Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

This photograph shows high throughput bioprinting of cells into microwells. Credit: Ozbolat Lab at Penn State

Now that 3D printing has made it easier to generate custom-made prosthetics, bioengineers are looking ahead at manufacturing actual cellular material. Such technology could be the basis for personalized biomedical devices; tissue-engineered skin, cartilage, and bone; or even working bladders. In a Trends in Biotechnology special issue on biofabrication, publishing August 17, researchers review and consider the progress made in 3D bioprinting and what might be possible in the decades — or years — ahead.

1. Made-to-Order Organs-on-a-Chip: inexpensive and efficient personalized medicine...

This is a condensation trail, or contrail, left behind an aircraft. Credit: Courtesy of Mick West

Well-understood physical and chemical processes can easily explain the alleged evidence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program, commonly referred to as “chemtrails” or “covert geoengineering,” concludes a new study from Carnegie Science, University of California Irvine, and the nonprofit organization Near Zero.

Some groups and individuals erroneously believe that the long-lasting condensation trails, or contrails, left behind aircraft are evidence of a secret large-scale spraying program. They call these imagined features “chemtrails.” Adherents of this conspiracy theory sometimes attribute this alleged spraying to the government and sometimes to industry.

Carnegie’s Ken Caldeir...

Atmospheric-pressure (left) and high-pressure (right) 2D layered Lawrencite-type crystal structures of magnesium chloride. Blue and green spheres indicate magnesium cations and chlorine anions respectively. Credit: Image courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

High-pressure structural behavior of magnesium chloride could work to neutralize biological weapons. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have combined X-ray diffraction and vibrational spectroscopy measurements together with first-principle calculations to examine the high-pressure structural behavior of magnesium chloride.

Magnesium chloride (MgCl2) is well known to be an effective de-icing agent, for example, in the aviation industry...

Photon upconversion: Energy transfer between the molecules is based on electron exchange (Dexter electron transfer). Credit: Illustration: Michael Oldenburg

The upconversion of photons allows for a more efficient use of light: 2 photons are converted into a single photon having higher energy. Researchers at KIT now showed for the first time that the inner interfaces between surface-mounted metal-organic frameworks (SURMOFs) are suited perfectly for this purpose – they turned green light blue. The result opens up new opportunities for optoelectronic applications such as solar cells or LEDs.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are highly ordered molecular systems that consist of metallic clusters and organic ligands...