Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers from Harvard University and the University of Nottingham have developed a new filling that stimulates stem cells in dental pulp to regenerate and even regrow teeth damaged by disease and decay. According to Newsweek Magazine, the discovery earned a prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry after judges described it as a “new paradigm for dental treatments.”

The treatment is believed to potentially eliminate the need for root canals.

Filling materials stimulate stem cells to encourage dentin growth.

Free plastic trash! Literally 1 ton for each living human being on this planet!

Researchers have achieved a major turning point in the quest for efficient desalination by announcing the invention of a graphene-oxide membrane that sieves salt right out of seawater.

At this stage, the technique is still limited to the lab, but it’s a demonstration of how we could one day quickly and easily turn one of our most abundant resources, seawater, into one of our most scarce — clean drinking water.

The team, led by Rahul Nair from the University of Manchester in the UK, has shown that the sieve can efficiently filter out salts, and now the next step is to test this against existing desalination membranes.

Continue reading “Scientists Have Invented a Graphene-Based Sieve That Turns Seawater Into Drinking Water” »

In recent years 3D printing of aerospace components has made great strides with ever larger parts, faster production and synergy with other materials, including composites. AEROSPACE gets an update on the latest progress from Scott Sevcik, Head of Manufacturing Solutions at international 3D printing company Stratasys.

Scott Sevcik, Head of Manufacturing Solutions, Stratasys. (Stratasys)

Scientists have observed that superlattices can form incredibly during the routine synthesis of nanocrystals. This accidental discovery will mean the ability to form novel materials in a matter of seconds instead of days.

Some of the tiniest crystals in the world can, together, form superlattices, the basic elements of various novel materials. These crystals are also called “artificial atoms,” because they can organize themselves into structures that look a lot like molecules.

Researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing have now developed a new type of electronic skin, with a colour change easily seen at just 0–10 per cent strain.

The material is made from graphene — a form of pure carbon that is 200 times stronger than steel.

Continue reading “Scientists create colour-changing electronic SKIN” »

Previously, scientists from Brown detected trace amounts of water in similar volcanic samples — which are composed of loose material or “glass beads” — brought back to Earth from the Apollo 15 and 17 missions. However, the Apollo samples were not collected from the large pyroclastic deposits mapped using the satellite data in the recent study. This brought into question whether the Apollo samples represent a large portion of the moon’s “wet” interior or if they represent only a small water-rich region within an otherwise “dry” mantle.

Related: Moon Express Reveals Bold New Plan to Explore Solar System

“Our work shows that nearly all of the large pyroclastic deposits also contain water, so this seems to be a common characteristic of magmas that come from the deep lunar interior,” Milliken said. “That is, most of the mantle of the moon may be ‘wet.’”.

Continue reading “Moon’s interior may hold way more water than we thought” »

Designer antibodies, volcano mining, and biomimetic materials. The future is wild.

Sending humans to Mars involves deep space missions that could last months, but shipping material there is costly; the price of transporting 1kg on Earth increases by a factor of 100 on a Martian mission. If the ultimate goal is to establish a long-term base on Mars, we’ll need make use of materials found on humanity’s greatest ever voyage.