An “interactive surface” refers to an interface whose input and output share a common surface that can be manipulated intuitively with the fingers. However, ordinary multi-touch displays, e.g., liquid crystal displays (LCD), can only provide two-dimensional information, limiting expressions and interactions with such displays to the surface. Novel three-dimensional display systems have been proposed to…
Simple and Low-Cost Crack-Healing of Ceramic-Based Composites
A team of researchers at Osaka University demonstrated that cracks induced in composites consisting of alumina (Al2O3) ceramics and titanium (Ti) as dispersed phase could be healed at room temperature, a world first. This ceramic healing method permits crack-healing even in a state in which ceramic parts are mounted on devices at a low cost…
Cancer Cells Distinguished By Artificial Intelligence-Based System
In cancer patients, there can be tremendous variation in the types of cancer cells from one patient to another, even within the same disease. Identification of the particular cell types present can be very useful when choosing the treatment that would be most effective, but the methods of doing this are time-consuming and often hampered…
Nanopore Detection of Single Flu Viruses to Control Outbreaks
Influenza is a highly contagious respiratory disease of global importance, which causes millions of infections annually with the ever-present risk of a serious outbreak. Passive vaccination is the only method available for partial control of the virus. Rapid diagnosis of influenza has been explored to prevent outbreaks by enabling medication at very early stages of…
Feeling the Pressure With Universal Tactile Imaging
Touch, or tactile sensing, is fundamentally important for a range of real-life applications, from robotics to surgical medicine to sports science. Tactile sensors are modeled on the biological sense of touch and can help researchers to understand human perception and motion. Researchers from Osaka University have now developed a new approach to pressure distribution measurement…
High-intensity Laser Heats Plasma
An international joint research group led by Osaka University demonstrated that it was possible to efficiently heat plasma by focusing a relativistic electron beam (REB) accelerated by a high-intensity, short-pulse laser with the application of a magnetic field of 600 tesla (T), about 600 times greater than the magnetic energy of a neodymium magnet (the…
Tracking Hydrogen Movement Using Subatomic Particles
A muon is an unstable subatomic particle similar to an electron but with much greater mass. The lifetime of a muon is only a couple of microseconds, but this is long compared with the lifetimes of many unstable subatomic particles. Because of their comparatively long lifetime, positive muons are often used to detect internal magnetic…
Two Are Better than One
Quantum dots are nanometer-sized boxes that have attracted huge scientific interest for use in nanotechnology because their properties obey quantum mechanics and are requisites to develop advanced electronic and photonic devices. Quantum dots that self-assemble during their formation are particularly attractive as tunable light emitters in nanoelectronic devices and to study quantum physics because of…
Lasers Scan Insect Bodies to Study Pesticides
Pesticides have been linked with declining honeybee numbers raising questions about how we might replace the many essential uses of these chemicals in agriculture and for control of insect-borne diseases. As many governments seek to restrict uses of pesticides, more information on how pesticides affect different insects is increasingly beneficial. Greater insight into how these…
Environmentally Friendly Photoluminescent Nanoparticles for More Vivid Display Colors
Most current displays do not always accurately represent the world’s colors as we perceive them by eye, instead only representing roughly 70% of them. To make better displays with true colors commonly available, researchers have focused their efforts on light-emitting nanoparticles. Such nanoparticles can also be used in medical research to light up and keep…
Particles Collected by Hayabusa Give Absolute Age of Asteroid Itokawa
Understanding the origin and time evolution of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) is an issue of scientific interest and practical importance because they are potentially hazardous to the Earth. However, when and how these NEAs were formed and what they suffered during their lifetime remain enigmas. Japanese scientists, including those from Osaka University, closely examined particles collected…
Researchers Discover Key Mechanism of DNA Replication
Researchers from Osaka University in Japan have uncovered a key control mechanism of DNA replication with potential implications for better understanding how cells maintain genetic information to prevent diseases or cancer. The team published their results in July in The EMBO Journal, the flagship publication of the European Molecular Biology Organization. “DNA replication initiates from…
Organ Regeneration is No Longer a Distant Dream
Many organs arise from simple sheets and tubes of cells. During development, these sheets bend and deform into the more complex final shape of the organ. This can be seen, for example, in the hindgut of fruit flies (Drosophila), which is an organ equivalent to our intestines. The Drosophila embryonic hindgut first forms as a…
Brain Function Partly Replicated by Nanomaterials
Welcoming a New Class of Organic Materials
During the last two decades, porous materials such as zeolites and metal-organic frameworks have drawn the attention of the scientific community due to the wide range of applications derived from their porosity. Recently, a new class of all organic materials has emerged — the hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs). These crystalline materials rely on two types…
Could a Particle Accelerator Using Laser-Driven Implosion Become a Reality?
Laser pulse compression technology invented in the late 1980s developed high-power short-pulse laser techniques, enhancing laser intensity 10-million-fold in a quarter of a century. Scientists at Osaka University discovered a novel particle acceleration mechanism called ‘Micro-bubble implosion,’ in which super-high energy hydrogen ions (relativistic protons) are emitted at the moment when bubbles shrink to atomic…
The Nanoscale Quest for Extra Dimensions
Often, practical limits control the experimental measurements that can be made, governing the difference between what we expect to be true based on the most likely predictions of models and calculations, and findings that have been supported by testing. A team of researchers has now used the world’s highest intensity neutron beamline facility, at J-PARC…
Researchers Show Plasma Density Limit for the Interaction of High-Power Lasers With Matter
The interaction of high-power laser light sources with matter has given rise to numerous applications including; fast ion acceleration; intense X-ray, gamma-ray, positron and neutron generation; and fast-ignition-based laser fusion. These applications require an understanding of energy absorption and momentum transfer from the high-intensity lasers to plasma particles. A group of Japanese researchers led by…
A Magnetic Brake on Proton Acceleration
Shine a powerful laser onto a solid, and you get a beam of high-energy protons. Far from being a curiosity, this phenomenon has important applications, such as in neutron-generation research. Theoretically, the more intense the laser, the faster (in other words, more energetic) the resulting protons. However, we recently seem to have hit a wall,…
Breaking the Chain: Catalyzing a Green Future for Chemistry
The fight against climate change is a call-to-arms for industry. We currently rely on fossil fuels, a major source of the greenhouse gas CO2, not only for energy but also to create chemicals for manufacturing. To ween our economies off this dependency, we must find a new source of “green” raw materials so that factories…
Seeing the Next Dimension of Computer Chips
A research collaboration between Osaka University and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology for the first time used scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to create images of atomically flat side-surfaces of 3D silicon crystals. This work helps semiconductor manufacturers continue to innovate while producing smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient computer chips for computers and smartphones.…
Advanced Microscope Reveals Perfectly Smooth Silicon Crystals
A research collaboration between Osaka University and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology for the first time used scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to create images of atomically flat side-surfaces of 3-D silicon crystals. This work helps semiconductor manufacturers continue to innovate while producing smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient computer chips for computers and smartphones.…
Medication that Treats Parasite Infection also has Anti-Cancer Effect
Osaka Researchers, in partnership with other Japanese and U.S. scientists, report a new gene target, KPNB1, for treatment against epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). EOC is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women and has a particularly grim outlook upon diagnosis. They also find that ivermectin exerts an anti-tumor effect on EOC cells by…
Assembling Nanomachines in Bacteria
Osaka University researchers use X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy to resolve the assembly of the export gate apparatus in Salmonella. The new details of this nanomachine are expected to clarify how bacteria infect eukaryotic cells and present new molecular targets for drug discovery. One of the oldest nanomachines in biology is the bacterial flagellum. This…
Nanowire Resonators Can Be Used to Miniaturize Energy-efficient Electronics
Computers that fit in our pockets, television screens no thicker than a door, and cars only slightly bigger than their passengers, technology is constantly getting smaller. A major reason for this miniaturization is the development of nano-size resonators, which convert small levels of electrical power into mechanical oscillations at high frequencies. “Nano-electromechanical resonators are used…