Credit: Mikhailey Wheeler
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2021 Polyurethanes, a type of plastic, are nearly everywhere in shoes, clothes, refrigerators and construction materials. But these highly versatile materials can have a major downside. Derived from crude oil, toxic to synthesize, and slow to break down, conventional polyurethanes are not environmentally friendly. Today, researchers discuss devising what they say should be a safer, biodegradable alternative derived from fish waste heads, bones, skin and guts that would otherwise likely be discarded.
The researchers will present their results today at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring 2021 is being held online April 5-30. Live sessions will be hosted April 5-16, and on-demand and networking content will continue through April 30. The meeting features nearly 9,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics.
Credit: Korea Institute of Science and Technology(KIST)
Despite the continued development and commercialization of various wearable electronic devices, such as smart bands, progress with these devices has been curbed by one major limitation, as they regularly need to be recharged. However, a new technology developed by a South Korean research team has become a hot topic, as it shows significant potential to overcome this limitation for wearable electronic devices.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), or KIST, announced that a research team led by Director Jin-Sang Kim of the Jeonbuk Institute of Advanced Composite Materials has developed a high-efficiency flexible thermoelectric device that is capable of autonomously generating some of the electricity required for its operation from body heat. The device developed by the team features enhanced thermal insulation capabilities, made possible through the fabrication of the flexible silicone compound (PDMS) into a spo
Credit: Weiyue Xin of Santore lab.
AMHERST, Mass. - A team of polymer science and engineering researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has demonstrated for the first time that the positions of tiny, flat, solid objects integrated in nanometrically thin membranes - resembling those of biological cells - can be controlled by mechanically varying the elastic forces in the membrane itself. This research milestone is a significant step toward the goal of creating ultrathin flexible materials that self-organize and respond immediately to mechanical force.
The team has discovered that rigid solid plates in biomimetic fluid membranes experience interactions that are qualitatively different from those of biological components in cell membranes. In cell membranes, fluid domains or adherent viruses experience either attractions or repulsions, but not both, says Weiyue Xin, lead author of the paper detailing the research, which recently appeared in
Credit: Skoltech
Scientists from Russia and Germany studied the molecular composition of carbonaceous chondrites - the insoluble organic matter of the Murchison and Allende meteorites - in an attempt to identify their origin. Ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry revealed a wide diversity of chemical compositions and unexpected similarities between meteorites from different groups. The research was published in the
Scientific Reports.
Carbonaceous chondrites contain nearly the entire spectrum of organic molecules encountered on Earth, including nucleic acids which might have played a pivotal role in the origin of life. Since the majority of modern meteorites are of nearly the same age as the Earth, their composition should be similar to that of meteorites that bombarded the Earth s surface in ancient times. Just like comets, they can be considered a source of organic compounds which most likely formed the core of the Earth s biosphere.
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IMAGE: In this figure, the hopping amplitude and existence of possible pathways for atomic migrations [panel (a)] can be identified at the microscopic level. But it is not easy to count. view more
Credit: Ryo Maezono from JAIST
Ishikawa, Japan - One of the most important classes of problems that all scientists and mathematicians aspire to solve, due to their relevance in both science and real life, are optimization problems. From esoteric computer science puzzles to the more realistic problems of vehicle routing, investment portfolio design, and digital marketing at the heart of it all lies an optimization problem that needs to be solved.