Lifeboat Foundation

University of California, Berkeley, chemists have created a new type of material from millions of identical, interlocking molecules, that for the first time allows the synthesis of extensive 2D or 3D structures that are flexible, strong and resilient, like the chain mail that protected medieval knights.

The material, called an infinite catenane, can be synthesized in a single chemical step.

Continue reading “New ‘chain mail’ material of interlocking molecules is tough, flexible and easy to make” »

There are many ways to initiate chemical reactions in liquids, but placing free electrons directly into water, ammonia and other liquid solutions is especially attractive for green chemistry because solvated electrons are inherently clean, leaving behind no side products after they react.

In theory, solvated electrons could be used to safely and sustainably break down carbon dioxide or chemical pollutants in contaminated water, but it has been impractical to find out because they’ve been difficult and expensive to make in pure form.

That could change thanks to new research from chemists at Rice University, Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin. In a published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the Center for Adapting Flaws into Features (CAFF) uncovered the long-sought mechanism of a well-known but poorly understood process that produces solvated electrons via interactions between light and metal.

Since the success of the COVID-19 vaccine, RNA therapies have been the object of increasing interest in the biotech world. These therapies work with your body to target the genetic root of diseases and infections, a promising alternative treatment method to that of traditional pharmaceutical drugs.

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have been successfully used in drug delivery for decades. FDA-approved therapies use them as vehicles for delivering messenger RNA (mRNA), which prompts the cell to make new proteins, and small interfering RNA (siRNA), which instruct the cell to silence or inhibit the expression of certain proteins.

The biggest challenge in developing a successful RNA therapy is its targeted delivery. Research is now confronting the current limitations of LNPs, which have left many diseases without an effective RNA therapy.

Scientists from UNSW Sydney have demonstrated a novel technique for creating tiny 3D materials that could eventually make fuel cells like hydrogen batteries cheaper and more sustainable.

In the study published in Science Advances, researchers from the School of Chemistry at UNSW Science show it’s possible to sequentially “grow” interconnected hierarchical structures in 3D at the nanoscale which have unique chemical and physical properties to support energy conversion reactions.

In chemistry, hierarchical structures are configurations of units like molecules within an organization of other units that themselves may be ordered. Similar phenomena can be seen in the natural world, like in flower petals and tree branches. But where these structures have extraordinary potential is at a level beyond the visibility of the human eye—at the nanoscale.

@NatureNano is hiring!

If you are an expert in 2D materials, electronics, optoelectronics, nanophotonics, or electronic engineering and interested in a career in science publishing?

Apply by Jan 22nd 2023 and join the editorial team.

Continue reading “Associate or Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology” »

For decades, transistors—the heart of computer chips—have been getting smaller and smaller. As a result, the electronic components in many devices can be made even more compact, faster and also more powerful. But is this development coming to a natural halt? The smaller the components, the greater the danger that individual defects in the atomic structure will significantly change the behavior of the component. This applies to the established silicon technology and novel nanotechnologies based on 2D materials.

At Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), intensive work has been done on the physical description of this problem at the transistor level. Now the researchers are going a step further and looking at the influence of defects at the level of electronic circuits, which sometimes consist of several—sometimes even billions—of transistors. In some cases, individual transistors can operate outside the desired specification, but still perform well as part of a circuit consisting of several transistors. With this new approach at the circuit level, significant advances in miniaturization are still possible.

The study is published in the journal Advanced Materials.

This video was recorded at the Foresight Vision Weekend 2022 at Château du Feÿ in France.

Michael Greve | Longevity Investing.

Continue reading “Michael Greve | Longevity Investing @ Vision Weekend France 2022” »

By Brookhaven National Laboratory

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have successfully demonstrated that autonomous methods can discover new materials. The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technique led to the discovery of three new nanostructures, including a first-of-its-kind nanoscale “ladder.” The research was published today in Science Advances…

The newly discovered structures were formed by a process called self-assembly, in which a material’s molecules organize themselves into unique patterns. Scientists at Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) are experts at directing the self-assembly process, creating templates for materials to form desirable arrangements for applications in microelectronics, catalysis, and more. Their discovery of the nanoscale ladder and other new structures further widens the scope of self-assembly’s applications.

There’s a new nanomaterial on the block. University of Oregon chemists have found a way to make carbon-based molecules with a unique structural feature: interlocking rings.

Like other nanomaterials, these linked-together molecules have interesting properties that can be “tuned” by changing their size and chemical makeup. That makes them potentially useful for an array of applications, such as specialized sensors and new kinds of electronics.

“It’s a new topology for carbon nanomaterials, and we’re finding new properties that we haven’t been able to see before,” said James May, a graduate student in chemistry professor Ramesh Jasti’s lab and the first author on the paper. May and his colleagues report their findings in a paper published in Nature Chemistry.