If you have ever wondered how much electric vehicle (EV) adoption actually matters for the environment, a new study provides evidence that making this switch would improve overall air quality and lower carbon emissions. The Northwestern University study quantified the differences in air pollution generated from battery-powered electric vehicles versus internal combustion engines. The researchers…
New Method Improves Infrared Imaging Performance
Using Machine Learning to Design Peptides
Inflammation Can Lead to Circadian Sleep Disorders
Mystery of How Black Widow Spiders Create Steel-Strength Silk Webs Further Unravelled
Researchers at Northwestern University and San Diego State University (SDSU) have better unraveled the complex process of how black widow spiders transform proteins into steel-strength fibers. This knowledge promises to aid scientists in creating equally strong synthetic materials. Black widow spiders and their relatives, native to temperate climates in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa…
Researchers Demonstrate First Example of a Bioelectronic Medicine
Researchers at Northwestern University and Washington University School of Medicine have developed the first example of a bioelectronic medicine: an implantable, biodegradable wireless device that speeds nerve regeneration and improves the healing of a damaged nerve. The collaborators — materials scientists and engineers at Northwestern and neurosurgeons at Washington University — developed a device that…
Transparent Array of Microelectrodes Image the Brain
Chain-link fences are common, and for good reason: They’re simple and flexible, without blocking light or visibility. As Hui Fang and a team of neuroscientists from Boston Children’s Hospital reveal in a new report published in the journal Science Advances, their structure can also work wonders for the brain. “I’m not a neuroscientist — and…
New Technique Helps Uncover Changes in ALS Neurons
Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that some neurons affected by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) display hypo-excitability, using a new method to measure electrical activity in cells, according to a study published in Stem Cell Reports. “The excitability changes observed in these patient neurons most likely represent the early steps in the disease process,” said Evangelos…
Chameleon-Inspired Nano-Laser Changes Colors
As a chameleon shifts its color from turquoise to pink to orange to green, nature’s design principles are at play. Complex nano-mechanics are quietly and effortlessly working to camouflage the lizard’s skin to match its environment. Inspired by nature, a Northwestern University team has developed a novel nanolaser that changes colors using the same mechanism…
Regenerative Bandage Accelerates Healing in Diabetic Wounds
A simple scrape or sore might not cause alarm for most people. But for diabetic patients, an untreated scratch can turn into an open wound that could potentially lead to a limb amputation or even death. A Northwestern University team has developed a new device, called a regenerative bandage, that quickly heals these painful, hard-to-treat…
Bursts of Brain Activity Linked to Memory Reactivation
Making Carbon Nanotubes as Usable as Common Plastics
Northwestern University’s Jiaxing Huang is ready to reignite carbon nanotube research. And he’s doing so with a common chemical that was once used in household cleaners. By using an inexpensive, already mass produced, simple solvent called cresol, Huang has discovered a way to make disperse carbon nanotubes at unprecedentedly high concentrations without the need for…
Dozens of Binaries from Milky Way’s Globular Clusters could be Detectable by LISA
The historic first detection of gravitational waves from colliding black holes far outside our galaxy opened a new window to understanding the universe. A string of detections — four more binary black holes and a pair of neutron stars — soon followed the Sept. 14, 2015, observation. Now, another detector is being built to crack…
New Biotech Technique Accelerates Protein Therapy Research
New Methodology Helps Study of Promising Targeted Drug Delivery Scaffold
New Innovations in Cell-Free Biotechnology
‘Memtransistor’ Brings World Closer to Brain-Like Computing
Manipulating Quantum Interactions in a Single Material
The search and manipulation of novel properties emerging from the quantum nature of matter could lead to next-generation electronics and quantum computers. But finding or designing materials that can host such quantum interactions is a difficult task. “Harmonizing multiple quantum mechanical properties, which often do not coexist together, and trying to do it by design…
Controlling Quantum Interactions in a Single Material
Inverse-Design Approach Leads to Metadevices
Using Crumpled Graphene Balls to Make Better Batteries
Lithium metal-based batteries have the potential to turn the battery industry upside down. With the theoretically ultra-high capacity of lithium metal used by itself, this new type of battery could power everything from personal devices to cars. “In current batteries, lithium is usually atomically distributed in another material such as graphite or silicon in the…
Black Hole Breakthrough: New Insight into Mysterious Jets
New Lithium-Rich Battery Could Last Much Longer
On paper, it doesn’t seem like Christopher Wolverton’s super lithium-rich battery should work. For one, the novel battery uses iron, an inexpensive metal that has notoriously failed in batteries. And in another difficult feat, the battery leverages oxygen to help drive the chemical reaction, which researchers previously believed would cause the battery to become unstable.…
