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    Category Technology/Electronics

    Simple new method makes Graphene “Paint” possible

    April 9, 2020, Categories  Chemistry/Nanotechnology, Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Graphene may be versatile, but there’s one thing it’s not all that good at – dispersing in water. Now, researchers at Umeå University have found a relatively simple way to do it. Graphene oxide is a different form of the material that can make for stable water dispersion, which can then be used as a kind of graphene paint.

    Graphene is essentially a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms, arranged in a hexagonal pattern. This deceptively simple material has a range of useful properties – it’s incredibly lightweight, thin and flexible, but still strong. It’s also an excellent conductor of electricity and heat, so it’s turning up in everything from electronics to water filters to clothing.

    Ideally, one useful way to get graphene into the right configurations could invol...

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    Personalized Microrobots Swim through Biological Barriers, deliver Drugs to 570Cells

    April 8, 2020, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Biology/Biotechnology

    Illustration (top) and scanning electron microscopy image (bottom) of biohybrid bacterial microswimmers, which were fabricated by combining genetically engineered E. coli MG1655 and nanoerythrosomes made from red blood cells. A biotin-streptavidin interaction was used to attach nanoerythrosomes to the bacterial membrane. CREDIT:
    Image courtesy of the authors

    Tiny biohybrid robots on the micrometer scale can swim through the body and deliver drugs to tumors or provide other cargo-carrying functions. The natural environmental sensing tendencies of bacteria mean they can navigate toward certain chemicals or be remotely controlled using magnetic or sound signals.

    To be successful, these tiny biological robots must consist of materials that can pass clearance through the body’s immune res...

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    Vermont team invents Emergency Ventilator

    April 7, 2020, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    A commercial ventilator can have 1500 parts supplied from more than a dozen countries. UVM engineer Carl Silver built the first prototype of an emergency ventilator in one day with parts he found in his house and UVM’s IMF Lab. He’s part of a Vermont team seeking emergency review from the FDA to make the ventilator available for hospitals overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. They’ll be sharing the innovative design—and looking for support and manufacturing partners. Credit: Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist

    Over the last three weeks, a team of scientists, engineers and doctors at the University of Vermont have developed a new design—and built a working model—for a simple, inexpensive ventilator.

    “We think these could be rolled out very quickly and be effective on an emergency b...

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    Small, Precise and Affordable Gyroscope for Navigating without GPS

    April 1, 2020, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    The new resonator and electrodes, on a quarter for scale. The resonator is almost perfectly symmetrical, made of nearly-pure glass. This enables it to vibrate for long periods, similar to the ringing of a wine glass. Credit: Najafi Group, University of Michigan

    A small, inexpensive and highly accurate gyroscope, developed at the University of Michigan, could help drones and autonomous cars stay on track without a GPS signal.

    “Our gyroscope is 10,000 times more accurate but only 10 times more expensive than gyroscopes used in your typical cell phones. This gyroscope is 1,000 times less expensive than much larger gyroscopes with similar performance,” said Khalil Najafi, the Schlumberger Professor of Engineering at U-M and a professor of electrical engineering and computer science.

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