Piggybacking on the fundraising bracelet trend of a few years ago, he sold silicone bracelets, raising $60, 000 to fund research on his brother disease.
For the new brain study the researchers delivered chemotherapy drugs via implantable microcapsules made of a biocompatible material called liquid crystal polymer.
Now a team of researchers at MIT led by Alfredo Alexander-Katz the Walter Henry Gale Associate professor of Materials science and engineering has demonstrated a new target-finding mechanism.
a pretzel-shaped silicone tube that could be inserted into the bladder, slowly releasing lidocaine over two weeks.
the researchers developed a prototype device by using a laser to cut a hole in a silicone tube to add drugs. ight
Heejin then redesigned the device as a pretzel-shaped structure by incorporating a superelastic wire made from a special nitinol alloy.
A silica coating on the particles allows additional molecules to attach causing the particles to bind with specific structures within the cell.
Silica makes it completely flexible; it s a well developed material that can bind to almost anything Bawendi says.
Christopher Murray a professor of chemistry and materials science and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania who was connected not with this research says This work exemplifies the power of using nanocrystals as building blocks for multiscale and multifunctional structures.
and his students fabricated filaments from silicone-based rubber, and rigged a spool to automatically reel out the wire onto a conveyor belt.
Surface tension wicks the fluid up the side of the emitters to the tip of the cone whose narrowness concentrates the electrostatic field.
Earlier lab demonstrations of similar systems could only produce devices a few centimeters on a side with expensive metal substrates so were not suitable for scaling up to commercial production he says.
While the team has demonstrated working devices using a formulation that includes a relatively expensive metal ruthenium we re very flexible about materials Chou says.
In theory you could use any metal that can survive these high temperatures. This work shows the potential of both photonic engineering
and materials science to advance solar energy harvesting says Paul Braun a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who was involved not in this research.
The group is now working to optimize the system with alternative metals. Chou expects the system could be developed into a commercially viable product within five years.
The coils are made from a shape-memory alloy (SMA) a type of material that remembers an engineered shape
That s where shape-memory alloys may provide a solution. Such materials only contract when heated and can easily be stretched back to a looser shape when cool.
To find an active material that would be most suitable for use in space Holschuh considered 14 types of shape-changing materials ranging from dielectric elastomers to shape-memory polymers before settling on nickel-titanium shape
-memory alloys. When trained as tightly packed small-diameter springs this material contracts when heated to produce a significant amount of force given its slight mass ideal for use in a lightweight compression garment.
Shape-memory alloys like nickel-titanium can essentially be trained to return to an original shape in response to a certain temperature.
and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Civil and Environmental engineering, says the new material is essentially a layer of electro-active elastomer that could be adapted quite easily to standard manufacturing processes
Learning from nature Cephalopods achieve their remarkable color changes using muscles that can alter the shapes of tiny pigment sacs within the skin for example
The new synthetic material is a form of elastomer, a flexible, stretchable polymer. t changes its fluorescence and texture together,
in response to a change in voltage applied to it essentially, changing at the flip of a switch, says Qiming Wang,
that applying voltage can dynamically change surface textures of elastomers, Zhao says. he texturing and deformation of the elastomer further activates special mechanically responsive molecules embedded in the elastomer,
which causes it to fluoresce or change color in response to voltage changes, Craig adds. nce you release the voltage,
both the elastomer and the molecules return to their relaxed state like the cephalopod skin with muscles relaxed.
Using a system like this new elastomer, Zhao suggests, either on uniforms or on vehicles, could allow the camouflage patterns to constantly change in response to the surroundings. he U s. military spends millions developing different kinds of camouflage patterns,
Those crystals interfere with the normal magnetic spins of hydrogen atoms. When exposed to a powerful magnetic field hydrogen atoms align their spins in the same direction.
Tracking infectionhemozoin crystals are produced in all four stages of malaria infection including the earliest stages
says Ming Dao, a principal research scientist in MIT Department of Materials science and engineering and one of the senior authors of the paper,
the lead can simply be recycled into new solar panels. he process to encapsulate them will be the same as for polymer cells today,
Yang Yang, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California at Los angeles who was involved not in this research,
The nanoparticles are made of a small polymer lipid conjugate; unlike liver-targeting nanoparticles these preferentially target the lung
and materials science at the University of Southern California who was not part of the research team.
the outer layers are composed of a shape-memory polymer that folds when heated. After the laser-cut materials are layered together a microprocessor
The researchers fabricated an array of the microhairs onto an elastic transparent layer of silicone.
Others have designed such magnetically actuated materials by infusing polymers with magnetic particles. However Wang says it s difficult to control the distribution and therefore the movement of particles through a polymer.
MIT engineers show their magnetic microhairs in action. Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT Instead she and Zhu chose to manufacture an array of microscopic pillars that uniformly tilt in response to a magnetic field.
and bonded the nickel pillars to a soft transparent layer of silicone. The researchers exposed the material to an external magnetic field placing it between two large magnets
Through a combination of surface tension and tilting pillars water climbed up the array following the direction of the pillars.
Since the material s underlying silicone layer is transparent the group also explored the array s effect on light.
He adds This work cleverly combines low-hysteresis droplet movement with low-magnetic-field-driven droplet propulsion to achieve impressive capabilities.
But if the graphene starts out with high electron concentration the pulse decreases its conductivity the same way that a metal usually behaves.
Our experiment reveals that the cause of photoconductivity in graphene is very different from that in a normal metal or semiconductors,
and Yong Cheol Shin a graduate student in materials science and engineering. The work received support from the U s. Department of energy and the National Science Foundation n
and weld even through a half-inch of steel at greater efficiencies than today s industrial lasers.
and fiber that first transfer energy from diode lasers into a medium usually a crystal before converting it into a laser beam.
Although his initial tests involved copper plates he says any conductive metal would do including cheaper aluminum.
and Wang s 2013 finding in attempting to develop an improved heat-transfer surface to be used as a condenser in applications such as power plants that droplets on a superhydrophobic surface convert surface energy to kinetic energy as they merge to form larger droplets.
A polymer solution is poured onto a glass plate Hyder explains; this casting plate is immersed then in a nonsolvent bath to induce precipitation to form a film.
The technique creates a bilayered polymer phase: One layer is polymer-rich and one is not.
As they precipitate out the polymer-rich phase develops the smaller pores; the polymer-lean phase makes the larger ones.
Since the solutions form a single sheet of film there is no need for bonding layers together
which can result in a weaker filter. There is no separate layer it s completely integrated
As a final stage a different polymer is added to give the material including the lining of the pores surfaces that attract
Anish Tuteja an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan who was involved not in this research calls it a very interesting and innovative approach to fabricating membranes that can separate out nanoemulsions.
The material forms tiny crystals a chemically ordered state but with intrinsic randomness such that the orientations of the stacked molecules can be arbitrary
and the sizes of the crystals different, forming aggregate structures that are disordered highly. That combination of order and disorder contributes to eumelanin broadband absorption, the team found. t a naturally existing nanocomposite,
These insights may be useful in developing materials for applications such as pigments, he says, or in improving the efficiency of solar cells.
and cut off some metal in the back that was dead weight and built a composite nacelle to hold our custom electronics
or more concentric spheres made of short chains of a chemically modified polymer. RNA is packaged within each sphere
The particles are coated with a polymer called PEG, which protects them from being broken down in the body
The injectable device is made of two types of silicone one that provides the MRI signal and one that offers structural support.
Injecting magnetic materials known as contrast agents can help boost the visibility of certain tissues but these agents are designed typically to break down soon after the MRI is performed.
The new MRI sensor combines two forms of silicone a solid called PDMS and a substance known as DDMPS which has an oily consistency.
what s called a swollen polymer. The researchers shaped this polymer into a 1. 5-millimeter sensor that could be implanted in tissue during a biopsy;
they also created smaller particles (tens of microns long) that can be injected through a needle.
which alters the proton spins inside the silicone a phenomenon that can be detected with MRI.
This is the first direct observation of exciton diffusion processes Bulovic says showing that crystal structure can dramatically affect the diffusion process.
While these experiments were carried out using a material called tetracene a well-studied archetype of a molecular crystal the researchers say that the method should be applicable to almost any crystalline or thin-film material.
storable and distributable, says Jeffrey Grossman, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, who is a co-author of a paper describing the new process in the journal Nature Chemistry.
and better photochromic compounds and composite materials that optimize the storage of solar energy in chemical bonds, Kanai says.
These crystals are doped with elements such as ytterbium, gadolinium, erbium, and thulium, which emit visible colors
the researchers can tune the crystals to emit any color in the visible spectrum. To manufacture the particles, the researchers used stop-flow lithography,
This approach allows shapes to be imprinted onto parallel flowing streams of liquid monomers chemical building blocks that can form longer chains called polymers.
In this case, each polymer stream contains nanocrystals that emit different colors, allowing the researchers to form striped particles.
The researchers demonstrated the versatility of their approach by using two polymers with radically different material properties one hydrophobic and one hydrophilic o make their particles.
and films studded with quantum dots or tiny crystals that exhibit quantum mechanical properties. They also engineered the cells
During the first stage, pigments such as chlorophyll absorb light, which excites electrons that flow through the thylakoid membranes of the chloroplast.
When the target molecule binds to a polymer wrapped around the nanotube, it alters the tube fluorescence. e could someday use these carbon nanotubes to make sensors that detect in real time, at the single-particle level,
and the polymer ring that protects the electronics in the fish s guts. The long haulthe fish can perform 20
the better, says Darrell Irvine, a professor of biological engineering and of materials science and engineering, and the senior author of the paper.
For example, Atlas recently made the switch to more advanced ropes that have higher tensile strength, with smaller diameters. o carry a 200-foot section of rope was up to 15 pounds;
The MIT team found that they could create novel sensors by coating the nanotubes with specifically designed amphiphilic polymers polymers that are drawn to both oil and water, like soap.
or diabetes in living systems. his new technique gives us an unprecedented ability to recognize any target molecule by screening nanotube-polymer complexes to create synthetic analogs to antibody function,
Synthetic antibodies The new polymer-based sensors offer a synthetic design approach to the production of molecular recognition sites enabling, among other applications, the detection of a potentially infinite library of targets.
Their approach takes advantage of a phenomenon that occurs when certain types of polymers bind to a carbon nanotube.
These polymers, known as amphiphilic, have both hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions. These polymers are designed and synthesized such that
when the polymers are exposed to carbon nanotubes, the hydrophobic regions latch onto the tubes like anchors
and the hydrophilic regions form a series of loops extending away from the tubes. These loops form a new layer surrounding the nanotube, known as a corona.
and the polymer before it attaches to the nanotube. he idea is that a chemist could not look at the polymer
because the polymer itself can selectively recognize these molecules. It has to adsorb onto the nanotube and then,
by having certain sections of the polymer exposed, it forms a binding site, Strano says.
The researchers used an automated, robot-assisted trial and error procedure to test about 30 polymer-coated nanotubes against three dozen possible targets, yielding three hits.
They are now working on a way to predict such polymer-nanotube interactions based on the structure of the corona layers,
and their targets. hat happening to the polymer and the corona phase has been a bit of a mystery,
then pulling back inward due to surface tension and bouncing away depends on the time period of oscillations in a vibrating drop, also known as the Rayleigh time.
as well as for processes such as spray cooling of hot metal. One application now being considered by Varanasi
In 2006, Doyle lab developed a way to create huge batches of identical particles made of hydrogel, a spongy polymer.
From metals to drugsthe researchers now hope to explore mitochondrial-targeted cisplatin s potential use as a chemotherapy drug by testing it in animals.
They also plan to try targeting cisplatin and other metal-based drugs to different parts of cells
Cisplatin and a handful of other platinum drugs are the only metal-based drugs now approved for human use
but researchers around the world are working on other types of metal-based drugs. People are interested really in using metals as therapeutics
but they re difficult to control and elucidating the cellular targets of metal-based drugs is challenging
because they can interact with so many different biomolecules Radford says. By targeting specific cellular organelles with the same therapeutic molecules we can learn a lot about how the cells respond to a given compound
They demonstrated the existence of a quantum-mechanical mixture of electrons and photons, known as a Floquet-Bloch state, in a crystalline solid.
electrons move in a crystal in a regular, repeating pattern dictated by the periodic structure of the crystal lattice.
sprouts a thicket of polymers that attract water, creating an impenetrable barrier for microbes. Its chemical makeup also mimics that of cells important to homeostasis,
Under certain conditions, putting a cracked piece of metal under tension that is, exerting a force that would be expected to pull it apart has the reverse effect,
and professor of materials science and engineering Michael Demkowicz. e had to go back and check, Demkowicz says, when nstead of extending,
The answer turned out to lie in how grain boundaries interact with cracks in the crystalline microstructure of a metal in this case nickel,
A computer simulation of the molecular stucture of a metal alloy, showing the boundaries between microcystalline grains (white lines forming hexagons),
shows a small crack (dark horizontal bar just right of bottom center) that mends itself as the metal is put under stress.
Simulation courtesy of Guoqiang Xu and Michael Demkowicz Most metals are made of tiny crystalline grains
The very idea that crystal grain boundaries could migrate within a solid metal has been studied extensively within the last decade,
the researchers plan to study how to design metal alloys so cracks would close and heal under loads typical of particular applications.
Techniques for controlling the microstructure of alloys already exist, Demkowicz says, so it just a matter of figuring out how to achieve a desired result. hat a field wee just opening up,
The technique might also apply to other kinds of failure mechanisms that affect metals, such as plastic flow instability akin to stretching a piece of taffy until it breaks.
Metal fatigue, for example which can result from an accumulation of nanoscale cracks over time s probably the most common failure modefor structural metals in general
William Gerberich, a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota who was involved not in this research,
and its refractive index a measure of how much the material forces light to bend as it passes through.
says Ming Dao, a principal research scientist in MIT Department of Materials science and engineering. Now Dao and colleagues, including Subra Suresh, president of Carnegie mellon University, former dean of MIT School of engineering,
Monica Diez-Silva, a former research scientist in MIT Department of Materials science and engineering; and Gregory Kato of the Department of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
In addition to transmitting different kinds of signals, the new fibers are made of polymers that closely resemble the characteristics of neural tissues,
says Anikeeva, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering. To do that, her team made use of novel fiber-fabrication technology pioneered by MIT professor of materials science
(and paper co-author) Yoel Fink and his team, for use in photonics and other applications.
is the fabrication of polymer fibers hat are soft and flexible and look more like natural nerves.
are made of metals, semiconductors, and glass, and can damage nearby tissues during ordinary movement. t a big problem in neural prosthetics,
These polymer templates, which can have dimensions on the scale of inches, are heated then until they become soft,
John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering and of chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who was involved not in this research
the Center for Materials science and engineering, the Center for Sensorimotor Neural engineering, the Mcgovern Institute for Brain Research, the U s army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies,
and Edelman originally developed this tissue glue several years ago by combining two polymers dextran (a polysaccharide) and a highly branched chain called dendrimer.
the number of keys attached to each polymer, and the ratio of the two polymers, the researchers can tune it to perform best in different types and states of tissue.
An inherent property of the adhesive is that any unused keys are absorbed back into the polymer,
preventing them from causing any undesired side effects. This would allow the researchers to create two
The new findings using a layer of one-atom-thick graphene deposited on top of a similar 2-D layer of a material called hexagonal boron nitride (hbn) are published in the journal Nano Letters.
an ion crystal essentially, a grid of charged atoms in order to study friction effects, atom by atom.
To generate the ion crystal, the group used light to ionize, or charge, neutral ytterbium atoms emerging from a small heated oven,
and pull the ion crystal across the lattice, as well as to stretch and squeeze the ion crystal,
much like an accordion, altering the spacing between its atoms. An earthquake and a caterpillarin general, the researchers found that
when atoms in the ion crystal were spaced regularly, at intervals that matched the spacing of the optical lattice, the two surfaces experienced maximum friction,
when the ion crystal as a whole is dragged across the optical lattice, the atoms first tend to stick in the lattice troughs,
If enough force is applied, the ion crystal suddenly slips, as the atoms collectively jump to the next trough. t like an earthquake,
and squeeze the ion crystal to manipulate the arrangement of atoms, and discovered that if the atom spacing is mismatched from that of the optical lattice,
the crystal tends not to stick then suddenly slip, but to move fluidly across the optical lattice,
as the ion crystal is pulled across the optical lattice, one atom may slide down a peak a bit,
says Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT and a cofounder of 24m (and previously a cofounder of battery company A123).
and colleagues including W. Craig Carter, the POSCO Professor of Materials science and engineering. In this so-called low battery, the electrodes are suspensions of tiny particles carried by a liquid
and plastically deforms to weld the metal together. ach one of these reservoirs, until you open it,
Niobium also has a very high melting point nearly 2 500 degrees Celsius so devices made from these nanowires could potentially be suitable for use in high-temperature applications.
Brandl had synthesized previously polymers that could be cleaved apart by exposure to UV LIGHT. But he and Bertrand came to question their suitability for drug delivery,
because we saw that the particles aggregate once you irradiate them with UV LIGHT. trap for ater-fearingpollutionthe researchers synthesized polymers from polyethylene glycol,
and polylactic acid, a biodegradable plastic used in compostable cups and glassware. Nanoparticles made from these polymers have a hydrophobic core and a hydrophilic shell.
Due to molecular-scale forces in a solution hydrophobic pollutant molecules move toward the hydrophobic nanoparticles,
In that case, both the plastic and the oil-based sauce are hydrophobic and interact together.
hormone-disrupting chemicals used to soften plastics, from wastewater; BPA, another endocrine-disrupting synthetic compound widely used in plastic bottles and other resinous consumer goods, from thermal printing paper samples;
and the polymers are biodegradable, minimizing the risks of leaving toxic secondary products to persist in,
from environmental remediation to medical analysis. The polymers are synthesized at room temperature, and don need to be prepared specially to target specific compounds;
This involved, among other things, switching out gold metals used in manufacturing Gan devices for metals that were compatible with silicon fabrication,
They found that graphene's Hall voltage-a voltage in the perpendicular direction to the current flow-depended linearly on the magnetization of yttrium iron garnet (a phenomenon known as the anomalous Hall effect seen in magnetic materials like iron and cobalt.
Conventional pigments produce colors by selectively absorbing light of different wavelengths#for example red ink appears red
The use of a more cost-effective metal has the potential to move this technology closer to adoption Tan notes.
but it does not contain toxic metals such as cadmium that are known to pose potential risks
#High-resolution patterns of quantum dots with e-jet printing A team of 17 materials science and engineering researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana#Champaign and Erciyes University in Turkey have authored High-resolution Patterns of Quantum dots
The technology, developed collaboratively by researchers from Cornell University and Rensselaer Polytechnic institute, uses an electrochemical process called anodization to create nanoscale pores that change the electrical charge and surface energy of a metal surface,
"Anodized metals could be used to prevent buildups of biofilms slick communities of bacteria that adhere to surfaces
Anodized metal could also have marine applications, such as keeping ship hulls free of algae. The collaborating group from Rensselaer Polytechnic institute is led by Diana Borca-Tasciuc, associate professor of mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering.
Led by materials science Associate professor Michael Arnold and Professor Padma Gopalan, the team has reported the highest-performing carbon nanotube transistors ever demonstrated.
the UW-Madison team drew on cutting-edge technologies that use polymers to selectively sort out the semiconducting nanotubes,
the osmium carbonyl clusters can be swapped with other metal carbonyl species to account for different needs and purposes. p
Products that use silica-based nanoparticles for biomedical uses such as various chips drug or gene delivery and tracking imaging ultrasound therapy and diagnostics may also pose an increased cardiovascular
This reality leads to increased human exposure and interaction of silica-based nanoparticles with biological systems.
#Carbon nanoballs can greatly contribute to sustainable energy supply Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have discovered that the insulation plastic used in high-voltage cables can withstand a 26 per cent higher voltage
a nanomaterial in the fullerene molecular group, provide strong protection against breakdown of the insulation plastic used in high-voltage cables.
It is sufficient to add very small amounts of fullerene to the insulation plastic for it to withstand a voltage that is 26 per cent higher, without the material breaking down,
than the voltage that plastic without the additive can withstand. Carbon nanoballs can greatly contribute to sustainable energy supply An electrical tree,
otherwise destroy chemical bonds in the plastic. Credit: Anette Johansson and Markus Jarvid"Being able to increase the voltage to this extent would result in enormous efficiency gains in power transmission all over the world,
"Using additives to protect the insulation plastic has been known a concept since the 1970s, but until now it has been unknown exactly
Lina Bertling The Chalmers researchers have demonstrated now that fullerenes are the best voltage stabilizers identified for insulation plastic thus far.
and were added to pieces of insulation plastic used for high-voltage cables. The pieces of plastic were subjected then to an increasing electric field until they crackled.
Fullerenes turned out to be the type of additive that most effectively protects the insulation plastic.
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