Despite all the promise that nanocellulose offers, scientists don’t seem to have found significant applications for the material . In the software industry, they used to call it ‘a killer app’, i.e., an application everyone would start using (e.g. Facebook or Google) thereby making much money for its developer(s).. This July 31, 2019 news item on phys.org describes research that may help scientists develop a nanocellulose ‘killer app’, High-performance biomass-based nanocomposites are emerging as promising…

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A July 30, 2019 news item on Nanowerk announces some neuroscience research (they used animal models) that could prove helpful with neurodegenerative diseases, Working with mouse and human tissue, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report new evidence that a protein pumped out of some — but not all — populations of “helper” cells in the brain, called astrocytes, plays a specific role in directing the formation of connections among neurons needed for learning and forming new…

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Martin Thuo and his research group have developed heat-free technology that can print conductive, metallic lines and traces on just about anything, including a rose petal. Photo courtesy of Martin Thuo. I’m not sure how I feel about an electrified rose but it is strangely fascinating. Here’s more from a July 29, 2019 news item on Nanowerk, Martin Thuo of Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory clicked through the photo gallery for one of…

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A January 2, 2020 Columbia University news release on EurekAlert (also on phys.org but published Jan. 3, 2020) describes research that takes the inter-galactic down to the quantum level, Researchers at Columbia University and University of California, San Diego, have introduced a novel “multi-messenger” approach to quantum physics that signifies a technological leap in how scientists can explore quantum materials. The findings appear in a recent article published in Nature Materials, led by A. S.…

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Time seems to be having a moment. (I couldn’t resist. If Carlo Rovelli’s 2018 book, The Order of Time, is any indication the topic has attained a new level of interest. The only other evidence I have is that I stumble across essays about time in unlikely places. Infinity, a play about time and more, has been produced and toured on and off since 2015 when it won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best…

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This posting will focus on science, technology, the tragic consequence of bureaucratic and political bungling (the technology disaster that is is the Phoenix payroll system), and the puzzling lack of concern about some of the biggest upcoming technological and scientific changes in government and society in decades or more. Setting the scene After getting enough Liberal party members elected to the Canadian Parliament’s House of Commons to form a minority government in October 2019, Prime…

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Caption: For the first time, LEGO ® has been cooled to the lowest temperature possible in an experiment which reveals a new use for the popular toy. Credit: Josh Chawner Pretty interesting science and seasonally appropriate for large numbers of people, this video was posted on December 23, 2019 (from YouTube’s The World’s Coolest LEGO Set! webpage), Hamster Productions 154K subscribers Our LEGO insulator paper: https://nature.com/articles/s41598-01… A world leading team of ultra-low temperature physicists at…

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The statues on Easter Island, the Great Wall of China, Egyptian pyramids, MesoAmerican pyramids, castles in Europe and other structures made of stone are deteriorating and now comes another approach to halting the destruction. (I have covered other approaches to the problem in two previous postings, a December 5, 2017 posting, Europe’s cathedrals get a ‘lift’ with nanoparticles, and an October 21, 2014 posting, Heart of stone.) An August 7, 2019 news item on ScienceDaily…

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The signal transmitted into mouse brain can participate in mouse perception and act as the brain stimulator. (Image credit: Prof. ZHAN Yang) I’m fascinated by the image. Are they suggesting putting implants into people’s brains that can sense dangerous gaseous molecules and convert that into data which can be read on a smartphone? And, are they harvesting bioenergy to supply energy to the implant? A July 29, 2019 news item on Azonano was not as…

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A July 26, 2019 news item on Nanowerk takes us into the world of quantum physics and graphene (Note: Links have been removed), A team of researchers from the Universities of Manchester, Nottingham and Loughborough have discovered quantum phenomena that helps to understand the fundamental limits of graphene electronics.As published in Nature Communications (“Strong magnetophonon oscillations in extra-large graphene”), the work describes how electrons in a single atomically-thin sheet of graphene scatter off the vibrating…

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