Apr 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) 3D printers may soon get better at producing intricate metal and plastic parts, thanks to new software developed at the University of Michigan that reduces harmful heat buildup in laser powder bed fusion printers. Called SmartScan, the software demonstrated a 41% improvement in heat distribution...
Engineered crystals could help computers run on less power
Apr 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Computers may be growing smaller and more powerful, but they require a great deal of energy to operate. The total amount of energy the U.S. dedicates to computing has risen dramatically over the last decade and is quickly approaching that of other major sectors, like...
Astronomers discover a new type of freak stars covered in helium burning ashes
Apr 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) A German team of astronomers from the Universities of Tübingen and Potsdam, led by Prof. Klaus Werner, have discovered a new type of weird stars. Their findings were published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ("Discovery of hot subdwarfs covered with helium-burning ash")....
A jump through time – new technique rewinds the age of skin cells by 30 years
Apr 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Research from the Babraham Institute has developed a method to ‘time jump’ human skin cells by 30 years, turning back the ageing clock for cells without losing their specialised function. Work by researchers in the Institute’s Epigenetics research programme has been able to partly restore...
Researchers develop glass-in-glass fabrication approach for making miniature IR optics
Apr 07, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Researchers have developed a new fabrication process that allows infrared (IR) glass to be combined with another glass and formed into complex miniature shapes. The technique can be used to create complex infrared optics that could make IR imaging and sensing more broadly accessible. “Glass...
The hunt for the gravitational wave background
Apr 07, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Coalescing supermassive black holes in the centers of merging galaxies fill the universe with low-frequency gravitational waves. Large radio telescopes have already looked for the subtle effect of these spacetime ripples on radio waves emitted by pulsars within our Galaxy. Now, an international team of...
Computerized, rolling DNA motors move molecular robotics to next level
Apr 07, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Chemists integrated computer functions into rolling DNA-based motors, opening a new realm of possibilities for miniature, molecular robots. Nature Nanotechnology ("Chemical-to-mechnical molecular computation using DNA-based motors with onboard logic") published the development, the first DNA-based motors that combine computational power with the ability to burn...
Ancient art meets AI for better materials design
Apr 07, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Ancient Japanese art of kirigami guides artificial intelligence (AI) technique for durable, wearable electronics. Kirigami is the Japanese art of paper cutting. Likely derived from the Chinese art of jiǎnzhǐ, it emerged around the 7th century in Japan, where it was used to decorate temples....
‘Frustrated’ nanomagnets order themselves through disorder
Apr 07, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Extremely small arrays of magnets with strange and unusual properties can order themselves by increasing entropy, or the tendency of physical systems to disorder, a behavior that appears to contradict standard thermodynamics — but doesn’t. “Paradoxically, the system orders because it wants to be more...
Researchers engineer electrically tunable graphene devices to study rare physics
Apr 07, 2022 (Nanowerk News) An international team, co-led by researchers at The University of Manchester’s National Graphene Institute (NGI) in the UK and the Penn State College of Engineering in the US, has developed a tunable graphene-based platform that allows for fine control over the interaction between light and...