A Band-Aid for the Heart? New 3D Printing Method makes this, and much more, possible

A new biomaterial adhered to a porcine heart
Laboratory tests show this 3D printed material molds and sticks to organs. Pictured is a porcine heart.

In the quest to develop life-like materials to replace and repair human body parts, scientists face a formidable challenge: Real tissues are often both strong and stretchable and vary in shape and size.

A CU Boulder-led team, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, has taken a critical step toward cracking that code. They’ve developed a new way to 3D print material that is at once elastic enough to withstand a heart’s persistent beating, tough enough to endure the crushing load placed on joints, and easily shapable to fit a patient’s unique defects.

Better yet, it sticks easily to wet tissue.

Their breakthrough, described in the Aug...

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Astronomers use AI to find Elusive Stars ‘Gobbling up’ Planets

Astronomers use AI to find elusive stars 'gobbling up' planets
Credit: NASA, ESSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI).

Astronomers have recently found hundreds of “polluted” white dwarf stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. These are white dwarfs caught actively consuming planets in their orbit. They are a valuable resource for studying the interiors of these distant, demolished planets. They are also difficult to find.

Historically, astronomers have had to manually review mountains of survey data for signs of these stars. Follow-up observations would then prove or refute their suspicions.

By using a novel form of artificial intelligence, called manifold learning, a team led by University of Texas at Austin graduate student Malia Kao has accelerated the process, leading to a 99% success rate in identification...

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Scientists Solve Mystery of DNA Damage Detection and Repair caused by Sunlight, Alcohol, and Pollution

Mystery of how DNA damage by sunlight, alcohol and pollution is identified so it can be repaired, is solved
Credit: MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences, MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology

A collaboration between researchers at the Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) in London and the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, has solved a decades-old mystery which could pave the way to better cancer treatments in the future.

The work, which uncovered the basic mechanism of how one of our most vital DNA repair systems recognizes DNA damages and initiates their repair, has eluded researchers for many years. Using cutting edge imaging techniques to visualize how these DNA repair proteins move on a single molecule of DNA, and electron microscopy to capture how they “lock-on” to specific DNA structures, this research opens the way to more effective cancer treatments.

The collabor...

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Scientists Identify New Class of Semiconductor Nanocrystals

NRL scientists identify new of semiconductor nanocrystals
Credit: ACS Nano (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.4c02905

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) scientists confirm the identification of a new class of semiconductor nanocrystals with bright ground-state excitons, a significant advancement in the field of optoelectronics, in an article published in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal ACS Nano.

The groundbreaking theoretical research could revolutionize the development of highly efficient light-emitting devices and other technologies.

Generally, the lowest-energy exciton in nanocrystals is poorly emitting, earning the name “dark” exciton. Because it slows the emission of light, the dark exciton limits the performance of nanocrystal-based devices like lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs)...

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