Implantable batteries can run on the body’s own oxygen

“From a new energy source to potential biotherapies, the prospects for this battery are exciting”

05-Apr-2024 - From pacemakers to neurostimulators, implantable medical devices rely on batteries to keep the heart on beat and dampen pain. But batteries eventually run low and require invasive surgeries to replace. To address these challenges, researchers in China devised an implantable battery that runs on ...

Chemists use the blockchain to simulate over 4 billion chemical reactions essential to the origins of life

“If you asked me two years ago, I’d be thinking we’d need years for this type of work”

26-Jan-2024 - Cryptocurrency is usually “mined” through the blockchain by asking a computer to perform a complicated mathematical problem in exchange for tokens of cryptocurrency. But in research appearing in the journal Chem on January 24, a team of chemists have repurposed this process, asking computers to ...

Thermal vision of snakes inspires soft pyroelectric materials

26-Oct-2020 - Converting heat into electricity is a property thought to be reserved only for stiff materials like crystals. However, researchers--inspired by the infrared (IR) vision of snakes--developed a mathematical model for converting soft, organic structures into so-called "pyroelectric" materials. The ...

Chemists create the brightest-ever fluorescent materials

11-Aug-2020 - By formulating positively charged fluorescent dyes into a new class of materials called small-molecule ionic isolation lattices (SMILES), a compound's brilliant glow can be seamlessly transferred to a solid, crystalline state, researchers report August 6 in the journal Chem. The advance overcomes ...

Bacteria and sand engineered into living concrete

17-Jan-2020 - Cement and concrete haven't changed much as technology in over a hundred years, but researchers in Colorado are revolutionizing building materials by literally bringing them to life. The method developed, presented January 15 in the journal Matter, combines sand and bacteria to build a living ...

Like Pavlov's dog, this thermoplastic is learning a new trick: Walking

06-Dec-2019 - Researchers in Finland are "training" pieces of plastic to walk under the command of light. The method developed, published December 4 in the journal Matter, is the first time a synthetic actuator "learns" to do new "tricks" based on its past experiences, without computer programming. These ...

Mussels are inspiring new technology that could help purify water and clean up oil spills

12-Jul-2019 - Mussels are notorious maritime stowaways known for damaging the hulls of boats, but these same adhesive properties have widespread engineering applications, scientists in China and the United states write in review published in the journal Matter. They suggest that the chemistry of mussel threads ...

Caffeine gives solar cells an energy boost

The idea began as a joke over morning coffee

29-Apr-2019 - Scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Solargiga Energy in China have discovered that caffeine can help make a promising alternative to traditional solar cells more efficient at converting light to electricity. Their research may enable this cost-effective renewable ...

This computer program makes pharma patents airtight

21-Jan-2019 - Routes to making life-saving medications and other pharmaceutical compounds are among the most carefully protected trade secrets in global industry. Building on recent work programming computers to identify synthetic pathways leading to pharmaceutically complex molecules, researchers in Poland ...

Efficient electrochemical cells for CO2 conversion

29-Oct-2018 - Scientists at Stanford University have developed electrochemical cells that convert carbon monoxide (CO) derived from CO2 into commercially viable compounds more effectively and efficiently than existing technologies. Their research provides a new strategy for capturing CO2 and converting it into ...