What if the wood your house was made of could save your electricity bill? In the race to save energy, using a passive cooling method that requires no electricity and is built right into your house could save even chilly areas of the U.S. some cash. Now, researchers at the University of Maryland and the…
UMD-Led Researchers’ Wood-Based Technology Creates Electricity From Heat
Innovative 3D Nanoprinting Technique Holds Promise for Medicine, Robotics
Engineers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have created the first 3D-printed fluid circuit element so tiny that 10 could rest on the width of a human hair. The diode ensures fluids move in only a single direction—a critical feature for products like implantable devices that release therapies directly into the body. The microfluidic diode…
National Quantum Initiative Act Passes Congress
Scientists Measure the Mysterious Casimir Torque
Researchers from the University of Maryland have for the first time measured an effect that was predicted more than 40 years ago, called the Casimir torque. When placed together in a vacuum less than the diameter of a bacterium (one micron) apart, two pieces of metal attract each other. This is called the Casimir effect.…
Saltier Waterways Are Creating Dangerous ‘Chemical Cocktails’
A recent study led by University of Maryland researchers found that streams and rivers across the United States have become saltier and more alkaline over the past 50 years, thanks to road deicers, fertilizers and other salty compounds that humans indirectly release into waterways. The team named this effect “Freshwater Salinization Syndrome.” New research from…
Kin of Gravitational Wave Source Discovered
On October 16, 2017, an international group of astronomers and physicists excitedly reported the first simultaneous detection of light and gravitational waves from the same source—a merger of two neutron stars. Now, a team that includes several University of Maryland astronomers has identified a direct relative of that historic event. The newly described object, named…
Semiconductor Quantum Transistor Opens the Door for Photon-based Computing
Semiconductor Quantum Transistor Opens the Door for Photon-Based Computing
Transistors are tiny switches that form the bedrock of modern computing; billions of them route electrical signals around inside a smartphone, for instance. Quantum computers will need analogous hardware to manipulate quantum information. But the design constraints for this new technology are stringent, and today’s most advanced processors can’t be repurposed as quantum devices. That’s…
Researchers Break Barrier Surrounding Better Solid-State Batteries
Engineers at the University of Maryland have developed a means to overcome obstacles in the development of solid-state batteries, primarily high resistance and low capacity. Dr. Eric Wachsman, Director of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute and William L. Crentz Centennial Chair in Energy Research, and his group have broken these barriers through the fabrication of…
A New Model for Communication in Plant Cells
Plant cells share a strange and surprising kinship with animal neurons: many plant cells have proteins that closely resemble glutamate receptors, which help to relay nerve signals from one neuron to another. While plants lack a true nervous system, previous studies have shown that plants need these glutamate receptor-like proteins (GLRs) to do important things…
A Different Spin on Superconductivity
Scientists Mix the Unmixable to Create ‘Shocking’ Nanoparticles
Making a giant leap in the ‘tiny’ field of nanoscience, a multi-institutional team of researchers is the first to create nanoscale particles composed of up to eight distinct elements generally known to be immiscible, or incapable of being mixed or blended together. The blending of multiple, unmixable elements into a unified, homogenous nanostructure, called a…
Durable Wood Carbon Sponge Could Be the Future of Wearable Sensors, Pollutant Treatment
Hardy Wood Carbon Sponge Heralds Future of Wearables
New Hole-Punched Crystal Clears a Path for Quantum Light
Breakthrough Technique Combats Cancer Drug Resistance
The ability for cancer cells to develop resistance to chemotherapy drugs – known as multidrug resistance – remains a leading cause for tumor recurrence and cancer metastasis, but recent findings offer hope that oncologists could one day direct cancer cells to “turn off” their resistance capabilities. New findings put forth by University of Maryland Fischell…
North American Waterways are Becoming Saltier and More Alkaline
Across North America, streams and rivers are becoming saltier, thanks to road deicers, fertilizers and other salty compounds that humans indirectly release into waterways. At the same time, freshwater supplies are becoming more alkaline. Salty, alkaline freshwater can create big problems for drinking water supplies, urban infrastructure and natural ecosystems. For example, when Flint, Michigan,…
Worm Species Lost 7,000 Genes After Evolving to Fertilize Itself
Sensors Detect, Treat Biofilms that Cause Post-Op Infections
A long-term, interdisciplinary research collaboration at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering has made significant progress in detecting and treating bacterial biofilms by developing new chemical compounds, materials, and microsystems that can fight these sources of post-operative infections. Bacterial biofilms are almost always involved in device-associated and post-operative infections and account…
Engineers Invent the First Bio-compatible, Ion Current Battery
Engineers at the University of Maryland have invented an entirely new kind of battery. It is bio-compatible because it produces the same kind of ion-based electrical energy used by humans and other living things. In our bodies, flowing ions (sodium, potassium and other electrolytes) are the electrical signals that power the brain and control the…
Bioengineers Develop New Technologies to Drive Next-generation Therapies for MS
Mosquito-Killing Fungi Engineered With Spider and Scorpion Toxins Could Help Fight Malaria
Malaria kills nearly half a million people every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In some of the hardest-hit areas in sub-Saharan Africa, the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite have become resistant to traditional chemical insecticides, complicating efforts to fight the disease. A new study from the University of Maryland and colleagues…
Study Finds Ancient Earth’s Fingerprints in Young Volcanic Rocks
Earth’s mantle is made of solid rock that nonetheless circulates slowly over millions of years. Some geologists assume that this slow circulation would have wiped away any geochemical traces of Earth’s early history long ago. But a new study led by University of Maryland geologists has found new evidence that could date back more than…