Lifeboat Foundation

A newly-discovered material made from squid teeth could one day replace man-made fibres like nylon and polyester, according to a review by scientists at Pennsylvania State University. This would help to reduce microplastic pollution in the oceans, as well as paving the way for new possibilities such as self-repairing safety clothing, or garments with built-in, flexible screens.

Texas A&M University researchers are developing a new kind of flame-retardant coating using renewable, nontoxic materials readily found in nature, which could provide even more effective fire protection for several widely used materials.

Researchers at The University of Manchester in the UK have discovered that the Hall effect—a phenomenon well known for more than a century—is no longer as universal as it was thought to be.

In the research paper published in Science this week, the group led by Prof Sir Andre Geim and Dr. Denis Bandurin found that the Hall effect can even be signifcantly, if electrons strongly interact with each other giving rise to a viscous flow. The new phenomenon is important at room temperature—something that can have important implications for when making electronic or optoelectronic devices.

Just like molecules in gases and liquids, electrons in solids frequently collide with each other and can thus behave like viscous fluids too. Such electron fluids are ideal to find new behaviours of materials in which electron-electron interactions are particularly strong. The problem is that most materials are rarely pure enough to allow electrons to enter the viscous regime. This is because they contain many impurities off which electrons can scatter before they have time to interact with each other and organise a viscous flow.

“A structure comprising a molybdenum disulfide monolayer on an azobenzene substrate could be used to build a highly compactable and malleable quasi-two-dimensional transistor powered by light.”

Journal Publication: https://journals.aps.org/…/abstr…/10.1103/PhysRevB.98.

Drexler and the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute proposing that artificial intelligence is mainly emerging as cloud-based AI services and a 210-page paper analyzes how AI is developing today.

AI development is developing automation of many tasks and automation of AI research and development will enable acceleration of AI improvement.

Accelerated AI improvement would mean the emergence of asymptotically comprehensive, superintelligent-level AI services that—crucially—can include the service of developing new services, both narrow and broad, guided by concrete human goals and informed by strong models of human (dis)approval. The concept of comprehensive AI services (CAIS) provides a model of flexible, general intelligence in which agents are a class of service-providing products, rather than a natural or necessary engine of progress in themselves.

Continue reading “Superintelligence as a Service is Coming and It Can Be Safe AGI” »

Using neutrons, materials scientists develop a method that goes below the surface.

Researchers have been on the hunt for a superconductor that would work at around room temperature, which they consider to be 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) — and according to the patent application, Navy researcher Salvatore Cezar Pais thinks he’s figured it out.

Pais’ application describes a wire consisting of a metal coating over an insulator core. An electromagnetic coil surrounds the wire, and when activated by a pulsed current, this coil causes a vibration that allows the wire to act as a superconductor at room temperature, according to the application.

Imperial researchers have developed a new bioinspired material that interacts with surrounding tissues to promote healing.

Materials are widely used to help heal wounds: Collagen sponges help treat burns and pressure sores, and scaffold-like implants are used to repair broken bones. However, the process of tissue repair changes over time, so scientists are looking to biomaterials that interact with tissues as healing takes place.

Continue reading “New material could ‘drive wound healing’ using the body’s inbuilt healing system” »

Ingenius.

Researchers in China have developed a new way to remove bacteria from water that they say is both highly efficient and environmentally sound.

By shining ultraviolet light onto a two-dimensional sheet of a compound called graphitic carbon nitride, the team’s prototype can purify 10 litres (2.6 liquid gallons) of water in just one hour, killing virtually all the harmful bacteria present.

Continue reading “Scientists Develop a Material That Kills 99.9% of Bacteria in Drinking Water Using Nothing But Light” »