Water is everywhere. Understanding how it behaves at an intersection with another material and how it affects the performance of that material is helpful when trying to develop better products and devices. An undergraduate researcher at Virginia Tech is leading the way. Chemical engineering junior Preeya Achari has now developed and recently published as first author a…
Improving 3D-Printed Prosthetics and Integrating Electronic Sensors
With the growth of 3D printing, it’s entirely possible to 3D print your own prosthetic from models found in open-source databases. But those models lack personalized electronic user interfaces like those found in costly, state-of-the-art prosthetics. Now, a Virginia Tech professor and his interdisciplinary team of undergraduate student researchers have made inroads in integrating electronic…
Mechanical Engineers Develop Process to 3D Print Piezoelectric Materials
The piezoelectric materials that inhabit everything from our cell phones to musical greeting cards may be getting an upgrade thanks to work discussed in the journal Nature Materials released online Jan 21. Xiaoyu ‘Rayne’ Zheng, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering, and a member of the Macromolecules Innovation Institute, and his…
New Framework Pushes the Limits of High-Performance Computing
Large-scale, advanced high-performance computing, often called supercomputing, is essential to solving both complex and large questions. Everything from answering metaphysical queries about the origins of the universe to discovering cancer-fighting drugs to supporting high-speed streaming services, requires processing huge amounts of data. But storage platforms essential for these advanced computer systems have been stuck in…
Brain-Inspired Methods to Improve Wireless Communications
Researchers are always seeking more reliable and more efficient communications, for everything from televisions and cellphones to satellites and medical devices. One technique generating buzz for its high signal quality is a combination of multiple-input multiple-output techniques with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing. Virginia Tech researchers Lingjia Liu and Yang (Cindy) Yi are using brain-inspired machine…
Novel Machine Learning Based Framework Could Lead to Breakthroughs in Material Design
Computers used to take up entire rooms. Today, a two-pound laptop can slide effortlessly into a backpack. But that wouldn’t have been possible without the creation of new, smaller processors — which are only possible with the innovation of new materials. But how do materials scientists actually invent new materials? Through experimentation, explains Sanket Deshmukh,…
Novel Method to 3D Print Graphene
Researchers from Virginia Tech and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a novel way to 3D print complex objects of one of the highest-performing materials used in the battery and aerospace industries. Previously, researchers could only print this material, known as graphene, in 2D sheets or basic structures. But Virginia Tech engineers have now collaborated…
Polymer Researchers Discover Path to Sustainable and Biodegradable Polyesters
There’s a good chance you’ve touched something made out of the polyolefin polymer today. It’s often used in polyethylene products like plastic bags or polypropylene products like diapers. As useful as polyolefins are in society, they continue to multiply as trash in the environment. Scientists estimate plastic bags, for example, will take centuries to degrade.…
‘Fog Harp’ Increases Collection Capacity for Clean Water
Fog harvesting may look like whimsical work. After all, installing giant nets along hillsides and mountaintops to catch water out of thin air sounds more like folly than science. However, the practice has become an important avenue to clean water for many who live in arid and semi-arid climates around the world. A passive, durable,…
Researchers Examine Role of Fluid Flow in Ovarian Cancer Progression
Ovarian cancer is known as the silent killer. With an unfortunate knack for spreading throughout the body undetected, the disease has almost always progressed to an advanced stage before patients receive a diagnosis. Symptoms are often vague and doctors currently have no reliable diagnostic test for ovarian cancer at their disposal. If scientists could identify…
Discovered Mode of Drinking in Mosquitoes Carries Biomedical Implications
Mosquitoes may have a reputation for being one of the world’s most intractable pests, but they’re actually quite tiny and fragile. So when an international team of scientists, including several at Virginia Tech, wanted to observe the underlying mechanisms of how the insects feed, they had to get creative. The researchers would trap wild mosquitoes…
Genes Offer Clues to Nanoparticle Mysteries
The environment is teeming with microbes. Soil, water, indoor surfaces, our own bodies — any habitat that hasn’t been rigorously sterilized is populated by thousands of species of interdependent bacteria, viruses, and other microscopic organisms. These webs of microbiota are the biological foundation for larger-scale ecosystems, and small shifts in the microbial community can provoke…
Smartly Containing the Cloud Increases Computing Efficiency, Says First-of-its-kind Study
Not too long ago booting up a computer meant there was time for a lengthy coffee break even before the workday started. For a decade now though, thanks to the cloud, computers have accessed information from virtual machines that exist in the ether, allowing software to launch quickly on demand. Now, in a first-of-its kind…
Smartly Containing the Cloud Increases Computing Efficiency, Says First-Of-Its-Kind Study
Further Reducing Injections of Oilfield Wastewater Can Prevent Larger Earthquakes
Researchers Discover Hottest Lavas That Erupted in Past 2.5 Billion Years From Earth’s Core-Mantle Boundary
An international team of researchers led by geoscientists with the Virginia Tech College of Science recently discovered that deep portions of Earth’s mantle might be as hot as it was more than 2.5 billion years ago. The study, led by Esteban Gazel, an assistant professor with Virginia Tech’s Department of Geosciences, and his doctoral student Jarek Trela of Deer Park,…
Cattle Associated Antibiotics Disturb Soil Ecosystems
Drug Discovery Researchers Awarded Grant to Refine Malaria Drug
As long as parasites continue to mount resistance to malaria drugs, scientists will be faced with the task of developing new, improved pharmaceuticals. A research team from the Virginia Tech Center for Drug Discovery has received a $431,126 two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to make improved versions of a promising compound called MMV008138, or…
Protective Molecule Sidelined in ALS Models
Researchers at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have identified a naturally occurring molecule that has the potential for preserving sites of communication between nerves and muscles in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and over the course of aging — as well as a molecule that interferes with this helpful process. The discovery in mice has…
Researchers Explore Gigantic Volcanic Eruptions That Led to Mass Extinctions
A paper published in Nature Communications by Virginia Tech researchers confirms a major feature in the formation of large igneous provinces — massive worldwide volcanic eruptions that created incredibly high volumes of lava and triggered environmental catastrophes and mass extinctions from 170 to 90 million years ago. Heading the new research is Esteban Gazel, an assistant professor in the Department…
Gold Nanoparticle Therapy Lessens Toxic Chemo Effects
Virginia Tech scientists have developed a new cancer drug that uses gold nanoparticles created by the biotech firm CytImmune Sciences to deliver paclitaxel — a commonly used chemotherapy drug directly to a tumor. Because of the direct targeting, the new effort not only increases the effectiveness of paclitaxel, it also dramatically reduces devastating side effects…
Gene Could Reduce Female Mosquitoes
Virginia Tech researchers have found a gene that can reduce female mosquitoes over many generations. Males are preferred because they do not bite. Female mosquitoes bite to get blood for egg production and are the prime carriers of the pathogens that cause malaria, Zika, and dengue fever. In this case, Zhijian “Jake” Tu and colleagues found…
Researchers Name New Species of Reptile from 212 Years Ago
An extinct reptile related to crocodiles that lived 212 million years ago in present day New Mexico has been named as a new species, Vivaron haydeni, in a paper published this week by Virginia Tech’s Department of Geosciences researchers. Leading the paper that names the previously unknown animal is undergraduate researcher Emily Lessner of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, a…
Pesticides Used to Help Bees May Actually Harm Them
Pesticides beekeepers are using to improve honeybee health may actually be harming the bees by damaging the bacteria communities in their guts, according to a team led by a Virginia Tech scientist. The discovery, published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, is a concern because alterations can affect the gut’s ability to metabolize sugars and peptides,…