Lifeboat Foundation

In the vast realm of scientific discovery and technological advancement, there exists a hidden frontier that holds the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. This frontier is Pico Technology, a domain of measurement and manipulation at the atomic and subatomic levels. The rise of Pico Technology represents a seismic shift in our understanding of precision measurement and its applications across diverse fields, from biology to quantum computing. Pico Technology, at the intersection of precision measurement and quantum effects, represents the forefront of scientific and technological progress, unveiling the remarkable capabilities of working at the picoscale, offering unprecedented precision and reactivity that are reshaping fields ranging from medicine to green energy.

Unlocking the Picoscale World

At the heart of Pico Technology lies the ability to work at the picoscale, a dimension where a picometer, often represented as 1 × 10^−12 meters, reigns supreme. The term ‘pico’ itself is derived from the Greek word ‘pikos’, meaning ‘very small’. What sets Pico Technology apart is not just its capacity to delve deeper into smaller scales, but its unique ability to harness the inherent physical, chemical, mechanical, and optical properties of materials that naturally manifest at the picoscale.

The new method from ETH Zurich departs from traditional carbon capture, relying on temperature or pressure, minimizing energy consumption.

The details of the study, led by Maria Lukatskaya, Professor of Electrochemical Energy Systems at ETH Zurich, were published in the journal ACS.

Acid switch

Continue reading “Researchers use light-reactive molecules to capture carbon dioxide” »

An organic artificial neuron that is based on a compact nonlinear electrochemical element can operate in a liquid and responds to the concentration of biological species in its surroundings, allowing its behaviour to be modulated, for example, by interfacing with the membranes of living cells.

When young, these neurons signal fatty tissues to release energy fueling the brain. With age, the line breaks down. Fat cells can no longer orchestrate their many roles, and neurons struggle to pass information along their networks.

Using genetic and chemical methods, the team found a marker for these neurons—a protein called Ppp1r17 (catchy, I know). Changing the protein’s behavior in aged mice with genetic engineering extended their life span by roughly seven percent. For an average 76-year life span in humans, the increase translates to over five years.

The treatment also altered the mice’s health. Mice love to run, but their vigor plummets with age. Reactivating the neurons in elderly mice revived their motivation, transforming them from couch potatoes into impressive joggers.

Bipolar membranes (BPMs) are a class of ion-exchange membranes typically comprising a cation-and an anion-exchange layer. While these membranes have recently been integrated in various electrochemical devices for a wide range of application, the processes underlying their operation are not yet fully understood.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently developed a new mechanistic model that explains the forward bias polarization mechanisms of BPMs in mixed electrolytes with varying acidities and basicities. Their model, introduced in Nature Energy, could guide the development of strategies to overcome the issue of ionic blockades, which can adversely impact the performance of forward bias BPM devices.

“We were initially trying to design an electrolyzer that converts carbon dioxide CO₂ into useful feedstocks or fuels using bipolar membranes (BPMs),” Yogesh Surendranath, co-author of the paper, told Tech Xplore. “To provide a little context, CO₂ electrolyzers are most efficient when operating with alkaline electrolyte solutions such as potassium hydroxide, but because CO₂ is an acid gas, it reacts with alkaline solutions to produce carbonate solutions over time.”

Dubbed the chemical’ Reactome,’ the system is claimed to be trained using a dataset that includes 39,000 pharmaceutically relevant reactions.

The innovative system merges automated experiments with AI, offering accelerated insights into chemical interactions for a quicker drug design process.

Using #AI to define the chemical “reactome”—the important functional sites in small molecules.

High-throughput experimentation (HTE) has great utility for chemical synthesis. However, robust interpretation of high-throughput data remains a challenge. Now, a flexible analyser has been developed on the basis of a machine learning-statistical analysis framework, which can reveal hidden chemical insights from historical HTE data of varying scopes, sizes and biases.

The equations that describe physical systems often assume that measurable features of the system—temperature or chemical potential, for example—can be known exactly. But the real world is messier than that, and uncertainty is unavoidable. Temperatures fluctuate, instruments malfunction, the environment interferes, and systems evolve over time.

Textbook models will need to be re-drawn after a team of researchers found that water molecules at the surface of salt water are organized differently than previously thought.

Many important reactions related to climate and environmental processes take place where water molecules interface with air. For example, the evaporation of ocean water plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and climate science. Understanding these reactions is crucial to efforts to mitigate the human effect on our planet.

The distribution of ions at the interface of air and water can affect atmospheric processes. However, a precise understanding of the microscopic reactions at these important interfaces has so far been intensely debated.