A smartphone touchscreen is an impressive piece of technology. It displays information and responds to a user’s touch. But as many people know, it’s easy to break key elements of the transparent, electrically conductive layers that make up even the sturdiest rigid touchscreen. If flexible smartphones, e-paper and a new generation of smart watches are to succeed, they can’t use existing touchscreen technology.
Your smartphone can’t do this – yet. (Image: Peter Sobolev)
China is also planning to use the initiative to flex its scientific and engineering muscles, officials made clear at a 2-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation that ended yesterday in Beijing. “Innovation is an important force powering development,” Xi said in a speech to the opening session of the forum. And so the initiative will include technical cooperation in fields including artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, and smart cities. He also mentioned the need to pursue economic growth that is in line with sustainable development goals, and that rests on environmentally friendly approaches.
Investment also planned in artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and other fields.
Nano Dimension (NASDAQ, TASE: NNDM) is focused on the research and development of advanced 3D printed electronics, including a 3D printer for multilayer printed circuit boards, and the development of nanotechnology-based conductive and dielectric inks, which are complementary products for 3D printers.
Nextbigfuture interviewed Amit Dror, CEO and cofounder of Nano Dimension. Amit is a project leader with extensive experience in company and account management.
Nano Dimension’s novel and proprietary technologies enable the use of conductive and dielectric inks for ultra-rapid prototyping of complex, high-performance multilayer circuit boards. The company’s PCB 3D printer is the result of combining advanced breakthroughs in inkjet technology, 3D printing and nanotechnology.
For the first time, scientists have succeeded in studying the strength of hydrogen bonds in a single molecule using an atomic force microscope. Researchers from the University of Basel’s Swiss Nanoscience Institute network have reported the results in the journal Science Advances.
Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and is an integral part of almost all organic compounds. Molecules and sections of macromolecules are connected to one another via hydrogen atoms, an interaction known as hydrogen bonding. These interactions play an important role in nature, because they are responsible for specific properties of proteins or nucleic acids and, for example, also ensure that water has a high boiling temperature.
To date, it has not been possible to conduct a spectroscopic or electron microscopic analysis of hydrogen and the hydrogen bonds in single molecules, and investigations using atomic force microscopy have also not yielded any clear results.
Researchers from the University of Antwerp and KU Leuven (University of Leuven), Belgium, have developed a process that purifies air, and at the same time, generates power. The device must only be exposed to light in order to function.
“We used a small device with two rooms separated by a membrane,” explained professor Sammy Verbruggen (UAntwerp/KU Leuven). “Air is purified on one side, while on the other side, hydrogen gas is produced from a part of the degradation products. This hydrogen gas can be stored and used later as fuel, as is already being done in some hydrogen buses, for example.”
In this way, the researchers respond to two major social needs: clean air and alternative energy production. The heart of the solution lies at the membrane level, where the researchers use specific nanomaterials. “These catalysts are capable of producing hydrogen gas and breaking down air pollution,” explains professor Verbruggen. “In the past, these cells were mostly used to extract hydrogen from water. We have now discovered that this is also possible, and even more efficient, with polluted air.”
Another futurist, Dave Evans, founder and CTO of Silicon Valley stealth startup Stringify, gave his thoughts about Kurzweil’s nanobot idea in an interview with James Bedsole on February.
Evans explained that he thinks such a merging of technology and biology isn’t at all farfetched. In fact, he described three stages as to how this will occur: the wearable phase (where we are today), the embeddable phase (where we’re headed, with neural implants and such), and the replaceable phase.
Unimaginable Radical Abundance:
Yesterday I took the time to read chapter 11 of Eric Drexler’s book Radical Abundance as to get a glimpse of what might be possible with Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM). I highly recommend the book.
The potential of APM is truly unimaginable.
Try to imagine billion core processors, memory storage in the billions of gigabytes per cm2. Solar panels far exceeding todays best laboratory efficiencies. Batteries that are a billion times more energy dense. All this with a negligible impact on the environment.
APM can produce these products and many more at costs of roughly 20¢ per kilogram!
Just let that sink in. Just to illustrate this $1 would buy you more memory storage than is currently available throughout the entire world (roughly 10 Zettabytes).
Schematic illustrating the direction of ion/water permeation along graphene planes (credit: J. Abraham et al./ Nature Nanotechnology)
British Scientists have designed a way to use graphene-oxide (GO) membranes to filter common salts out of salty water and make the water safe to drink.
Graphene-oxide membranes developed at the National Graphene Institute had already demonstrated the potential of filtering out small nanoparticles, organic molecules, and even large salts. And previous research at The University of Manchester also found that if immersed in water, graphene-oxide membranes become slightly swollen and smaller salts flow through the membrane along with water, but larger ions or molecules are blocked.