Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers from NC State and Johns Hopkins have developed a breakthrough technology that leverages DNA for data storage and computing, offering capabilities such as storing, retrieving, computing, and rewriting data.

This technology is made viable by innovative polymer structures called dendricolloids, enhancing data density and preservation. It enables functions similar to electronic devices and could potentially secure data for millennia, providing a promising foundation for the future of molecular computing.

DNA Data Storage and Computing.

New research from North Carolina State University shows that unique materials with distinct properties akin to those of gecko feet – the ability to stick to just about any surface – can be created by harnessing liquid-driven chaos to produce soft polymer microparticles with hierarchical branching on the micro-and nanoscale.

The findings, published today (October 14, 2019) in the journal Nature Materials, hold the potential for advances in gels, pastes, foods, nonwovens, and coatings, among other formulations.

The soft dendritic particle materials with unique adhesive and structure-building properties can be created from a variety of polymers precipitated from solutions under special conditions, says Orlin Velev, S. Frank and Doris Culberson Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State and corresponding author of the paper.

Polymer precipitation under turbulent flows generates soft microparticles with branched dendritic coronas and high adhesive properties.

The team of chemists and composite materials researchers discovered a broadly applicable method of bonding plastics and synthetic fibers at the molecular level in a procedure called cross-linking. The cross-linking takes effect when the adhesive is exposed to heat or long-wave UV light making strong connections that are both impact-resistant and corrosion-resistant. Even with a minimal amount of cross-linking, the materials are tightly bonded.

“It turns out the adhesive is particularly effective in high-density polyethylene, which is an important plastic used in bottles, piping, geomembranes, plastic lumber, and many other applications,” says Professor Abbas Milani, director of UBC’s Materials and Manufacturing Research Institute, and the lead researcher at the Okanagan node of the Composite Research Network. “In fact, commercially available glues didn’t work at all on these materials, making our discovery an impressive foundation for a wide range of important uses.”

UVic Organic Chemistry Professor Jeremy Wulff, whose team led the design of the new class of cross-linking materials, collaborated with the UBC Survive and Thrive Applied Research to explore how it performed in real-world applications.

With government support and backing from tech giants, robotaxis are rapidly integrating into daily life in China in a push to position autonomous vehicles at the forefront of urban innovation.

But this rapid rollout has not been without controversy.

Growing Fungal Space Habitats

The plumbing goes deep.

Manchester, England— On a rare sunny day in northern England, the National Graphene Institute (NGI) here gleams like a five-story block of obsidian. Squeezed into the University of Manchester’s sprawling downtown campus, the research center is clad in almost 2000 lustrous black panels with small hexagonal perforations—an architectural nod to the structure of the atom-thin sheet of carbon that gives the building its name.

NGI exists because graphene was first isolated a short walk away in a University of Manchester lab. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov presented it to the world 20 years ago this month and later won a Nobel Prize for the work. Since its unveiling, billions of dollars of R&D funding have flowed to graphene, in a global race to exploit its peerless properties. It is better at carrying electricity than any metal, a superb heat conductor, and hundreds of times stronger than steel—selling points trumpeted in the marketing materials of universities and companies alike.

Early on, researchers were not shy about promising graphene breakthroughs, with predictions that it would enable superthin rollable TVs and space elevators, and even supplant silicon in computer chips. “Expectations were very, very high,” Geim says. “The companies I was involved in were mostly based on hype.”