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The past few decades have seen astonishing advances in imaging technology, from high-speed optical sensors that process over two million frames per second to tiny lensless cameras that record images using a single pixel.

In a study published in Advanced Materials, researchers from SANKEN (The Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research), at Osaka University have developed an optical sensor on an ultrathin, flexible sheet that can be bent without breaking. In fact, this sensor is so flexible, it will work even after it has been crumpled into a ball.

In a camera, the optical sensor is the device that senses the light that has passed through a lens, similar to the retina inside a human eye.

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Tissue engineering, which involves the use of grafts or scaffolds to aid cell regeneration, is emerging as a key medical practice for treating volumetric muscle loss (VML), a condition where a significant amount of muscle tissue is lost beyond the body’s natural regenerative capacity. To improve surgical outcomes, traditional muscle grafts are giving way to artificial scaffold materials, with MXene nanoparticles (NPs) standing out as a promising option.

MXene NPs are 2D materials primarily composed of transition-metal carbides and nitride. They are highly electrically conductive, can accommodate a wide range of functional groups, and have stacked structures that promote cell interactions and growth. While there have been practical demonstrations in the laboratory showcasing their ability to promote the reconstruction of skeletal muscles, the specific mechanism by which they do so remains unclear.

To address this gap, Associate Professor Yun Hak Kim from the Department of Anatomy and Department of Biomedical Informatics, alongside Professors Suck Won Hong, and Dong-Wook Han from the Department of Cogno-Mechatronics Engineering at Pusan National University developed nanofibrous matrices containing MXene NPs as scaffolds. They used DNA sequencing to reveal the genes and biological pathways activated by MXene NPs to aid in muscle regeneration.

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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–-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– to very small volumes, enhancing 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.

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Polar liquids, such as water, are powerful absorbents of electromagnetic waves in the terahertz range. For that reason, they were never considered as potential THz radiation sources. Last year, researchers from ITMO University and the University of Rochester proved that liquid-based radiation sources can be no less effective than traditional ones. In their new study, the staff of ITMO University’s Laboratory of Femtosecond Optics and Femtotechnologies present their research on the generation of THz radiation in liquid jets of various kinds. In the future, these findings can be used to create new alternative sources of THz radiation. The research was published in Optics Express.

Terahertz technologies: spectroscopy, security, biomedicine, and non-destructive diagnostics

Terahertz radiation is a type of electromagnetic radiation located within the frequency spectrum between infrared and radio. It passes well through a variety of materials, such as wood, plastic, and ceramics.

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College students may soon be able to attend lectures given by long-dead pioneers like Albert Einstein and Coco Chanel thanks to groundbreaking hologram technology, according to a report.

Some universities have already begun using the holographic technology to bring some of the world’s greatest innovators and artists, like Michael Jackson, to the classroom, The Guardian reported.

The technology can also beam in 3D images of speakers from across the world.

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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.

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What is the universe made of? This question has driven astronomers for hundreds of years.

For the past quarter of a century, scientists have believed “normal” stuff like atoms and molecules that make up you, me, Earth, and nearly everything we can see only accounts for 5% of the universe. Another 25% is “dark matter”, an unknown substance we can’t see but which we can detect through how it affects normal matter via gravity.

The remaining 70% of the cosmos is made of “dark energy”. Discovered in 1998, this is an unknown form of energy believed to be making the universe expand at an ever-increasing rate.

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