On the last day of 2020, City University of Hong Kong (CityU) announced a technique for stretching diamonds that could result in a new generation of electronic devices. A December 31, 2020 news item on ScienceDaily makes the announcement, Diamond is the hardest material in nature. It also has great potential as an excellent electronic material. A research team has demonstrated for the first time the large, uniform tensile elastic straining of microfabricated diamond arrays…

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Courtesy: Mother-of-pearl Courtesy: Technische Universitaet (TU) Dresden Mother-of-pearl (also known as nacre) research has been featured here a few times (links at the end of this post). This time it touches on self-assembly, which is the source of much interest and, on occasion, much concern in the field of nanotechnology. In any case, the latest mother-of-pearl work comes from the Technische Universität (TU) Dresden (Technical University of Dresden), located in Germany. From a January 4,…

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Before reading further please note, the research discussed in this posting is based on animal testing, which many people find highly disturbing. CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)/Cas9 (CRISPR-associated protein 9), or more familiarly CRISPR/Cas9, has been been used to edit simian immunodeficiency virus from infected monkeys’ cells according to a December 2, 2020 article by Matthew Rozsa for Salon.com (Note: Links have been removed), With multiple coronavirus vaccines being produced as we speak,…

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Dancing with Baryshnibot. Alice Williamson, Courtesy Merritt Moore Dancing robots usually perform to pop music but every once in a while, there’s a move toward classical music and ballet, e.g., my June 8, 2011 posting was titled, Robot swan dances to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Unlike the dancing robot in the picture above, that robot swan danced alone. (You can still see the robot’s Swan Lake performance in the video embedded in the 2011 posting.) I…

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Courtesy: University of Arkansas What a great image of bones! This December 3, 2020 University of Arkansas news release (also on EurekAlert) by Matt McGowan features research focused on bone material looks exciting. The date for the second study citation and link that I have listed (at the end of this posting) suggests the more recent study may have been initially overlooked in the deluge of COVID-19 research we are experiencing, University of Arkansas researchers…

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A Dec. 7, 2020 news item on Nanowerk announced a new technology for rapid COVID-19 testing (Note: A link has been removed), As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the world, testing remains a key strategy for tracking and containing the virus. Bioengineering graduate student, Maha Alafeef, has co-developed a rapid, ultrasensitive test using a paper-based electrochemical sensor that can detect the presence of the virus in less than five minutes.The team led by…

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This could be a bit stomach-churning for some folks. Researchers at Canada’s McMaster University have developed and are commercializing a technique for cultivated meat (the first experiment involved mouse meat). (You could call it vat-grown meat.) A January 19, 2021 news item on phys.org makes the announcement (Note: Links have been removed), McMaster researchers have developed a new form of cultivated meat using a method that promises more natural flavor and texture than other alternatives…

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As part of their 40th anniversary celebration, the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology (SCWIST) is offering a workshop series, which you can attend even if you don’t have a Zoom account or a camera on your computer system, Here’s the next one in the series (from the Visual Science Storytelling event page), Science Communication Workshop 3: Visual Science Storytellingwith Sara ElShafieLearn how to create aesthetic and informative visuals, and take your slide…

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For the record, this is spider mite silk (I have many posts about spider silk and its possible applications on this blog; just search ‘spider silk’).. The international collaborative team includes a Canadian university in combination with a Spanish university and a Serbian university. The composition of the team is one I haven’t seen here before. From a December 17, 2020 news item on phys.org (Note: A link has been removed), An international team of…

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Courtesy: Arte Institute Plans for last year’s FACTT (Festival of Art and Science) 2020 had to be revised at the last minute due to COVID-19. This year, organizers were prepared so no in person sessions have to be cancelled or turned into virtual events. Here’s more from the Jan. 25, 2021 announcement I received (via email) from one of the festival partners, the ArtSci Salon at the University of Toronto, Join us! Opening of FACTT…

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