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Biowire.


Researchers led by microbiologist Derek Lovely say the wires, which rival the thinnest wires known to man, are produced from renewable, inexpensive feedstocks and avoid the harsh chemical processes typically used to produce nanoelectronic materials.

Lovley says, “New sources of electronic materials are needed to meet the increasing demand for making smaller, more powerful electronic devices in a sustainable way.” The ability to mass-produce such thin conductive wires with this sustainable technology has many potential applications in electronic devices, functioning not only as wires, but also transistors and capacitors. Proposed applications include biocompatible sensors, computing devices, and as components of solar panels.

This advance began a decade ago, when Lovley and colleagues discovered that Geobacter, a common soil microorganism, could produce “microbial nanowires,” electrically conductive protein filaments that help the microbe grow on the iron minerals abundant in soil. These microbial nanowires were conductive enough to meet the bacterium’s needs, but their conductivity was well below the conductivities of organic wires that chemists could synthesize.

Interesting study occurring on subatomic particles (aka neutrinos) in how they can be in superposition, without individual identities, when traveling hundreds of miles.

Now, MIT physicists have found that subatomic particles called can be in superposition, without individual identities, when traveling hundreds of miles. Their results, to be published later this month in Physical Review Letters, represent the longest distance over which quantum mechanics has been tested to date.

A subatomic journey across state lines

The team analyzed data on the oscillations of neutrinos—subatomic particles that interact extremely weakly with matter, passing through our bodies by the billions per second without any effect. Neutrinos can oscillate, or change between several distinct “flavors,” as they travel through the universe at close to the speed of light.

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By narrowing the bandgap of titania and graphene quantum dots.

Researchers have found a method of harvesting light.


Griffith University researchers have discovered significant new potentials for light harvesting through narrowing the bandgap of titania and graphene quantum dots.

The researchers for the first time have found a quantum-confined bandgap narrowing mechanism where UV absorption of the grapheme quantum dots and TiO2 nanoparticles can easily be extended into the visible light range.