Tech

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Texas have revealed more about graphene's mechanical properties and demonstrated a technique to improve the stretchability of graphene – developments that should help engineers and designers come up with new technologies that make use of the material.

Scientists have spent decades trying to build flexible plastic solar cells efficient enough to compete with conventional cells made of silicon. To boost performance, research groups have tried creating new plastic materials that enhance the flow of electricity through the solar cell. Several groups expected to achieve good results by redesigning pliant polymers of plastic into orderly, silicon-like crystals, but the flow of electricity did not improve.

The seasonal influence of aerosols on Australia's tropical climate can now be included in climate models following completion of the first long-term study of fine smoke particles generated by burning of the savanna open woodland and grassland.

Australia's biomass burning emissions comprise about eight per cent of the global total, ranking third by continent behind Africa (48 per cent) and South America (27 per cent).

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating devices out of a water-based hydrogel material that can be patterned, folded and used to manipulate objects. The technique holds promise for use in "soft robotics" and biomedical applications.

"This work brings us one step closer to developing new soft robotics technologies that mimic biological systems and can work in aqueous environments," says Dr. Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work.

ENERGY – Green battery . . .

By substituting lignin for highly engineered, expensive graphite to make battery electrodes, researchers have developed a process that requires fewer steps and offers better performance.

Renewable Electrodes from Wood Products, or ReNEW-PRO, is a low-cost lithium-ion battery anode made inexpensively from lignin, a renewable resource and byproduct of the pulp and paper industry.

Monash University researchers have brought next generation energy storage closer with an engineering first - a graphene-based device that is compact, yet lasts as long as a conventional battery.

Published today in Science, a research team led by Professor Dan Li of the Department of Materials Engineering has developed a completely new strategy to engineer graphene-based supercapacitors (SC), making them viable for widespread use in renewable energy storage, portable electronics and electric vehicles.

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 1, 2013 — Scientists from UC Irvine and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have developed a new computer model to measure global warming's effect on soil worldwide that accounts for how bacteria and fungi in soil control carbon.

They found that soil outcomes based on their microbial model were more reliable than those forecast by traditional models. Study results appear online in Nature Climate Change.

Turbulence is all around us—in the patterns that natural gas makes as it swirls through a transcontinental pipeline or in the drag that occurs as a plane soars through the sky. Reducing such turbulence on say, an airplane wing, would cut down on the amount of power the plane has to put out just to get through the air, thereby saving fuel. But in order to reduce turbulence—a very complicated phenomenon—you need to understand it, a task that has proven to be quite a challenge.

From solar cells to optoelectronic sensors to lasers and imaging devices, many of today's semiconductor technologies hinge upon the absorption of light. Absorption is especially critical for nano-sized structures at the interface between two energy barriers called quantum wells, in which the movement of charge carriers is confined to two-dimensions. Now, for the first time, a simple law of light absorption for 2D semiconductors has been demonstrated.

Researchers working with tiny components in nanoelectronics face a challenge similar to that of parents of small children: teaching them to manage on their own. The nano-components are so small that arranging them with external tools is impossible. The only solution is to create conditions in which they can be "trusted" to assemble themselves.

Shocking as it may seem, wastewater flushed down toilets and sinks is getting a new life thanks to special fuel cells that use it to produce electricity, according to the latest video in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') Bytesize Science series. Produced by the world's largest scientific society, the video is at http://www.BytesizeScience.com.

Brooklyn, N.Y.—The latest in a series of experiments testing the ability of robots to influence live animals shows that bio-inspired robots can not only elicit fear in zebrafish, but that this reaction can be modulated by alcohol. These findings may pave the way for new methodologies for understanding anxiety and other emotions, as well as substances that alter them.

Researchers from the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) have discovered two security weaknesses that permit installation of malware onto Apple mobile devices using seemingly innocuous applications and peripherals, uncovering significant security threats to the iOS platform.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Tiny silicon crystals caused no health problems in monkeys three months after large doses were injected, marking a step forward in the quest to bring such materials into clinics as biomedical imaging agents, according to a new study.

Scientists at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg have developed a model that makes predictions from which differentiated cells – for instance skin cells – can be very efficiently changed into completely different cell types – such as nerve cells, for example.