Lifeboat Foundation

Applying simple, ancient weaving techniques to newly recognized properties of organic crystals, researchers with the Smart Materials Lab (SML) and the Center for Smart Engineering Materials (CSEM) at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) have, for the first time, developed a unique form of woven “textile.” These new fabric patches expand one-dimensional crystals into flexible, integrated, two-dimensional planar structures that are incredibly strong—some 20 times stronger than the original crystals—and resistant to low temperatures.

These traits give them a host of exciting potential applications, including in flexible electronics that range from sensing devices to optical arrays, as well as in extreme conditions such as low temperatures encountered in space exploration.

In the paper titled “Woven Organic Crystals” published in the journal Nature Communications, Panče Naumov, NYUAD Professor of Chemistry and Director of the CSEM, and colleagues from Jilin University demonstrate that organic crystal can be simply woven into flexible and robust patches with plain, twill, and satin textures.

To commercialize the carbon-neutral bricks, Seratech is working together with a team of architects at London-based Carmody Groarke.

Saratech.

The brick is a product of 18 months of research funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF).

In an extraordinary feat of engineering and international collaboration, the Orion spacecraft, a part of NASA’s Artemis I mission, has achieved a remarkable milestone in space exploration. The spacecraft ventured some 267,000 miles from Earth and roughly 40,000 miles from the Moon, surpassing the distance record set by the Apollo 13 mission over half a century ago.

In this photo, the Orion capsule, along with the Earth and the Moon, appeared to be posing for a ‘family portrait.’ This iconic image marks a pivotal moment in the mission’s journey, symbolizing the culmination of years of meticulous planning and execution.

Orion’s journey from Earth began a year ago, on November 16, 2022, when NASA’s mega Moon rocket, the Space Launch System, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. The uncrewed Orion spacecraft was placed into Earth orbit, marking the beginning of a new era in lunar exploration.

Optothermal nanotweezers are an innovative optical design method that has revolutionized classical optical techniques to capture a broad range of nanoparticles. While the optothermal temperature field can be employed for in situ regulation of nanoparticles, challenges remain in identifying their potential for regulating bionanoparticles.

To observe the synergistic effects of optothermal manipulation and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)-based biodetection, the researchers developed a combination of CRISPR-powered optothermal nanotweezers abbreviated as CRONT.

In a new report in Light: Science & Applications, Jiajie Chen and a research team in optoelectronics engineering, biomedical engineering, and physics, accomplished this by harnessing diffusiophoresis and thermo-osmotic flows for optothermal excitation by successfully enriching DNA functionalized gold nanoparticles, CRISPR-associated proteins, and DNA strands.

The technique represents an important step in engineering skin grafts, drug testing. A team led by scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has 3D-printed hair follicles in human skin tissue cultured in the lab. This marks the first time researchers have used the technology to generate hair follicles, which play an important role in skin healing and function.

The finding, published in the journal Science Advances, has potential applications in regenerative medicine and drug testing, though engineering skin grafts that grow hair are still several years away.

“Our work is a proof-of-concept that hair follicle structures can be created in a highly precise, reproducible way using 3D-bioprinting. This kind of automated process is needed to make future biomanufacturing of skin possible,” said Pankaj Karande, Ph.D., an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering and a member of Rensselaer’s Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D. Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, who led the study.

Carlos Bravo-Prieto^1,2,3, Ryan LaRose⁴, M. Cerezo^1,5, Yigit Subasi⁶, Lukasz Cincio¹, and Patrick J. Coles¹

¹Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87,545, USA. ² Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Barcelona, Spain. ³ Institut de Ciències del Cosmos, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. ⁴ Department of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering & Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48,823, USA. ⁵ Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA ⁶ Computer, Computational and Statistical Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87,545, USA

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Tesla has made its original Roadster design and engineering “fully open source” and released R&D documents accessible to everyone.

The original Tesla Roadster hasn’t been in production for more than a decade now, and we are still waiting for the new generation that was unveiled all the way back in 2017 and has been delayed several times since.

The vehicle has become quite rare.

In 1960, DARPA funded three university-based Inderdisciplinary Laboratories (IDLs) that opened the way toward an enormous field of research and development known today as materials science and engineering. In this video, DARPA program managers, DARPA-funded researchers, and a Naval Research Laboratory scientist tell this field-building story as it unfolded over the past six decades, all the while delivering breakthroughs in the way materials are designed, processed, and deployed to push technologies forward. Intelligent processing of materials (IPM), accelerated insertion of materials (AIM), and integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) are among the specific programs detailed in the video. DARPA is currently developing technologies that enable the crafting of new materials with unprecedented properties by designing and controlling matter from atoms on up to human-scale systems.

Tesla has open-sourced all of the design and engineering of the original Roadster, CEO Elon Musk announced today, and plenty of people are wondering if the timing of the release has anything to do with the next-gen Roadster that is now several years behind schedule.

Tesla has opened everything from Owner’s Manuals to Circuits and Connectors for the original Roadster, which was the automaker’s first project fifteen years ago in 2008.

The vehicle was essentially a fundraising campaign for Tesla as it fought to keep its doors open and transform the passenger vehicle industry. It almost bankrupted the company, but now, everything that was developed for Tesla’s initial EV project is available for anyone to take a look at.