Two-dimensional material stacks into multiple layers to build a memory cell for longer lasting batteries

July 9, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

This research comes from Purdue University (US) and the December announcement seemed particularly timely since battery-powered gifts are popular at Christmas but since it could be many years before this work is commercialized, you may want to tuck it away for future reference. Also, readers familiar with memristors might see a resemblance to the memory cells mentioned in the following excerpt. From a December 13, 2018 news item on Nanowerk, The more objects we make…

World’s smallest magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of a single atom

July 9, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

While not science’s sleekest machine, this microscope was able to capture M.R.I. scans of single atoms. Credit: IBM Research Such a messy looking thing—it makes me feel better about my housekeeping. In any event, it’s fascinating to think this scanning tunneling microscope as seen in the above can actually act as an MRI device and create an image of a single atom. There’s a wonderful article in the New York Times about the work but…

Beneath the surface: aquatic toxicology tests help identify pollutants in waterbodies

July 9, 2019July 17, 2019 Saskatchewan Research Council Environmental and Earth Sciences, General Science, Technology and Engineering

It’s important for the health of our ecosystems that industry and municipalities monitor and measure the impact their activities have on aquatic environments. Extensive research in the field of aquatic toxicology has helped pave the way for standardized testing to ensure industry and municipalities are operating safely and responsibly.

Better performing solar cells with newly discovered property of pristine graphene

July 8, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

Light-harvesting devices—I like that better than solar cells or the like but I think that the term serves as a category rather than a name/label for a specific device. Enough musing. A December 17, 2018 news item on Nanowerk describes the latest about graphene and light-harvesting devices (Note: A link has been removed, An international research team, co-led by a physicist at the University of California, Riverside, has discovered a new mechanism for ultra-efficient charge…

An artificial synapse tuned by light, a ferromagnetic memristor, and a transparent, flexible artificial synapse

July 8, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

Down the memristor rabbit hole one more time.* I started out with news about two new papers and inadvertently found two more. In a bid to keep this posting to a manageable size, I’m stopping at four. UK In a June 19, 2019 Nanowerk Spotlight article, Dr. Neil Kemp discusses memristors and some of his latest work (Note: A link has been removed), Memristor (or memory resistors) devices are non-volatile electronic memory devices that were…

Twitter vs blogs and science advertising vs discussion

July 6, 2019 Theory, Evolution, and Games Group bloggers Biology and Life Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, Technology and Engineering

I read and write a lot of science outside the traditional medium of papers. Most often on blogs, twitter, and Reddit. And these alternative media are colliding more and more with the ‘mainstream media’ of academic publishing. A particularly visible trend has been the twitter paper thread: a collection of tweets that advertise a new paper and summarize its results. I’ve even written such a thread (5-6 March) for my recent paper on how to…

Jiggly jell-o as a new hydrogen fuel catalyst

July 5, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

Jello [uploaded from https://www.organicauthority.com/eco-chic-table/new-jell-o-mold-jiggle-chic-holidays] I’m quite intrigued by this ‘jell-o’ story. It’s hard to believe a childhood dessert might prove to have an application as a catalyst for producing hydrogen fuel. From a December 14, 2018 news item on Nanowerk, A cheap and effective new catalyst developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, can generate hydrogen fuel from water just as efficiently as platinum, currently the best — but also most expensive —…

Science events and an exhibition concerning wind in the Vancouver (Canada) area for July 2019 and beyond

July 4, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

it’s not quite the bumper crop of science events that took place in May 2019, which may be a good thing if you’re eager to attend everything. First, here are the events and then, the exhibition. Nerd Nite at the Movies On July 10, 2019, a new series is being launched at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) Centre. Here’s the description from the Nerd Nite Vancouver SciFact vs SciFi: Nerd Nite Goes to the…

Better anti-parasitic medicine delivery with chitosan-based nanocapsules

July 3, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

I mage: The common liver fluke which can cause fascioliasis. Credit: Wikimedia creative commons Courtesy: Leeds University It looks like a pair of lips to me but, according to a December 12, 2018 news item on Nanowerk, this liver fluke heralds a flatworm infection is a serious health problem, An international team, led by Professor Francisco Goycoolea from the University of Leeds [UK] and Dr Claudio Salomon from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina, and…

CARESSES your elders (robots for support)

July 2, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

Culturally sensitive robots for elder care! It’s about time. The European Union has funded the Culture Aware Robots and Environmental Sensor Systems for Elderly Support (CARESSES) project being coordinated in Italy. A December 13, 2018 news item on phys.org describes the project, Researchers have developed revolutionary new robots that adapt to the culture and customs of the elderly people they assist.Population ageing has implications for many sectors of society, one of which is the increased…

Technology and Engineering