Lifeboat Foundation

A team of researchers from the Institute for Optoelectronic Systems and Microtechnology at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) has designed a biosensor capable of identifying proteins and peptides in quantities as low as a single monolayer. For that, a surface acoustic wave (SAW), a kind of electrically controlled nano earthquake on a chip, is generated with an integrated transducer to act on a stack of 2D materials coated with the biomolecules to be detected.

As they report in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics in an article titled “Surface–acoustic-wave-driven graphene plasmonic sensor for fingerprinting ultrathin biolayers down to the monolayer limit,” the SAW would ripple the surface of a graphene-based stack in such a way that it confines mid–infrared light to very small volumes, enhancing light-matter interactions at the nanoscale.

In particular, quasiparticles that are part light (photons) and part matter (electrons and lattice vibrations), called surface plasmon-phonon polaritons, are formed at the rippled stack interplaying strongly with the molecules atop.

A novel nanoparticle spray coating process has been shown to all but eliminate the growth of some of the world’s most dangerous bacteria in air filtration systems, significantly reducing the risk of airborne bacterial and viral infections.

That’s the principal finding of a study, led by researchers from IMDEA Materials Institute in collaboration with scientists from the Networking Biomedical Research Center in Respiratory Diseases (CIBERES) and Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC) in Madrid, Spain. The study was published in Materials Chemistry and Physics.

The study, “Control of microbial agents by functionalization of commercial air filters with metal oxide particles,” tested various spray coatings of silver (Ag₂O), copper (CuO) and zinc (ZnO) oxides as low-cost antiviral and antibacterial filters when applied to commercially available air filtration systems.

The mysterious Lycurgus Cup is convincing evidence that ancient Romans used nanotechnology, or at least knew how to get the desired effects, long before the availability of modern technology.

The cup is made of a special type of glass known as dichroic, meaning “two-colored” in Greek, which changes hue when held up to the light. It is opaque green but turns to glowing translucent red when light shines through it.

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The humble membranes that enclose our cells have a surprising superpower: They can push away nano-sized molecules that happen to approach them. A team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has figured out why, by using artificial membranes that mimic the behavior of natural ones. Their discovery could make a difference in how we design the many drug treatments that target our cells.

The team’s findings, which appear in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, confirm that the powerful electrical fields that cell membranes generate are largely responsible for repelling nanoscale particles from the surface of the cell.

This repulsion notably affects neutral, uncharged nanoparticles, in part because the smaller, charged molecules the electric field attracts crowd the membrane and push away the larger particles. Since many drug treatments are built around proteins and other nanoscale particles that target the membrane, the repulsion could play a role in the treatments’ effectiveness.

Light can behave in strange ways when it interacts with materials. For example, in a photonic material that consists of periodic arrangements of nanoscale optical cavities, light can slow to a crawl or even stop altogether. Theorists have explained this phenomenon for some of these photonic “metacrystals” using the simplifying assumption that the light in each cavity interacts only with the light in its nearest neighbor cavities. But recent observations of photonic metacrystals with larger unit cells suggest that longer-range interactions should also be considered. Now Thanh Xuan Hoang at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research in Singapore and collaborators have theoretically confirmed the importance of long-range interactions for slowing or stopping light in a one-dimensional photonic metacrystal [1]. The team says that the finding could be used to help researchers design nanoparticle arrays for analog image processing and optical computing.

For their study, Hoang and his collaborators modeled the light–matter interactions within a row of identical dielectric nanoparticles whose diameters were similar to the wavelength of the light. Such a system is relatively tractable with precise solutions, making it a useful tool for investigating the long-range effects hinted at by recent experiments.

When the researchers extended their one-dimensional system to hundreds of nanoparticles, they found that they could collectively excite the particles by oscillating a nearby electric dipole. The resulting system displayed a resonant state that slowed a specific wavelength of light. This outcome occurred only when long-range interactions between particles were permitted. Hoang likens the dipolar emitter to the conductor of an orchestra and the particles to musicians. The nanoparticles harmonize under the conductor’s direction to create a cohesive piece, he says.

Learn how researchers utilized advanced transmission electron microscopy to observe krypton atoms joining together inside nano test tubes.

Nanotechnology is in full form as scientists successfully trap individual krypton atoms inside carbon nanotubes, forming a one-dimensional gas.

Data-centric applications benefit from dense, low-power memory. Here the authors use a combination of chalcogenide superlattices and nanocomposites to achieve low switching voltage (0.7 V) and fast speed (40 ns) in 40-nm-scale phase-change memory.

Natasha and Max also appear in a recent video titled “Transhumanism. What it is not” in conversation with David Wood and two representatives of the anti-transhumanist camp, Alexander Thomas and Émile Torres. I’m not familiar with the work of Thomas. I’m more familiar with the work of Torres. I very strongly disagree with most of what Torres says, but I must concede that Torres seems an intelligent and perceptive person, not without a certain endearing grace. However, BS is BS.

I’ve watched and listened again to the awesome conversation between Lex Fridman and Guillaume Verdon aka Beff Jezos, the founder of the movement called effective accelerationism (e/acc) and the company Extropic AI. This long conversation (almost 3 hours) touches a lot of things including physics, quantum, thermodynamics, Artificial Intelligence, LLMs, space, e/acc philosophy & metaphysics, and of course the meaning of life & all that. This is the most complete talk on e/acc so far and is likely to remain so for some time. Watch it all, and let’s accelerate the fuck away from mediocrity toward unlimited extropian and cosmist greatness.

Continue reading “Old and new futurisms in Silicon Valley” »