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Category: engineering

Low-grade heat from renewable sources could be used to desalinate water

A McGill University-led research team has demonstrated the feasibility of a sustainable and cost-effective way to desalinate seawater. The method—thermally driven reverse osmosis (TDRO)—uses a piston-based system powered by low-grade heat from solar thermal, geothermal heat and other sources of renewable energy to produce fresh water.

Though previous research showed promise, this study is the first to analyze TDRO’s thermodynamic limits. The results have brought researchers closer to realizing the technology which could improve access to water and increase the sustainability of infrastructure.

“Most desalination is done by , which uses electricity to drive water through a membrane,” said Jonathan Maisonneuve, study co-author and Associate Professor of Bioresource Engineering.

New lightweight polymer film can prevent corrosion

MIT researchers have developed a lightweight polymer film that is nearly impenetrable to gas molecules, raising the possibility that it could be used as a protective coating to prevent solar cells and other infrastructure from corrosion, and to slow the aging of packaged food and medicines.

The polymer, which can be applied as a film mere nanometers thick, completely repels nitrogen and other gases, as far as can be detected by laboratory equipment, the researchers found. That degree of impermeability has never been seen before in any polymer, and rivals the impermeability of molecularly-thin crystalline materials such as graphene.

“Our polymer is quite unusual. It’s obviously produced from a solution-phase polymerization reaction, but the product behaves like graphene, which is gas-impermeable because it’s a perfect crystal. However, when you examine this material, one would never confuse it with a perfect crystal,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT.

Superconducting qubit that lasts for over 1 millisecond is primed for industrial scaling

In a major step toward practical quantum computers, Princeton engineers have built a superconducting qubit that lasts three times longer than today’s best versions.

“The real challenge, the thing that stops us from having useful quantum computers today, is that you build a qubit and the information just doesn’t last very long,” said Andrew Houck, Princeton’s dean of engineering and co-principal investigator. “This is the next big jump forward.”

In an article in the journal Nature, the Princeton team report that their new qubit lasts for over 1 millisecond. This is three times longer than the best ever reported in a lab setting, and nearly 15 times longer than the industry standard for large-scale processors.

Quantifying the intensity of emotional response to sound, images and touch through skin conductance

When we listen to a moving piece of music or feel the gentle pulse of a haptic vibration, our bodies react before we consciously register the feeling. The heart may quicken and palms may sweat, resulting in subtle electrical resistance variations in the skin. These changes, though often imperceptible, reflect the brain’s engagement with the world.

A recent study by researchers at NYU Tandon and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published in PLOS Mental Health explores how such physiological signals can reveal cognitive arousal—the level of mental alertness and emotional activation—without the need for subjective reporting.

The researchers, led by Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Rose Faghih at NYU Tandon, focused on skin conductance, a well-established indicator of autonomic nervous system activity. When are stimulated, even minutely, the skin’s ability to conduct electricity changes.

Physicists unveil system to solve long-standing barrier to new generation of supercomputers

The dream of creating game-changing quantum computers—supermachines that encode information in single atoms rather than conventional bits—has been hampered by the formidable challenge known as quantum error correction.

In a paper published Monday in Nature, Harvard researchers demonstrated a new system capable of detecting and removing errors below a key performance threshold, potentially providing a workable solution to the problem.

“For the first time, we combined all essential elements for a scalable, error-corrected quantum computation in an integrated architecture,” said Mikhail Lukin, co-director of the Quantum Science and Engineering Initiative, Joshua and Beth Friedman University Professor, and senior author of the new paper. “These experiments—by several measures the most advanced that have been done on any quantum platform to date—create the scientific foundation for practical large-scale quantum computation.”

Rubber electronics are first to offer complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor functionality

Researcher Cunjiang Yu and his research team, including several of his former students, have announced a significant milestone in materials and electronics engineering: the creation of what they call “rubbery CMOS,” which provides the same functionality as conventional CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) circuits, but is made from entirely different materials.

The research is published in the journal Science Advances.

The great benefit of rubbery CMOS is that it provides the circuit functionality of conventional CMOS while also being stretchable and deformable.

GlobalLogic warns 10,000 employees of data theft after Oracle breach

GlobalLogic, a provider of digital engineering services part of the Hitachi group, is notifying over 10,000 current and former employees that their data was stolen in an Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) data breach.

Based in Santa Clara, California, this software and product development services company was founded in 2000. Since then, it has expanded to 59 product engineering centers and several offices worldwide.

In a breach notification letter filed with the office of Maine’s Attorney General, the company states that the attackers exploited an Oracle EBS zero-day vulnerability to steal personal information belonging to 10,471 employees.

Engineering colloidal crystals molecule by molecule

Scientists built these tiny diamond crystals using a technique known as DNA origami, in which DNA molecules fold themselves into elaborate shapes.

Learn more in this 2024 Science Perspective on OrigamiDay.

DNA particles are programmed to assemble with precision into complex lattices.

Zhe Li and Chengde Mao Authors Info & Affiliations

Science

Vol 384, Issue 6697

Continue reading “Engineering colloidal crystals molecule by molecule” | >

High-speed imaging tracks live brain cell activity in awake mice

A research team from the School of Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has achieved a breakthrough in brain imaging by developing the world’s first technology to capture high-resolution images of the brains of awake experimental mice in a nearly noninvasive manner.

By eliminating the need for anesthesia, this innovation enables scientists to study in its fully functional state. The advancement promises deeper insights into human brain function in both healthy and diseased conditions, opening new frontiers in neuroscience research.

The study was recently published in Nature Communications in a paper titled “Rapid adaptive optics enabling near-noninvasive high-resolution brain imaging in awake behaving mice.”

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