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A marine creature's magic trick explained: Crystal structures on the sea sapphire's back appear differently depending on the angle of reflection

Tiny ocean creatures known as sea sapphires perform a sort of magic trick as they swim: One second they appear in splendid iridescent shades of blue, purple or green, and the next they may turn invisible (at least the blue ones turn completely transparent). How do they get their bright colors and what enables them to "disappear?" New research at the Weizmann Institute has solved the mystery of these colorful, vanishing creatures, which are known scientifically as Sapphirinidae. The findings, could inspire the development of new optical technologies.

Tiny sea sapphires' iridescence, created by a regular array of thin transparent crystal plates, is also the secret of their "disappearance."

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Waste coffee used as fuel storage: Scientists have developed a simple process to treat waste coffee grounds to allow them to store methane

Scientists have developed a simple process to treat waste coffee grounds to allow them to store methane. The simple soak and heating process develops a carbon capture material with the additional environmental benefits of recycling a waste product.

Methane capture and storage provides a double environmental return - it removes a harmful greenhouse gas from the atmosphere that can then be used as a fuel that is cleaner than other fossil fuels.

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New, Ultrathin Optical Devices Shape Light in Exotic Ways

This schematic drawing shows how a "metasurface" can generate and focus radially polarized light.

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An engineered surface unsticks sticky water droplets

The leaves of the lotus flower, and other natural surfaces that repel water and dirt, have been the model for many types of engineered liquid-repelling surfaces. As slippery as these surfaces are, however, tiny water droplets still stick to them. Now, Penn State researchers have developed nano/micro-textured, highly slippery surfaces able to outperform these naturally inspired coatings, particularly when the water is a vapor or tiny droplets.

In conventional superhydrophobic rough surfaces, tiny liquid droplets in the Wenzel state will remain pinned to the surface textures. In contrast, the new slippery rough surface enables high mobility for Wenzel droplets.

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Efficiency of Nanodrug Containing Antibiotics in Treatment of Infectious Diseases Evaluated

Iranian researchers produced a new type of antibacterial nanodrug in laboratorial research which reduces the consumption dosage by increasing the antibacterial effect of antibiotics as well as controlled release of drug.

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Researchers use DNA 'clews' to shuttle CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool into cells

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have for the first time created and used a nanoscale vehicle made of DNA to deliver a CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool into cells in both cell culture and an animal model.

When the nanoclew comes into contact with a cell, the cell absorbs the nanoclew completely -- swallowing it and wrapping it in a protective sheath called an endosome. But the nanoclews are coated with a positively charged polymer that breaks down the endosome, setting the nanoclew free inside the cell. The CRISPR-Cas9 complexes can then free themselves from the nanoclew to make their way to the nucleus.

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Seeing quantum motion

Consider the pendulum of a grandfather clock. If you forget to wind it, you will eventually find the pendulum at rest, unmoving. However, this simple observation is only valid at the level of classical physics--the laws and principles that appear to explain the physics of relatively large objects at human scale. However, quantum mechanics, the underlying physical rules that govern the fundamental behavior of matter and light at the atomic scale, state that nothing can quite be completely at rest.