Tag Archives: resolution

Invention jet prints nanostructures with self-assembling material

A multi-institutional team of engineers has developed a new approach to the fabrication of nanostructures for the semiconductor and magnetic storage industries. This approach combines top-down advanced ink-jet printing technology with a bottom-up approach that involves self-assembling block copolymers, a type of material that can spontaneously form ultrafine structures.

The team, consisting of nine researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago and Hanyang University in Korea, was able to increase the resolution of their intricate structure fabrication from approximately 200 nanometers to approximately 15 nanometers. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, the width of a double-stranded DNA molecule. (more…)

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Insect eye-inspired camera captures wide field of view with no distortion, according to study co-led by CU-Boulder

By mimicking the bulging, bowl-shaped eyes possessed by dragonflies, praying mantises, houseflies and other insects, a team of researchers that includes a University of Colorado Boulder engineer has built an experimental digital camera that can take exceptionally wide-angle photos without distorting the image.

To create the innovative camera, which also allows for a practically infinite depth of field, the scientists used stretchable electronics and a pliable sheet of microlenses made from a material similar to that used for contact lenses. The researchers described the camera in an article published on May 1, 2013 in the journal Nature. (more…)

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Commentary: Sergei Khrushchev – The Cuban Missile Crisis, 50 years later

October marks the 50th anniversary of of the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis, when President John F. Kennedy discovered that the Soviet Union was building secret missile bases in Cuba. Forgoing the option of a Cuban invasion or air strikes, Kennedy asked Russian Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev to remove all weapons from the island, and on Oct. 28, 1962, Khrushchev conceded, halting the standoff. Here, Khrushchev’s son, Sergei Khrushchev, visiting professor of Slavic languages at Brown, reflects on the diplomatic lessons.

The perspective of the crisis has changed over time and today the history of the crisis is more focused not on the confrontation, but on cooperation.

The Cuban Missile Crisis showed that two leaders decided not to shoot first, but to think and negotiate with each other. And today that is very unusual, because we think we can only negotiate with friends. Today, we impose unconditional surrender and nobody surrenders unconditionally until fully defeated. (more…)

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A New Way of Looking at Photosystem II

Berkeley Lab and SLAC Researchers Study Key Protein Complex Crucial to Photosynthesis

Future prospects for clean, green, renewable energy may hinge upon our ability to mimic and improve upon photosynthesis – the process by which green plants, algae and some bacteria convert solar energy into electrochemical energy. An artificial version of photosynthesis, for example, could use sunlight to produce liquid fuels from nothing more than carbon dioxide and water. First, however, scientists need a better understanding of how a large complex of proteins, called photosystem II, is able to split water molecules into oxygen, electrons and hydrogen ions (protons). A new road to reaching this understanding has now been opened by an international team of researchers, led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Using ultrafast, intensely bright pulses of X-rays from SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the research team produced the first ever images at room temperature of microcrystals of the photosystem II complex. Previous imaging studies, using X-rays generated via synchrotron radiation sources, required cryogenic freezing, which alters the samples. Also, to catalyze its reactions, photosystem II relies upon an enzyme that contains a manganese-calcium cluster that is highly sensitive to radiation. With the high-intensity femtosecond X-ray pulses of the LCLS, the research team was able to record intact images of these clusters before the radiation destroyed them. (more…)

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The Naked Truth: Exclusive Survey from FITNESS Magazine & Yahoo! Shine Reveals How Men & Women Really Feel about Their Bodies

*57% of Women Polled Think They Look Fat Naked;

Thighs ranked as #1 Most Hated Body Part; Cleavage ranked as #1 Body Part To Flaunt Among Women

However, 63% of adults admit to walking around their home naked*

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & NEW YORK — It’s no wonder losing weight continues to dominate New Year’s resolutions—a new survey from FITNESS Magazine and Yahoo! Shine reveals that 57% of women polled think they look fat naked and 81% of adults have a body part they hate. The exclusive survey asked 1,500 women and men to bare it all about how they feel about being naked.

The survey revealed a lack of body confidence with women more likely than men to have issues with many parts of their body, primarily their thighs (21%), while men dislike their butts the most (11%). (more…)

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Clearing a Potential Road Block to Bisabolane

*Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Identify Key Enzyme Structure*

The recent discovery that bisabolane, a member of the terpene class of chemical compounds used in fragrances and flavorings, holds high promise as a biosynthetic alternative to D2 diesel fuel has generated keen interest in the green energy community and the trucking industry. Now a second team of researchers with the U.S Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has determined the three-dimensional crystal structure of a protein that is key to boosting the microbial-based production of bisabolane as an advanced biofuel.

The JBEI research team, led by bioengineers Paul Adams and Jay Keasling, solved the protein crystal structure of an enzyme in the Grand fir (Abies grandis) that synthesizes bisabolene, the immediate terpene precursor to bisabolane. The performance of this enzyme – the Abies grandis α-bisabolene synthase (AgBIS) – when engineered into microbes, has resulted in a bottleneck that hampers the conversion by the microbes of simple sugars into bisabolene. (more…)

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UCLA Physicists Report Nanotechnology Feat With Proteins

UCLA physicists have made nanomechanical measurements of unprecedented resolution on protein molecules.

The new measurements, by UCLA physics professor Giovanni Zocchi and former UCLA physics graduate student Yong Wang, are approximately 100 times higher in resolution than previous mechanical measurements, a nanotechnology feat which reveals an isolated protein molecule, surprisingly, is neither a solid nor a liquid.

“Proteins are the molecular machines of life, the molecules we are made of,” Zocchi said. “We have found that sometimes they behave as a solid and sometimes as a liquid. (more…)

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Resolved to Quit Smoking? Brain Scans Predict Likely Success

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Brain scans showing neural reactions to pro-health messages can predict if you’ll keep that resolution to quit smoking more accurately than you yourself can. That’s according to a new study forthcoming in Health Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal.

“We targeted smokers who were already taking action to quit,” said Emily Falk, the lead author of the study and director of the Communication Neuroscience Laboratory at the U-M Institute for Social Research and Department of Communication Studies. “And we found that neural activity can predict behavior change, above and beyond people’s own assessment of how likely they are to succeed. (more…)

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