Science | WPN World People News

Every electronic device -- from a supercomputer to a dishwasher -- works by controlling the flow of charged electrons. But electrons can carry so much more information than just charge; electrons also spin, like a gyroscope on axis.

Santosh Thapa, PhD Fellow at the US based University of North Texas Health Science Center and one of the members of the Organizing Committee informed us that “More than 140 research papers on recent advancement in material sciences and engineering will be presented during the four days long KaSAM-2016. The technical program comprises of Keynote Lectures, Oral Presentations and Poster Session in the related field along with a special symposium on ‘Science, Technology & Innovations for Nepal’. A short course on ‘Recent developments and research trends in nanomaterials’ has also been arranged for young scientist and students, in the first day of the conference.”

In the next coming years nanocellulose (NC) would attract lot of attention from industrial researchers (market value is estimated to be 530 M$ worldwide by 2020)(1). The process of development and functionalization of NC materials is being promising because of their well-known unique optomechanical features and green nature. However, there is still a niche for applications based on NC electric-response. In this scenario, the results published in Scientific Reports with the participation of ICN2 researchers, would set up foundations for new strategies intended to drive novel applications based on 2D-NC with a predicted piezoelectric-response ~ pm V-1. This result could rank NC at the level of currently used bulk piezoelectrics like α-quartz and most recent 2D materials like MoSe2 or doped graphene. The first author of the article is Dr Yamila García, and the last one ICREA Research prof. Dr Clivia M. Sotomayor-Torres, Group leader of the ICN2 Phononic and Photonic Nanostructures Group.

Mission managers for NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter have decided to postpone the upcoming burn of its main rocket motor originally scheduled for Oct. 19. This burn, called the period reduction maneuver (PRM), was to reduce Juno's orbital period around Jupiter from 53.4 to 14 days. The decision was made in order to further study the performance of a set of valves that are part of the spacecraft's fuel pressurization system. The period reduction maneuver was the final scheduled burn of Juno's main engine.

"We are learning more and more about the properties of matter at the nanoscale so that we can design machines with specific functions," said senior author Miguel García-Garibay, dean of the UCLA Division of Physical Sciences and professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

Making sure cancer medications reach the leaky blood vessels surrounding most tumor sites is one of the critical aspects of treatment and drug delivery. While surface chemistry, molecular interactions, and other factors come into play once drug-carrying particles arrive at a tumor, therapeutic medication doesn't do very much good if it never reaches its intended target.

In order to be useful as solar cells, perovskite films must be able to harvest solar energy at a high efficiency that is cost-effective, be relatively easy to manufacture, and be able to withstand the outdoor environment over a long period of time. Dr. Yan Jiang in Prof. Qi's lab has recently published research in Materials Horizons that may help increase the solar efficiency of the organo-metal halide perovskite MAPbI3. He discovered that the use of a methylamine solution during post-annealing led to a decrease in problems associated with grain boundaries. Grain boundaries manifest as gaps between crystalline domains and can lead to unwanted charge recombination. This is a common occurrence in perovskite films and can reduce their efficiency, making the improvement of grain boundary issues essential to maintain high device performance. Dr. Jiang's novel post annealing treatment produced solar cells that had fused grain boundaries, reduced charge recombination, and displayed an outstanding conversion efficiency of 18.4%. His treated perovskite films also exhibited exceptional stability and reproducibility, making his method useful for industrial production of solar cells.

ESA’s historic Rosetta mission has concluded as planned, with the controlled impact onto the comet it had been investigating for more than two years.

During bilateral meetings in Daejeon, South Korea, NASA and France’s Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales (ONERA) signed an agreement Tuesday to collaborate on research that focuses on mitigating the effects of civil air transportation noise.