic information needed to build and maintain an organism, DNA has some incredibly interesting physical properties that make it ideal for the construction of nanodevices, Hwang notes. For example, the DNA encompassed within the nucleus of one human cell can extend to four feet when stretched out, but thanks to a number of folds, bends and twists, it remains in a space no bigger than one micron – a fraction of the width of a human hair. DNA also is capable of being programmed for self-assembly and disassembly, making it usable for building nano-mechanical devices.

Replacing traditional encryption schemes.

What are the prime factors, or multipliers, for the number 15? Most grade school students know the answer — 3 and 5 — by memory. A larger number, such as 91, may take some pen and paper. An even larger number, say with 232 digits, can (and has) taken scientists two years to factor, using hundreds of classical computers operating in parallel.

Needle-free Nanopatch technology developed at The University of Queensland has been used to successfully deliver an inactivated poliovirus vaccine.

Delivery of a polio vaccine with the Nanopatch was demonstrated by UQ’s Professor Mark Kendall and his research team at UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and vaccine technology company Vaxxas.

Professor Kendall said the Nanopatch had been used to administer an inactivated Type 2 poliovirus vaccine in a rat model.

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Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have for the first time experimentally demonstrated that copper nanophotonic components can operate successfully in photonic devices – it was previously believed that only gold and silver components could do so. Copper components are not only just as good as components based on noble metals; they can also be easily implemented in integrated circuits using industry-standard fabrication processes. “This is a kind of revolution – using copper will solve one of the main problems in nanophotonics,” say the authors of the paper. The results have been published in the scientific journal Nano Letters.

The discovery, which is revolutionary for photonics and the computers of the future, was made by researchers from the Laboratory of Nanooptics and Plasmonics at MIPT’s Centre of Nanoscale Optoelectronics. They have succeeded, for the first time, in producing copper nanophotonic components, whose characteristics are just as good as those of gold components. It is interesting to note that the scientists fabricated the copper components using the process compatible with the industry-standard manufacturing technologies that are used today to produce modern integrated circuits. This means that in the very near future copper nanophotonic components will form a basis for the development of energy-efficient light sources, ultra-sensitive sensors, as well as high-performance optoelectronic processors with several thousand cores.

The discovery was made under what is known as nanophotonics – a branch of research which aims, among other things, to replace existing components in data processing devices with more modern components by using photons instead of electrons. However, while transistors can be scaled down in size to a few nanometres, the diffraction of light limits the minimum dimensions of photonic components to the size of about the light wavelength (~1 micrometre). Despite the fundamental nature of this so-called diffraction limit, one can overcome it by using metal-dielectric structures to create truly nanoscale photonic components. Firstly, most metals show a negative permittivity at optical frequencies, and light cannot propagate through them, penetrating to a depth of only 25 nanometres. Secondly, light may be converted into surface plasmon polaritons, surface waves propagating along the surface of a metal. This makes it possible to switch from conventional 3D photonics to 2D surface plasmon photonics, which is known as plasmonics. This offers the possibility of controlling light at a scale of around 100 nanometres, i.e., far beyond the diffraction limit.

Continue reading “Physicists promise a copper revolution in nanophotonics” »

A major goal in renewable energy research is to harvest the energy of the sun to convert water into hydrogen gas, a storable fuel. Now, with a nanoparticle-based system, researchers have set a record for one of the half-reactions in this process, reporting 100% efficiency for the reduction of water to hydrogen (Nano Lett. 2016, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b04813).

To make such water-splitting systems, researchers must find the right materials to absorb light and catalyze the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen. The two half-reactions in this process—the reduction of water to hydrogen gas, and the oxidation of water to oxygen gas—must be isolated from each other so their products don’t react and explode. “Completing the cycle in an efficient, stable, safe fashion with earth-abundant elements is an ongoing challenge,” says chemist Nathan S. Lewis of Caltech, who was not involved in this study.

Until recently, the efficiency of the reduction step had maxed out at 60%. One challenge is that electrons and positive charges formed in the light absorption process can rapidly recombine, preventing the electrons from reducing water molecules to form hydrogen. To overcome this problem, several years ago, Lilac Amirav of Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and her colleagues designed a nanoparticle-based system (J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2010, DOI: 10.1021/jz100075c) that would physically separate the charges formed during photocatalysis.

Continue reading “Nanoscale system reaches perfect efficiency for solar fuel production step” »

Love on a Subatomic Scale.

When talking about love and romance, people often bring up unseen and mystical connections. Such connections exist in the subatomic world as well, thanks to a bizarre and counterintuitive phenomenon called quantum entanglement. The basic idea of quantum entanglement is that two particles can be intimately linked to each other even if separated by billions of light-years of space; a change induced in one will affect the other. In 1964, physicist John Bell posited that such changes can occur instantaneously, even if the particles are very far apart. Bell’s Theorem is regarded as an important idea in modern physics, but it seems to make little sense. After all, Albert Einstein had proven years before that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Indeed, Einstein famously described the entanglement phenomenon as “spooky action at a distance.” In the last half-century, many researchers have run experiments that aimed to test Bell’s Theorem. But they have tended to come up short because it’s tough to design and build equipment with the needed sensitivity and performance, NASA officials said. Last year, however, three different research groups were able to perform substantive tests of Bell’s Theorem, and all of them found support for the basic idea. One of those studies was led by Krister Shalm, a physicist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado. Shalm and his colleagues used special metal strips cooled to cryogenic temperatures, which makes them superconducting — they have no electrical resistance. A photon hits the metal and turns it back into a normal electrical conductor for a split second, and scientists can see that happen. This technique allowed the researchers to see how, if at all, their measurements of one photon affected the other photon in an entangled pair. The results, which were published in the journal Physical Review Letters, strongly backed Bell’s Theorem. “Our paper and the other two published last year show that Bell was right: any model of the world that contains hidden variables must also allow for entangled particles to influence one another at a distance,” co-author Francesco Marsili, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. There are practical applications to this work as well. The “superconducting nanowire single photon detectors” (SNSPDs) used in the Shalm group’s experiment, which were built at NIST and JPL, could be used in cryptography and in deep-space communications, NASA officials said. NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere Dust and Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission, which orbited the moon from October 2013 to April 2014, helped demonstrate some of this communications potential. LADEE’s Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration used components on the spacecraft and a ground-based receiver similar to SNSPDs. The experiment showed that it might be possible to build sensitive laser communications arrays that would enable much more data to be up- and downloaded to faraway space probes, NASA officials said.

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The nanoscale coating that’s at least 95% air repels the broadest range of liquids of any material in its class, causing them to bounce off the treated surface, according to the University of Michigan engineering researchers who developed it.

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A video about how fast technological progress is going, how much technology has improved the world and the potential for technology to solve our most pressing challenges. Inspired in part by the book Abundance by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, and by the video “Shift Happens 3.0” (also known as “Did You Know”) by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

Among the things mentioned are developments and possibilities within information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. The video also touches upon how several of these developments are exponential, but it does not get into the realm of technological singularity and the thoughts of people such as Ray Kurzweil, which is the topic of some of my other videos.

Continue reading “Did You Know? The Future Is Better Than You Think!” »

Plasmonics, the study of how electrons behave in a metal under an electromagnetic field, requires the use of specialty coherent light sources as a basic tool. Optical interferometry can potentially become more important in biomedicine if only the technology could be made more compact, practical, and proven useful.

Toward that end researchers at Brown University have developed a way of using plasmonics techniques without using a coherent light source at all. This allows optical interferometry at the nanoscale and should lead to new types of biomedical sensors that can do rapid wide spectrum analysis for a variety of markers.

Here’s more details about the technology from Brown University:

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