May 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Acetone and isopropanol are important chemicals for industry. They are used to produce materials from jet fuel to solvents to detergents to plastics. Currently, industry produces these two chemicals from petroleum using processes that release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Researchers have now developed...
Scientists create tattoo-like sensors that reveal blood oxygen levels
May 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) People get tattoos to remember an event or a person, to make a statement, or simply as an aesthetic embellishment. But imagine a tattoo that could be functional – telling you how much oxygen you are using when exercising, measuring your blood glucose level at...
Using AI to analyze large amounts of biological data
May 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Researchers at the University of Missouri are applying a form of artificial intelligence (AI) — previously used to analyze how National Basketball Association (NBA) players move their bodies — to now help scientists develop new drug therapies for medical treatments targeting cancers and other diseases...
Lunar soil has the potential to generate oxygen and fuel
May 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Soil on the moon contains active compounds that can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and fuels, scientists report in the journal Joule ("Extraterrestrial photosynthesis by Chang’E-5 lunar soil"). They are now exploring whether lunar resources can be used to facilitate human exploration on the moon...
Quantum mechanics could explain why DNA can spontaneously mutate
May 05, 2022 (Nanowerk News) The molecules of life, DNA, replicate with astounding precision, yet this process is not immune to mistakes and can lead to mutations. Using sophisticated computer modelling, a team of physicists and chemists at the University of Surrey have shown that such errors in copying can...
Synthesis, properties and applications of 2D materials beyond graphene
May 05, 2022 (Nanowerk Spotlight) In two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials, two dimensions are outside the nanoscale and one dimension is only a single or few atomic layers thick. The broad spectrum of atomic layered crystals includes transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), semiconducting dichalcogenides, mono-atomic buckled crystals such as black phosphorous (BP or...
A simpler approach for creating quantum materials
May 04, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Since graphene was first isolated and characterized in the early 2000s, researchers have been exploring ways to use this atomically thin nanomaterial because of its unique properties such as high tensile strength and conductivity. In more recent years, twisted bilayer graphene, made of two sheets...
Study weighs the risks of climate geoengineering
May 04, 2022 (Nanowerk News) To slow down the accelerating pace of climate change, scientists are working on radical geoengineering technologies like space mirrors, ocean iron fertilization, and cirrus cloud thinning to tweak the earth’s climate system. But a new study published in the journal Risk Analysis finds that none...
Fungi-based meat alternatives to help save Earth’s forests
May 04, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Substituting just a fifth of meat from cattle with microbial protein - a meat alternative produced in fermentation tanks - by 2050 could halve deforestation, a new analysis by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) now published in Nature finds ("Projected environmental benefits...
Astronomers discover a rare ‘black widow’ binary, with the shortest orbit yet
May 04, 2022 (Nanowerk News) The flashing of a nearby star has drawn MIT astronomers to a new and mysterious system 3,000 light years from Earth. The stellar oddity appears to be a new “black widow binary” — a rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar, that is circling and slowly...