Plant diseases, though a normal part of nature, can have disastrous effects in agriculture. They reduce food for people and revenues in rural areas. In the worst cases they result in hunger and starvation, as many famines in history show. About 16 percent of all crops are lost to plant diseases each year across the…
Smart Device Finds Food Contaminants in Real Time
Fast, accurate and affordable food safety testing is now possible. Thanks to a portable scanner, farmers, food manufacturers and retailers can now do their own tests in the field, eliminating costly and time-consuming lab tests. Consumers place importance on different things in the foods they consume. Some insist on locally grown or organic food. Others…
Smartphones Sniff Out Disease
Gastric cancer, also known as stomach cancer, is the fifth most common cause of cancer-related deaths in Europe. Because of the lack of early signs specifically related to the disease, it’s usually only detected at an advanced stage—when treatment is for the most part ineffective. Driven to improve stomach and other cancer survival rates, for…
Graphene and Cobalt Used to Create New Electromagnetic Devices
Researchers from IMDEA Nanociencia and other European centers have discovered that the combination of graphene with cobalt offers relevant properties in the field of magnetism. This breakthrough sets the stage for the development of new logic devices that can store large data amounts quickly and with reduced energy consumption. One of the latest technologies for…
Graphene Utilized for High-Speed Optical Communications
The Graphene Flagship program aims to act as a catalyst for the development of groundbreaking applications by bringing together academia and industry to take this versatile material into society within 10 years. The importance of integrating graphene in silicon photonics was evident in the joint results produced by the collaboration between Flagship partners AMO GmbH…
Laser Technology Maps Minerals Deep in the Ocean
Marine mineral resources have been attracting a lot of attention lately, thanks to the rising demand for raw materials that are used in smart electronics, medical sciences and renewable energy products. With depleting land-based deposits for metals such as copper, nickel, manganese, zinc, lithium and cobalt, seabed mining is seen as an opportunity to increase…
GHz Signals Get a Boost from Graphene
Graphene — a one-atom-thick layer of hexagonally arranged carbon atoms ǿ is the thinnest and strongest material known to man and an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. Since 2004, when researchers discovered how to extract it from graphite, graphene has opened new windows of opportunity in the world of science and technology. Over the…
Tiny Quantum Device Redefines the Ampere
Over the last few decades, the need for increasingly high-accuracy and reliable measurements has determined a shift towards standards based on fundamental quantities of nature. Within the EU-funded project SINHOPSI, researchers from the University of Cambridge, the National Physical Laboratory, and Hitachi Ltd. have joined forces in creating novel quantum technology critical in creating a…
Graphene Looks Toward the Stars
Due to its distinctive properties graphene has been held out as a game-changing material for a range of industries and applications. The Graphene Flagship initiative was set up as Europe’s biggest ever multi-stakeholder research initiative, to quite literally shape the future of the technology. The 10 year Graphene Flagship, partly EU-funded, was set up to…
Magnetoelastic Effect Controls Magnetic Properties of Nanoelements
Information Communications and Technology (ICT) devices rely significantly on being able to harness the magnetic properties of materials, especially for computing memory and processing. Researchers, drawing on work conducted under the EU-funded MULTIREV project, recently published an article in Nature in which they outline how they used cutting-edge dynamic imaging to visualize deformation (sound) waves…
Researchers Construct Mock Spider Webs from Graphene
Spider silk has many fascinating mechanical properties which have attracted researchers’ attention. Now a team has matched one of nature’s wonders with graphene, currently the world’s strongest material, thereby opening the door to a new class of bionic composites. Spider silk provides a combination of great strength ~1.5 GPa and toughness ~150 J g−1. To explore…
EU Discusses Nanomaterial Safety Initiatives
Researchers are working on an industry-tailored strategy for the risk-assessment of nanoparticles and nano-enabled products. Their approach, as described in the Journal of Chemical Health and Safety, focuses on creating a risk profile for a given nanomaterial (NM), taking into account industrial needs across sectors. The process would determine which materials or processes pose risks,…
One Step Closer to a Real Invisibility Cloak
Optical devices are undergoing a revolution: they are shrinking, being integrated more effectively, with advances increasingly available to mass markets. Whereas traditional optics are measured in centimeters, the latest innovations use nanoscale objects to control, guide, and focus light. Our ability to shape metallic materials has led to the field of nanophotonics. 3D metamaterials contribute…