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Jan 28, 2020

Method detects defects in 2-D materials for future electronics, sensors

Posted by in categories: materials, particle physics

To further shrink electronic devices and to lower energy consumption, the semiconductor industry is interested in using 2-D materials, but manufacturers need a quick and accurate method for detecting defects in these materials to determine if the material is suitable for device manufacture. Now a team of researchers has developed a technique to quickly and sensitively characterize defects in 2-D materials.

Two-dimensional materials are atomically thin, the most well-known being graphene, a single-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms.

“People have struggled to make these 2-D materials without defects,” said Mauricio Terrones, Verne M. Willaman Professor of Physics, Penn State. “That’s the ultimate goal. We want to have a 2-D material on a four-inch wafer with at least an acceptable number of defects, but you want to evaluate it in a quick way.”

Jan 28, 2020

Synthetic Frogs Challenge Science Class Rite of Passage: ‘It Was a Lot Easier and Didn’t Smell as Bad.’

Posted by in categories: education, science

Reusable models that feel like the real thing are shaking up school labs. Cats are also available.

Jan 28, 2020

Mars: viral photo shows what 7 years on the red planet did to Curiosity rover

Posted by in category: space

A photo comparison from 2012 and 2019 show what Martian weather has done to the Curiosity rover.

Jan 28, 2020

Americans in Wuhan Prepare to Flee Coronavirus—or Weather Outbreak in Isolated City

Posted by in category: health

SHANGHAI—Hundreds of Americans were preparing to fly out of Wuhan, bound for California, as fears grew at the epicenter of China’s health crisis. But more U.S. citizens aren’t leaving, having failed to secure a seat on the single U.S.-bound flight—or decided to ride out the emergency where they are.

A State Department evacuation flight promised relief for a segment of Wuhan’s roughly 1,000 Americans, as a lockdown triggered by a coronavirus outbreak turned the focus to the dangers of contagion and a long quarantine in China’s…

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Jan 28, 2020

NASA selects Axiom Space to build commercial space station segment

Posted by in category: space

NASA has announced that they have selected Axiom Space, an American company headquartered in Houston, Texas, to design, build and launch three large pressurized modules and a large Earth observation window to the International Space Station (ISS).

This partnership between NASA and Axiom is issued under Appendix I of NASA Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships 2 (NextSTEP-2) public-private partnership program witch the agency hopes will help stimulate commercial development of deep space exploration capabilities.

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Jan 27, 2020

US Air Force plane crashes in Taliban-controlled territory in Afghanistan

Posted by in category: military

The chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, Gen. Dave Goldfein, confirmed to CNBC the plane that crashed was an Air Force E-11 military airplane. The plane crashed Monday in territory under Taliban control. Arif Noori, a spokesman for the governor’s office in Ghazni, said fire brigades, security officials and rescue teams were at the scene of the crash.

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Jan 27, 2020

The Startling Secret of an Invincible Virus

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

This could be used to create super immune cells in crispr.


A phage that resists all forms of the antiviral defense known as CRISPR has an unusual means of survival.

Jan 27, 2020

Synthetic human reproduction could be a whole new way to make babies

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Scientists are trying to manufacture eggs and sperm in the laboratory. Will it end reproduction as we know it?

Jan 27, 2020

Theoretically, Recording Dreams Is Possible…Scientists Are Trying

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Dreams can feel awfully real when you’re deep in sleep. Perhaps you find a hidden doorway in your home that leads to entirely new rooms and passageways. Maybe you went to work in your underwear—yikes.

When you wake up, you check your closet for that mysterious doorway; maybe you jolt awake in a cold sweat, instantly relieved you still have plenty of time to properly clothe yourself before leaving the house. Regardless, whatever you were experiencing felt very real just moments ago.

Dreams are essentially vivid memories that never existed. Yet you find yourself inside an all-encompassing parallel reality, a fantastical world that’s uniquely yours. The trouble with dreams, especially the fun ones, is that they’re fleeting. Often, you can’t remember a thing from a dream just moments after waking—the echo of some feeling is all that remains. But what if you could record your dreams, and play them back for analysis, or even share them with friends?

Jan 27, 2020

Mutations in donors’ stem cells may cause problems for cancer patients

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, health

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that bone marrow — or blood stem cells — from healthy donors can harbor extremely rare mutations that can cause health problems for the cancer patients who receive them.


A stem cell transplant — also called a bone marrow transplant — is a common treatment for blood cancers, such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Such treatment can cure blood cancers but also can lead to life-threatening complications, including heart problems and graft-versus-host disease, in which new immune cells from the donor attack a patient’s healthy tissues.

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that extremely rare, harmful genetic mutations present in healthy donors’ stem cells — though not causing health problems in the donors — may be passed on to cancer patients receiving stem cell transplants. The intense chemo- and radiation therapy prior to transplant and the immunosuppression given after allow cells with these rare mutations the opportunity to quickly replicate, potentially creating health problems for the patients who receive them, suggests the research, published Jan. 15 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

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