What would it take to transform a flat sheet into a human face? How would the sheet need to grow and shrink to form eyes that are concave into the face and a convex nose and chin that protrude? How to encode and release complex curves in shape-shifting structures is at the center of research…

“When I found out, I took off running across the lab.” That’s how Kevin Cox, a postdoctoral associate at the Danforth Center, describes the moment he found out that he had received the Hanna H. Gray Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “It was definitely emotional. I had applied to this same fellowship a…

John B. Goodenough, professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry — jointly with Stanley Whittingham of the State University of New York at Binghamton and Akira Yoshino of Meijo University — “for the development of lithium-ion batteries.” In the…

Chi Chen, a Boston University graduate researcher, and Ranga Myneni, a BU professor of earth and environment, are the lead and senior authors of a new paper in Nature Sustainability that reveals how humans are influencing the Earth’s plant and tree cover. On the surface, it may look like a no-brainer that “greening” of the planet would be…

Leo Aerospace has taken to the technology battlefield to receive worldwide attention for its technology, Members of the Leo team took the stage in early October at TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield in California. Michael Hepfer, Dane Rudy, Drew Sherman, Bryce Prior and Abishek Murali started Leo while students in Purdue’s College of Engineering. The event is an…

University of California, Irvine biologists have made a major finding with new approaches to studying Alzheimer’s disease on combating inflammation linked to the disease. The School of Biological Sciences researchers’ discovery about the role of a protein called TOM-1 heralds a shift toward examining the molecular underpinnings of Alzheimer’s processes. “Scientists have known for a…

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a system that measures a patient’s pain level by analyzing brain activity from a portable neuroimaging device. The system could help doctors diagnose and treat pain in unconscious and noncommunicative patients, which could reduce the risk of chronic pain that can occur after surgery. Pain management is a…

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $21.4 million in funding for research in Quantum Information Science (QIS) related to both particle physics and fusion energy sciences. “QIS holds great promise for tackling challenging questions in a wide range of disciplines,” said Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar. “This research will open up important…

The R&D Index for the week ending June 14, 2019 closed at 4,580.03 for the 25 companies in the R&D Index. The Index was up 1.91% (or 85.68 basis points) from the week ending June 7, 2019. Eighteen of the 25 R&D Index members gained value from 0.04% (Oracle and Qualcomm) to 3.64% (Amazon). Seven…

One of the main challenges of second-generation biofuel production is identifying enzymes produced by microorganisms for use in a “cocktail” of enzymes to catalyze biomass hydrolysis, in which the enzymes act together to break down the carbohydrates in sugarcane trash and bagasse, for example, and convert them into simple sugars for fermentation. A group of…

The Arctic is melting faster than we thought it would. In fact, Arctic ice extent is at a record low. When that happens–when a natural system behaves differently than scientists expect–it’s time to take another look at how we understand the system. University of Utah mathematician Ken Golden and atmospheric scientist Court Strong study the patterns…

Carbon-neutral fuels are crucial for making aviation and maritime transport sustainable. ETH researchers have developed a solar plant to produce synthetic liquid fuels that release as much CO2 during their combustion as previously extracted from the air for their production. CO2 and water are extracted directly from ambient air and split using solar energy. This…

A new method of discovering materials using data analytics and electron microscopy has found a new class of extremely hard alloys. Such materials could potentially withstand severe impact from projectiles, thereby providing better protection of soldiers in combat. Researchers from Lehigh University describe the method and findings in an article, “Materials Informatics For the Screening…

A team of scientists from DESY and the University of Hamburg has achieved an important milestone in the quest for a new type of compact particle accelerator. Using ultra-powerful pulses of laser light, they were able to produce particularly high-energy flashes of radiation in the terahertz range having a sharply defined wavelength (colour). Terahertz radiation…

A better understanding of terrestrial flux dynamics will come from elucidating the integrated effects of climate and vegetation constraints on gross primary productivity (GPP), ecosystem respiration (ER), and net ecosystem productivity (NEP), according to Dr. Shutao Chen, Associate professor at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology. Dr. Chen and his team–a group of researchers…

Scientists have found a way to produce environmentally-friendly gasoline, ammonia, biodiesel fuels and biodegradable plastics using carbon dioxide (CO₂)-consuming, light-powered nanobio-hybrid organisms. Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder have developed living microbial factories that can eat and convert CO₂ into useful products by using light-activated quantum dots that fire specific enzymes within microbial cells.…

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University’s Mellon College of Science and College of Engineering have developed a semiliquid lithium metal-based anode that represents a new paradigm in battery design. Lithium batteries made using this new electrode type could have a higher capacity and be much safer than typical lithium metal-based batteries that use lithium foil as…

Tremendous progress of organic solar cells (OSCs) has been exemplified by the use of non-fullerene electron acceptors (NFAs) in the past few years. Compared with fullerene derivative acceptors, NFAs show a multitude of advantages including tunable energy levels, broad absorption spectrum and strong light absorption ability, as well as high carrier mobility. To further improve…

A new core-shell catalyst could overcome some of the ethanol oxidation hurdles and break the carbon-carbon bonds at the right time to draw energy from ethanol. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and the University of Arkansas have created a new catalyst that can steer the electro-oxidation down a chemical pathway…

The mantis shrimp, one of the ocean’s most ornery creatures, can take on attacks from its own species without getting injured. Its strategy could solve a big manufacturing problem: Creating lighter materials that absorb a lot of energy from a sharp impact within a limited amount of space. Think precious cargo. What if there were…

At the chemical level, diamonds are no more than carbon atoms aligned in a precise, three-dimensional (3D) crystal lattice. However, even a seemingly flawless diamond contains defects: spots in that lattice where a carbon atom is missing or has been replaced by something else. Some of these defects are highly desirable; they trap individual electrons…