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Public Release: 2-May-2013

Science
Robotic insects make first controlled flight
In the very early hours of the morning, in a Harvard robotics laboratory last summer, an insect took flight. Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, it leaped a few inches, hovered for a moment on fragile, flapping wings, and then sped along a preset route through the air. This demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade's work, led by researchers at Harvard.

National Science Foundation, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard

Public Release: 2-May-2013

Science
How graphene and friends could harness the Sun's energy
Combining wonder material graphene with other stunning one-atom thick materials could create the next generation of solar cells and optoelectronic devices, scientists have revealed.

Public Release: 1-May-2013
New NIST measurement tool is on target for the fast-growing MEMS industry
As markets for miniature, hybrid machines known as MEMS grow and diversify, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has introduced a long-awaited measurement tool that will help growing numbers of device designers, manufacturers and customers to see eye to eye on eight dimensional and material property measurements that are key to device performance.

Public Release: 1-May-2013

Journal of the American Chemical Society
Shaking things up: NIST researchers propose new old way to purify carbon nanotubes
An old, somewhat passé, trick used to purify protein samples based on their affinity for water has found new fans at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where materials scientists are using it to divvy up solutions of carbon nanotubes, separating the metallic nanotubes from semiconductors. They say it's a fast, easy and cheap way to produce high-purity samples of carbon nanotubes for use in nanoscale electronics and many other applications.

Public Release: 1-May-2013

Nature
Bug's view inspires new digital camera's unique imaging capabilities
An insect-inspired device uses hemispherical, compound optics to capture wide, undistorted fields of view.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 1-May-2013

Nature
Bug's eye inspires hemispherical digital camera
Inspired by the complex fly eye, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University research team has developed a hemispherical digital camera with nearly 200 tiny lenses, delivering exceptionally wide-angle field of view and sharp images. The new camera -- a rounded half bubble, similar to a bulging fly eye -- has 180 microlenses mounted on it, allowing it to take pictures across nearly 180 degrees. Only a camera shaped like a bug's eye can do this.

National Science Foundation, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Public Release: 30-Apr-2013
Synthetic biology research community grows significantly
A new analysis by the Synthetic Biology Project finds the number of private and public entities conducting research in synthetic biology worldwide grew significantly between 2009 and 2013.

Public Release: 30-Apr-2013

Nature Communications
Graphene's high-speed seesaw
A new transistor capable of revolutionizing technologies for medical imaging and security screening has been developed by graphene researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Nottingham.

Public Release: 29-Apr-2013

Nature Photonics
'Super-resolution' microscope possible for nanostructures
Researchers have found a way to see synthetic nanostructures and molecules using a new type of super-resolution optical microscopy that does not require fluorescent dyes, representing a practical tool for biomedical and nanotechnology research.

National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Public Release: 29-Apr-2013

Scientific Reports
Scientists reach the ultimate goal -- controlling chirality in carbon nanotubes
20 years after the discovery of SWNTs, scientists from Aalto University in Finland, A.M. Prokhorov General Physics Institute RAS in Russia and the Center for Electron Nanoscopy of Technical University of Denmark have managed to control chirality in carbon nanotubes during their chemical vapor deposition synthesis.

Aalto University, A.P. Mueller and Chastine McKinney Mueller Foundation

Public Release: 29-Apr-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Microchip proves tightness provokes precocious sperm release
Sperm cell release can be triggered by tightening the grip around the delivery organ, according to a team of nano and microsystems engineers and plant biologists at the University of Montreal and Concordia University.

Public Release: 25-Apr-2013

Nature
Bold move forward in molecular analyses
New metrics for analyzing data from small angle scattering experiments should dramatically improve the ability of scientists to study the structures of macromolecules such as proteins and nanoparticles in solution.

US Department of Energy Office of Science, National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 25-Apr-2013

Science
Piezoelectric 'taxel' arrays convert motion to electronic signals for tactile imaging
Using bundles of vertical zinc oxide nanowires, researchers have fabricated arrays of piezotronic transistors capable of converting mechanical motion directly into electronic controlling signals. The arrays could help give robots a more adaptive sense of touch, provide better security in handwritten signatures and offer new ways for humans to interact with electronic devices.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, US Air Force

Public Release: 24-Apr-2013

ACS Nano
UNL team's discovery yields supertough, strong nanofibers
University of Nebraska-Lincoln materials engineers have developed a structural nanofiber that is both strong and tough, a discovery that could transform everything from airplanes and bridges to body armor and bicycles.

National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, US Army Research Office

Public Release: 24-Apr-2013

Energy & Environmental Science
Recipe for low-cost, biomass-derived catalyst for hydrogen production
Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory describe details of a low-cost, stable, effective catalyst that could replace costly platinum in the production of hydrogen. The catalyst, made from renewable soybeans and abundant molybdenum metal, produces hydrogen in an environmentally friendly, cost-effective manner, potentially increasing the use of this clean energy source.

Department of Energy Office of Science

Public Release: 24-Apr-2013

Nature Communications
Battery and memory device in 1
Resistive memory cells are regarded as a promising solution for future generations of computer memories. Unlike the building blocks of conventional hard disk drives and memories, these novel memory cells are not purely passive components but must be regarded as tiny batteries. This has been demonstrated by researchers of Jülich Aachen Research Alliance, whose findings have now been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

Public Release: 24-Apr-2013

Science Translational Medicine
T2 Bio publishes data supporting diagnostic test T2Candida® in Science Translational Medicine
Deadly blood infections, or sepsis, are one of the top 10 causes of death in the United States. Each hour of delayed treatment increases the mortality of patients by 8%. This new diagnostic technology, T2Candida, achieved a 25X faster time to result, reducing the detection time of the fungus that can cause sepsis, Candida, from at best 48 hours to 3 hours. This research represents the first time Candida has been identified directly from whole blood in patient samples at clinically relevant levels.

T2 Biosystems

Contact: Karen Sharma
ksharma@macbiocom.com
781-235-3060
MacDougall Biomedical Communications, Inc.

Public Release: 23-Apr-2013
What's old is new again
While automotive and medical device manufacturing may seem unrelated, the latter has benefited from the former. For example, manufacturing techniques developed for increasing the wear resistance of metallic camshafts are routinely used in hip implants. In both applications, performance and reliability are enhanced by increasing the strength of a metal part's surface. Now, an engineer in the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside seeks to extend this concept to medical devices.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 23-Apr-2013

Nano Letters
Nanowires grown on graphene have surprising structure
When a team of University of Illinois engineers set out to grow nanowires of a compound semiconductor on top of a sheet of graphene, they did not expect to discover a new paradigm of epitaxy. The self-assembled wires have a core of one composition and an outer layer of another, a desired trait for many advanced electronics applications.

US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 23-Apr-2013

Nano Letters
The crystal's corners: New nanowire structure has potential to increase semiconductor applications
University of Cincinnati research describes the discovery of a new structure that is a fundamental game changer in the physics of semiconductor nanowires.

Public Release: 23-Apr-2013

PLOS ONE
Insights into deadly coral bleaching could help preserve reefs
Coral reefs are stressed because of climate change. Researchers from Northwestern University and The Field Museum of Natural History have discovered corals themselves play a role in their susceptibility to deadly coral bleaching due to the light-scattering properties of their skeletons. No one else has shown this before. Using optical technology designed for early cancer detection, the researchers discovered that reef-building corals scatter light in different ways to the symbiotic algae that feed the corals.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 22-Apr-2013
OHSU teams with Intel to decode the root causes of cancer and other complex diseases
Oregon Health and Science University and Intel Corp. are teaming up to develop next-generation computing technologies that advance the field of personalized medicine by dramatically increasing the speed, precision and cost-effectiveness of analyzing a patient's individual genetic profile.

Public Release: 22-Apr-2013

International Journal of Cancer
Screening detects ovarian cancer using neighboring cells
Pioneering biophotonics technology developed at Northwestern University is the first screening method to detect the early presence of ovarian cancer in humans by examining cells easily brushed from the neighboring cervix or uterus, not the ovaries themselves. The results have the potential to translate into a minimally invasive early detection method using cells collected by a swab, exactly like a pap smear.

National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 22-Apr-2013

Science
Physicists find right (and left) solution for on-chip optics
Physicists have found a new way to precisely manipulate light at the subwavelength scale without damaging a signal that could carry data. This opens the door to a new generation of on-chip optical interconnects that can efficiently funnel information from optical to electronic devices.

Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 22-Apr-2013

Applied Physics Letters
U. of Illinois researchers measure near-field behavior of semiconductor plasmonic microparticles
For the first time, researchers have measured nanometer-scale infrared absorption in semiconductor plasmonic microparticles using a technique that combines atomic force microscopy with infrared spectroscopy.

National Science Foundation


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