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Category: materials – Page 245

A new and greatly improved version of an electronic tag, called Marine Skin, used for monitoring marine animals could revolutionize our ability to study sea life and its natural environment, say KAUST researchers.

Marine Skin is a thin, flexible, lightweight polymer-based material with integrated electronics which can track an animal’s movement and diving behavior and the health of the surrounding . Early versions of the sensors, reported previously, proved their worth when glued onto the swimming crab, Portunus pelagicus.

The latest and much more robust version can operate at unprecedented depths and can also be attached to an animal using a noninvasive bracelet or jacket. This can, when necessary, avoid the need for any glues that might harm an animal’s sensitive skin.

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The strongest synthetic materials are often those that intentionally mimic nature.

One natural substance scientists have looked to in creating is , also known as mother-of-pearl. An exceptionally tough, stiff material produced by some mollusks and serving as their inner shell layer, it also comprises the outer layer of pearls, giving them their lustrous shine.

But while nacre’s make it an ideal inspiration in the creation of synthetic , most methods used to produce artificial nacre are complex and energy intensive.

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Scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind device that generates electricity from nothing other than the natural phenomenon of snowfall.

Based upon the principles of the triboelectric effect, in which electrical charge is generated after two materials come into contact with one another, the researchers’ new technology exploits the fact that snow particles carry a positive electrical charge.

Because of that, snowflakes give up electrons, provided they get a chance to interact with the right, negatively charged substance.

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Apr 11, 2019 (Heraldkeeper via COMTEX) — Summary:

A new market study, titled “Discover Global Aerogel Market Upcoming Trends, Growth Drivers and Challenges” has been featured on WiseGuyReports.

Introduction

Aerogel, a mesoporous solid foam, is composed of an interconnected nanostructure network with minimum 50% porosity. It consists of low thermal conductivity features, which make it an ideal insulation material. The global aerogel market value was about USD xx million in 2018, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of xx% to reach USD XX million by 2026.

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The Futurecraft Loop performance running shoes can be returned to Adidas, where they will be ground up to make more shoes, again and again.

So, recycling is a mess. Manufacturers have sold us on the idea that it’s the consumer’s responsibility to recycle the manufacturer’s product, ostensibly relieving the manufacturer of responsibility for all the trash their products generate. Meanwhile, despite many of us trying our best to uphold our end of the deal, recycling is complicated – and in the end, 91 percent of plastic, for example, is not recycled.

Given plastic’s nearly eternal durability, it’s little wonder that we’re finding it literally everywhere on the planet. And we keep making new plastic at a prodigious rate – National Geographic notes that “If present trends continue, by 2050, there will be 12 billion metric tons of plastic in landfills.”

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The researchers believe that other MEGOs that absorb, enhance, reflect, or bend waves in new ways could be created using patterned 3D printing. The current Tufts study utilizes stereolithography. Other 3D-printing technologies, such as two-photon polymerization, could provide printing resolution down to 200 nm, which would enable the fabrication of even finer metamaterials that could detect and manipulate electromagnetic signals of even smaller wavelengths, potentially including visible light. As resolution in 3D printing improves, MEGO devices could reach terahertz frequencies.

MEDFORD, Mass., April 9, 2019 — 3D-printed metamaterials developed by a Tufts University engineering team display properties not found in conventional materials. The fabrication methods used by the team demonstrate how stereolithography-based 3D printers can be used to create 3D optical devices through a process that fuses metamaterials with geometrical optics, or MEGO. The MEGO devices can be fabricated at a lower cost than devices made using typical fabrication methods.

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Tourist spots in Paris, France… including Notre Dame. #NotreDame

A crisp, clear winter day over France provided the International Space Station a detailed view of the city of Paris. This image, rotated and cropped from the original, shows the recognizable street pattern of the city—and some of the world’s most notable landmarks—along the Seine River. One of the main avenues radiating like spokes from the Arc de Triomphe (image upper left) is the Avenue des Champs-Élysées running southeast to the Garden of Tuileries (Jardin des Tuileries).

The garden—recognizable by its light green color relative to the surrounding built materials—was originally commissioned by Catherine de Medici in 1559, and is now bounded by the Place de la Concorde to the northeast and the Louvre museum along the Seine River at the southeast end. Other, similarly colored parks and greenspaces are visible throughout the image. Farther south on the Seine is the Íle de la Cité, location of the famous Notre Dame cathedral. Perhaps most prominent is the characteristic €œA € profile of the Eiffel Tower west of the Jardin des Tuileries, highlighted by morning sunlight.

Astronaut photograph ISS016-E-21564 was acquired on January 7, 2008 with a Kodak 760C digital camera fitted with a 800 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment. The image was taken by the Expedition 16 crew, and is provided by the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Cynthia A Evans, NASA-JSC.

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UCLA researchers and colleagues have designed a new device that creates electricity from falling snow. The first of its kind, this device is inexpensive, small, thin and flexible like a sheet of plastic.

“The can work in remote areas because it provides its own power and does not need batteries,” said senior author Richard Kaner, who holds UCLA’s Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Materials Innovation. “It’s a very clever device—a that can tell you how much snow is falling, the direction the snow is falling, and the direction and speed of the wind.”

The researchers call it a snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator, or snow TENG. A triboelectric nanogenerator, which generates charge through , produces energy from the exchange of electrons.

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