University - Princeton technique puts chemistry breakthroughs on the fast track Posted November 28, 2011; 11:00 a.m. by Morgan Kelly Scientists can now take that "a-ha" moment to go with a method Princeton University researchers developed — and successfully tested — to speed up the chances of an unexpected yet groundbreaking chemical discovery. The researchers report this month in the journal Science a technique to accomplish "accelerated serendipity" by using robotics to perform more than 1,000 chemical reactions a day with molecules never before combined. The basis of the research was to combine new technology with a unique, rapid-reaction approach that could allow chemists to explore unheard-of and potentially important chemical combinations without devoting years to the pursuit, explained senior researcher and co-author David MacMillan, the James S. "This is a very different way of approaching how we come up with valuable chemical reactions," MacMillan said. "Our process is designed specifically for serendipity to occur. Back To Top
Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything (PhysOrg.com) -- Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products. The liquid glass spray (technically termed “SiO2 ultra-thin layering”) consists of almost pure silicon dioxide (silica, the normal compound in glass) extracted from quartz sand. Water or ethanol is added, depending on the type of surface to be coated. There are no additives, and the nano-scale glass coating bonds to the surface because of the quantum forces involved. Liquid glass was invented in Turkey and the patent is held by Nanopool, a family-owned German company. The liquid glass spray produces a water-resistant coating only around 100 nanometers (15-30 molecules) thick. The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means it can be used on plants and seeds.
Nano Paint Could Make Airplanes Invisible to Radar A new nanostructured coating could be used to make paints for stealth aircraft that can’t be seen at night and that are undetectable by radar at any time of day. The coating, made of carbon nanotubes, can be used to cloak an object in utter darkness, making it indistinguishable from the night sky. Carbon nanotubes have many superlative properties, including excellent strength and electrical conductivity. They are also the blackest known material. L. Guo’s group grew sparse forests of vertical carbon nanotubes on the surface of various three-dimensional objects, including a silicon wafer patterned with the shape of a tiny tank. This effect works, Guo says, because the nanotubes are perfectly absorbing, and because when they are grown with some space between them, as in his experiments, their index of refraction is nearly identical to that of the surrounding air. Invisibility cloaks shield objects by manipulating incident light so that it simply flows around them.
Turning windows into powerplants If a new development from labs at MIT pans out as expected, someday the entire surface area of a building’s windows could be used to generate electricity — without interfering with the ability to see through them. The key technology is a photovoltaic cell based on organic molecules, which harnesses the energy of infrared light while allowing visible light to pass through. Coated onto a pane of standard window glass, it could provide power for lights and other devices, and would lower installation costs by taking advantage of existing window structures. These days, anywhere from half to two-thirds of the cost of a traditional, thin-film solar-power system comes from those installation costs, and up to half of the cost of the panels themselves is for the glass and structural parts, said Vladimir Bulović, professor of electrical engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Fine-tuning the cells The work is still at a very early stage, Bulović cautions.
Biologists develop device to cool off athletes, soldiers Stanford Report, September 29, 2004 L.A. Cicero Research scientist Dennis Grahn, left, holds a 1993 prototype of the cooling device. When people exercise, their muscles consume energy and generate heat as a byproduct. "We literally cool the body from the inside out, rather than from the outside in, which is the conventional method," explains Senior Research Scientist Dennis Grahn, who developed the cooling device with H. The device works by creating a local subatmospheric pressure environment, Grahn says. Grahn and Heller, animal physiologists who specialize in temperature regulation, originally set out to devise a way to eliminate the violent tremors many patients have when they come out of anesthesia after surgery. "We used a pressure differential to draw blood to the skin surface, then we applied heat to the skin to increase heat flow back to the core," Grahn says. During aerobic exercise, such as running, conducted in the heat, the device greatly extends endurance.
Jumping droplets take a lot of heat, as long as it comes in a cool way Microscopic water droplets jumping between surfaces that repel and attract moisture could hold the key to a wide array of more energy efficient products, ranging from large solar panels to compact laptop computers. Duke University engineers have developed a new way of producing thermal diodes, devices which regulate heat to preferentially flow in a certain direction, effectively creating a thermal conductor in the forward direction and an insulator in the reverse direction. While thermal diodes can be made from solid materials, these solid-state diodes are not nearly as effective as "phase-change" thermal diodes that rely on vaporization and condensation to transport heat. These phase-change diodes can transfer over a hundred times more heat in the forward direction compared to the reverse, but with major limitations -- they are dependent on gravity or restricted by a tubular configuration. Chen's research is supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Hybrid silkworms spin stronger spider silk Research was published this week showing that silk produced by transgenically engineered silkworms in the laboratory of Malcolm Fraser Jr., professor of biological sciences at University of Notre Dame, exhibits the highly sought-after strength and elasticity of spider silk. This stronger silk could possibly be used to make sutures, artificial limbs and parachutes. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and highlighted for their breakthrough in the long search for silk with such mechanical properties. The manuscript was published after an in-depth peer review process, and was deemed by the publishers as a newsworthy article of the issue in which it appears, further indicating its relative importance to science and technology. "It's something nobody has done before," Fraser says. Commercial production of spider silk from spiders is impractical because spiders are too cannibalistic and territorial for farming.
Moving forward, spin goes sideways Building electronic devices that work without needing to actually transport electrons is a goal of spintronics researchers, since this could lead to: reduced power consumption, lower levels of signal noise, faster operation, and denser information storage. However, the generation of pure spin currents remains a challenge. Now, YoshiChika Otani and colleagues at the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wako, and five other research institutes in Japan and China, have produced a large spin current in an important spintronic device called a lateral spin valve. Spintronic devices store information in the spin of electrons, rather than in their density or energy level. Information flows through the propagating waves of spin orientation, while electrical charges remain stationary. To increase the output voltage of their device, Otani and colleagues concentrated on the quality of the junction between the two ferromagnetic contacts and the non-magnetic, silver wire.
This 20kW Power Plant Flies Itself Scientists Use Carbon Nanotubes to Create an Underwater Invisibility Cloak University of Dallas scientists have found a way to fashion carbon nanotubes, the same material used to improve displays and solar panels, into an invisibility cloak. Scientists discovered that if they heated the tubes underwater they could create a “mirage effect” to make objects completely disappear. It’s really that simple. The carbon nanotube creates a mirage in the same way the beating sun on a hot summer day makes it look like the sky is part of the street. The carbon nanotubes are essentially recreating the same effect by boiling the water around it and bending light with the resulting water vapor. Chances are, these carbon nanotube invisibility cloaks won’t be something you'll wear, because they only work in water, and the whole constantly-applied-heat thing is really not comfortable. [IOP Science via io9] Like this?
Microsoft Wants You to Control Your Phone by Touching Yourself Kinect's "using your body as a controller" feature was one of technology’s big hits last year--not only have users had fun dancing up a storm and racing cars with official Kinect games, but a whole community has emerged to dream up new and inventive ways of hacking the system that tracks 20 joints in your body. But if you think that's Microsoft's last foray into unconventional means of controlling digital devices, think again. The Seattle giant has a whole team of smarty-pants researchers tasked with imagining new and freaky ways we might one day turn on our mp3 players, dial phones, and, who knows, maybe even power up a microwave for a little burrito action. One of the projects they’re working on is "Skinput," a system that would allow you to control devices simply by hitting specific points on your arm. Not a device on your arm. Here’s one way you might use it: You’re on your usual early-morning jog. [Image: Microsoft]
07.30.2008 - New technique to compress light could open doors for optical communications UC Berkeley Press Release New technique to compress light could open doors for optical communications By Rachel Tompa, Media Relations | 30 July 2008 BERKELEY – Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have devised a way to squeeze light into tighter spaces than ever thought possible, potentially opening doors to new technology in the fields of optical communications, miniature lasers and optical computers. Optics researchers succeeded previously in passing light through gaps 200 nanometers wide, about 400 times smaller than the width of a human hair. "This technique could give us remarkable control over light," said Rupert Oulton, research associate in Zhang's group and lead author of the study, "and that would spell out amazing things for the future in terms of what we could do with that light." "There has been a lot of interest in scaling down optical devices," Zhang said. Oulton ran computer simulations to test this idea. The U.S.