A recent review found some serious shortcomings of the risk assessment process for determining the safety of nanomaterials. The authors argue that these shortcomings are so significant that risk assessment is effectively a naked emperor.
Aug 25th, 2015
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Quantum physics tell us that even massive particles can behave like waves, as if they could be in several places at once. This phenomenon is typically proven in the diffraction of a matter wave at a grating. In a European collaboration, researchers carried this idea to the extreme and observed the delocalization of molecules at the thinnest possible grating, a mask milled into a single layer of atoms.
Aug 25th, 2015
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The grant will help tackle the challenge of designing and testing new materials at the atomic level.
Aug 25th, 2015
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A luminescent solar concentrator is an emerging sunlight harvesting technology that has the potential to disrupt the way we think about energy.
Aug 25th, 2015
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'Flocking' or 'swarming' behavior is omnipresent in the living world, observed in birds, fish, and even bacteria. Strikingly similar collective action can also be seen in biomolecules within and between cells. New insights into how this action is coordinated at the biomolecular level are emerging from studies of a model system based on actin filaments.
Aug 25th, 2015
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Having generated quite a buzz with their hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that used electrons to synthesize carbon dioxide into acetate, researchers have now developed a hybrid system that produces renewable molecular hydrogen and uses it to synthesize carbon dioxide into methane, the primary constituent of natural gas.
Aug 25th, 2015
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Researchers describe the electron-transport properties of aromatic stacks aligned in a self-assembled cage, using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) based break-junction method. Both identical and different modular aromatic pairs are non-covalently bound and stacked within the molecular scaffold leading to a variety of fascinating electronic functions.
Aug 25th, 2015
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A team of physicists have taken a step toward making the essential building block of quantum computers out of pure light. Their advance has to do with a specific part of computer circuitry known as a 'logic gate'.
Aug 24th, 2015
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Using a succession of biological mechanisms, researchers have created linkages of polymer nanotubes that resemble the structure of a nerve, with many outthrust filaments poised to gather or send electrical impulses.
Aug 24th, 2015
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Researchers have discovered, for the first time, a new nanocomposite formed by the self-assembly of copper and a biological component that occurs under physiological conditions, which are similar those found in the human body and could be used in targeted drug delivery for fighting diseases such as cancer.
Aug 24th, 2015
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The combination of ab-initio numerical experiments and theory shows that optical tunnelling of an electron from an atom can occur instantaneously.
Aug 24th, 2015
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A major advance in solution phase soft-x-ray spectroscopy has been achieved utilizing a new liquid flatjet system, paving the way for novel steady-state and time-resolved experiments.
Aug 24th, 2015
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In Belgium a national register for nanomaterials will enter into force on 1st January 2016. This is of significant importance as companies will be required to inform their Committee for Protection and Prevention at Work (CPPW) of the registration of nanomaterials.
Aug 24th, 2015
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The electrospray spreads water-soluble solvents on water while minimizing mixing.
Aug 21st, 2015
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New design sandwiches a polar metallic oxide between an insulating material.
Aug 21st, 2015
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In several years our computers, nanoantennas and other kinds of equipment will operate on the base of photons, rather than electrons. Even now we are practically prepared to accomplish this switch. If it happens, the spheres studied by an international group of Russian, French and Spanish scientists will definitely be able to become one of the elementary components of new photonic devices.
Aug 21st, 2015
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