Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: engineering

Cryo-imaging gives deeper view of thick biological materials

Electron microscopy is an exceptional tool for peering deep into the structure of isolated molecules. But when it comes to imaging thicker biological samples to understand how those molecules function in their cellular environments, the technology gets a little murky.

Cornell researchers devised a new method, called tilt-corrected bright-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (tcBF-STEM), to image thick samples with higher contrast and a fivefold increase in efficiency.

The Sept. 23 publication of the findings, in Nature Methods, arrives two years after the death of co-author Lena Kourkoutis, M.S. ‘06, Ph.D. ‘09, associate professor in applied and in Cornell Engineering, whose work in cryo-electron microscopy drove much of the nearly 10-year effort.

Designing random nanofiber networks, optimized for strength and toughness

In nature, random fiber networks such as some of the tissues in the human body, are strong and tough with the ability to hold together but also stretch a lot before they fail. Studying this structural randomness—that nature seems to replicate so effortlessly—is extremely difficult in the lab and is even more difficult to accurately reproduce in engineering applications.

Recently, researchers at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute devised a method to repeatedly print random polymer nanofiber networks with desired characteristics and use to tune the random network characteristics for improved strength and toughness.

“This is a big leap in understanding how nanofiber networks behave,” said Ioannis Chasiotis, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. “Now, for the first time, we can reproduce randomness with desirable underlying structural parameters in the lab, and with the companion computer model, we can optimize the to find the network parameters, such as nanofiber density, that produce simultaneously higher network strength, stiffness and toughness.”

Supercritical fluids once thought uniform found to contain liquid clusters

A supercritical fluid refers to a state in which the temperature and pressure of a substance exceed its critical point, where no distinction exists between liquid and gas phases. Traditionally, it has been regarded as a single, uniform phase. However, a research team at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) experimentally demonstrated nonequilibrium phase separation within supercritical fluids by observing nanometer-sized “liquid clusters” that persist for up to one hour.

The research team led by Professor Gunsu Yun from the Division of Advanced Nuclear Engineering and the Department of Physics at POSTECH, in collaboration with Dr. Jong Dae Jang’s group at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), Professor Min Young Ha at Kyung Hee University, and Dr. Changwoo Do’s team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the U.S., experimentally verified the existence of nano-clusters that exist separately in a liquid-like state within previously considered a uniform phases.

The experiment utilized the Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) instrument at Korea’s neutron research facility, HANARO.

Battery made from natural materials could replace conventional lithium-ion batteries

What if the next battery you buy was made from the same kinds of ingredients found in your body? That’s the idea behind a breakthrough battery material made from natural, biodegradable components. It’s so natural, it could even be consumed as food.

A team of researchers at Texas A&M University, including Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Dr. Karen Wooley and Professor of Chemical Engineering Dr. Jodie Lutkenhaus, has developed a biodegradable battery using natural polymers. The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Wooley’s research group in the College of Arts and Sciences has spent the past 15 years shifting toward natural products for the construction of sustainable and degradable plastics materials. Lutkenhaus, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering, has been using organic materials to design a better battery. She suggested collaboration to combine Wooley’s naturally sourced polymers with her battery expertise.

Lightning strikes 12 times per minute on fusion engineering test platform

Zap Energy has advanced its Century fusion engineering test platform to operate for more than one hundred plasma shots at 0.2 Hz, or one shot every five seconds, with the resulting heat captured by surfaces coated with circulating liquid metal.

Concentrated inside a about the size of a hot water heater, each plasma carried up to 500 kA of current—about 20 times stronger than a bolt of lightning—discharged into a vessel lined with flowing liquid bismuth. During the record run, Century’s total input power was 57 kilowatts, with 39 kilowatts delivered directly to the cables leading to the .

Compared with Century’s commissioning milestone in 2024, this achievement represents an increase of 20 times in sustained average power and is a major step toward developing commercial power plants using repetitive pulsed power and .

Time-released gel packs a one-two punch against aggressive brain tumors

High-grade gliomas are aggressive brain tumors with poor prognosis, largely because even after surgical removal, infiltrative residual tumor cells often regrow during the latency before radiotherapy, leading to recurrence. The standard chemoradiotherapy only modestly improves survival. A crucial window of vulnerability arises post-surgery, before radiotherapy begins, where residual tumor cells are not well addressed by systemic chemotherapy.

Prof. Feng-Huei Lin and Dr. Jason Lin from National Taiwan University have designed a local post-surgical gel packing with sequential delivery of platinum agents that could maintain therapeutic drug concentrations intracranially and synergize with subsequent radiotherapy to eliminate tissue. Their study is published in the Chemical Engineering Journal.

The cutting-edge drug-delivery gel can be directly injected into the surgical cavity following tumor resection. This gel provides sustained local delivery of platinum-based anticancer agents, ensuring effective eradication for residual glioma tissue that remain after surgery. The gel is designed to maximize the therapeutic impact while minimizing systemic exposure.

Thinking outside the box to fabricate customized 3D neural chips

Cultured neural tissues have been widely used as a simplified experimental model for brain research. However, existing devices for growing and recording neural tissues, which are manufactured using semiconductor processes, have limitations in terms of shape modification and the implementation of three-dimensional (3D) structures.

By thinking outside the box, a KAIST research team has successfully created a customized 3D neural chip. They first used a 3D printer to fabricate a hollow channel structure, then used to automatically fill the channels with conductive ink, creating the electrodes and wiring. This achievement is expected to significantly increase the design freedom and versatility of brain science and brain engineering research platforms. The paper is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

A research team led by Professor Yoonkey Nam from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has successfully developed a platform technology that overcomes the limitations of traditional semiconductor-based manufacturing. This technology allows for the precise fabrication of a 3D microelectrode array (neural interfaces with multiple microelectrodes arranged in a 3D space to measure and stimulate the electrophysiological signal of neurons) in various customized forms for in vitro culture chips.

Wade Demmer — VP, R&D, Medtronic — The Future Of Pacemaker Technologies

The future of pacemaker technologies — wade demmer — VP, R&D, medtronic.

Wade Demmer is Vice President of Research & Development at Medtronic where he is responsible for the development of new generations of pacemakers (https://www.medtronic.com/en-us/l/patients/treatments-therap…ers.html). With extensive expertise in medical technology and innovation, he leads the company’s R&D efforts to develop cutting-edge healthcare solutions and is dedicated to advancing medical advancements that improve patient outcomes and transform healthcare delivery.

Wade began his career at Intel, where he gained valuable experience in technology development and engineering. Building on his technical expertise, he transitioned into the medical device industry, bringing a strong innovation-driven mindset to healthcare solutions.

Wade is best known for his pioneering work on pacemakers, where he contributed to the design and development of advanced cardiac pacing technologies. His innovative approaches have helped improve the reliability, longevity, and patient comfort of pacemaker devices, significantly impacting the field of cardiac care.

Wade received his Bachelor of Engineering (BEng), with a focus on Computer Engineering, from Iowa State University, and his MBA from University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.

Continue reading “Wade Demmer — VP, R&D, Medtronic — The Future Of Pacemaker Technologies” | >

Advanced sensors peer inside the ‘black box’ of metal 3D printing

With the ability to print metal structures with complex shapes and unique mechanical properties, metal additive manufacturing (AM) could be revolutionary. However, without a better understanding of how metal AM structures behave as they are 3D printed, the technology remains too unreliable for widespread adoption in manufacturing and part quality remains a challenge.

Researchers in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)’s nondestructive evaluation (NDE) group are tackling this challenge by developing first-of-their-kind approaches to look at how materials and structures evolve inside a AM structure during printing. These NDE techniques can become enabling technologies for metal AM, giving manufacturers the data they need to develop better simulations, processing parameters and predictive controls to ensure part quality and consistency.

“If you want people to use metal AM components out in the world, you need NDE,” said David Stobbe, group leader for NDE ultrasonics and sensors in the Materials Engineering Division (MED). “If we can prove that AM-produced parts behave as designed, it will allow them to proliferate, be used in safety-critical components in aerospace, energy and other sectors and hopefully open a new paradigm in manufacturing.”

Next-generation nanoengineered switches can cut heat loss in electronics

Electronic devices lose energy as heat due to the movement of electrons. Now, a breakthrough in nanoengineering has produced a new kind of switch that matches the performance of the best traditional designs while pushing beyond the power-consumption limits of modern electronics.

Researchers from the University of Michigan have achieved what scientists have been trying to execute for a long time: designing electronics that harness excitons—pairs of an electron and a corresponding hole (a missing electron) bound together forming a charge-neutral particle—instead of electrons.

The newly designed nanoengineered optoexcitonics (NEO) device featured a tungsten diselenide (WSe2) monolayer on a tapered silicon dioxide (SiO2) nanoridge. The switch achieved a 66% reduction in losses compared to traditional switches while surpassing an on–off ratio of 19 dB at room temperature, a performance that rivals the best electronic switches available on the market.

/* */