Lifeboat Foundation

Chemical organization in reaction-diffusion systems offer a strategy to generate materials with ordered morphologies and architecture. Periodic structures can be formed using molecules or nanoparticles. An emerging frontier in materials science aims to combine nanoparticles and molecules. In a new report on Science Advances, Amanda J. Ackroyd and a team of scientists in chemistry, physics and nanomaterials in Canada, Hungary and the U.S. noted how solvent evaporation from a suspension of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and L-(+)-tartaric acid [abbreviated L-(+)-TA] caused the phase separation of precipitation to result in the rhythmic alteration of CNC-rich, L-(+)-TA rings. The CNC-rich regions maintained a cholesteric structure, while the L-(+)-TA-rich bands formed via radially elongated bundles to expand the knowledge of self-organizing reaction-diffusion systems and offer a strategy to design self-organizing materials.

Chemical organization

The process of self-organization and self-assembly occurs universally in non-equilibrium systems of living matter, geochemical environments, materials science and in industry. Existing experiments that lead to periodic structures can be divided into two groups including the classical Liesegang-type experiments and chemical organization via periodic precipitation to generate materials with ordered morphologies and structural hierarchy. In this work, Ackroyd et al. developed a strategy for solvent evaporation to phase separate an aqueous solution of tartaric acid/cellulose nanocrystals [L-(+)-TA/CNC or TA/CNC] for its subsequent precipitation to result in a rhythmic alternation of CNC-rich or CNC-depleted ring-type regions. The team developed a kinetic model which agreed with the experimental results quantitatively. The work expands the range of self-organizing reaction-diffusion systems to pave the way for periodically structured functional materials.

GMO 🦟

More than 20 million genetically modified mosquitoes are coming to the Florida Keys this year, in a landmark project by British biotech company Oxitec and Monroe County’s Mosquito Control District.

Japanese auto giant Toyota is working on a new-age hydrogen vehicle. When the words Toyota and Hydrogen are in the same sentence, the hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai comes to mind. Still, the Mirai is a hydrogen-electric car or FCEV (fuel-cell electric vehicle). It uses hydrogen fuel to convert electricity and power an onboard electric motor. This time, Toyota came up with something different.

“At the end of last year, we built a prototype that provided that ‘car feeling’ that car lovers love, such as through sound and vibration, even though we were dealing with environmental technology, said Koji Sato, Chief Branding Officer, and Gazoo Racing Company President. ” It was only recently that I realized, as one thing led to another, that we could use technologies that we had on hand.”

😗

Four astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) came back to Earth on Sunday in what was the first nighttime splashdown by a U.S. crew since the Apollo moonshot in 1968.

Continue reading “NASA-SpaceX’s Crew Dragon splashdown goes safely—watch how it happened” »

It’s likely that safety drivers will remain in cabs for years to come as companies hone their sensor technology and train their software for every highway scenario. It’s expensive and painstaking work that can overwhelm even the best-run start-ups. The consensus within the industry is that three contestants stand the best chance to make it to the finish line: “It’s TuSimple, Aurora and Waymo,” says Grayson Brulte, co-founder of Brulte & Co., a consulting firm focused on transportation. TuSimple, a San Diego based-company that raised $1.35 billion in an initial public offering in April, is in the pole position, as Brulte sees it, because of its singular focus on trucking and its partnership, begun three years ago, with Navistar International to build autonomous trucks. “They’ve got the head start on it,” says Brulte.

These are the companies set to dominate the highways of tomorrow.

Continue reading “The Race to Build Self-Driving Trucks Has Four Horses and Three Jockeys” »

China aims to construct a national-level space laboratory by 2022, as the country successfully launched its Long March-5B rocket carrying the core module of China’s space station Tianhe on Thursday, indicating that China is on track for its space ambitions.

China Media Group (CMG) talked on Friday with Zhong Hongen, deputy chief engineer of space application system at China’s Manned Space Flight Project, to find out the exact scientific experiments and available facilities there in the outer space, as well as the related effects on our daily lives.

“In atopic dermatitis, the itching can be horrific, and it can aggravate disease,” said co-corresponding author K. Frank Austen, MD, a senior physician in the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Brigham.

Scientists pinpointed a key molecular player that could represent a new therapeutic target for intractable chronic itch.

Muscle stem cells enable our muscle to build up and regenerate over a lifetime through exercise. But if certain muscle genes are mutated, the opposite occurs. In patients suffering from muscular dystrophy, the skeletal muscle already starts to weaken in childhood. Suddenly, these children are no longer able to run, play the piano or climb the stairs, and often they are dependent on a wheelchair by the age of 15. Currently, no therapy for this condition exists.

“Now, we are able to access these patients’ gene mutations using CRISPR-Cas9 technology,” explains Professor Simone Spuler, head of the Myology Lab at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC), a joint institution of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association and Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin. “We care for more than 2000 patients at the Charité outpatient clinic for muscle disorders, and quickly recognized the potential of the new technology.” The researchers immediately started working with some of the affected families, and have now presented their results in the journal JCI Insight. In the families studied, the parents were healthy and had no idea they possessed a mutated gene. The children all inherited a copy of the disease mutation from both parents.

NASA’s long-delayed Space Launch System (SLS) is finally beginning to take shape. Following a number of impressive engine tests, the various components of the first full spacecraft have all arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, including the newly arrived core stage. That part of the mega-rocked floated up to the spaceport on a 310-foot barge earlier this week.

The Space Launch System was envisioned as a replacement for the aging Space Shuttle, and one that could help humanity move beyond low-Earth orbit once again. Since the end of the Apollo program, we’ve been limited to hovering over our little blue marble, but the SLS has enough power to send crewed spacecraft back to the moon. That’s why it’s at the heart of the Artemis program. In the coming years, Artemis will deliver the first human explorers to the moon’s surface in half a century, and among them will be the first woman and person of color to walk on the lunar surface.

Before arriving at KSC on the agency’s Pegasus barge, the 212-foot core stage was at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. That’s where NASA ran the recent Green Run tests. The first static fire test in January ended early, after approximately one minute. NASA later confirmed this was the result of a failsafe system being triggered. In the subsequent March test, the rocket’s RS-25 engines ran for more than eight minutes, matching what they’ll have to do when the rocket launches for real.