Science

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Biological transistor enables computing within living cells, Stanford study says

When Charles Babbage prototyped the first computing machine in the 19th century, he imagined using mechanical gears and latches to control information. ENIAC, the first modern computer developed in the 1940s, used vacuum tubes and electricity. Today, computers use transistors made from highly engineered semiconducting materials to carry out their logical operations.

And now a team of Stanford University bioengineers has taken computing beyond mechanics and electronics into the living realm of biology. In a paper to be published March 28 in Science, the team details a biological transistor made from genetic material — DNA and RNA — in place of gears or electrons. The team calls its biological transistor the "transcriptor."

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Modified Natural Nano Biopolymers Utilized to Remove Dye from Textile Wastewater

ranian researchers at Amir Kabir University of Technology and Institute for Color Science and Technology produced a bio-adsorbent with very high performance for the removal of dye from textile wastewater by preparing a combination of chitosan and dendrimer nanostructure.

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Landforms on Mars

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This image was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) flying onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission.

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Iranian Scientists Use Nanotechnology for Waterproofing Building Materials

Iranian researchers waterproofed building materials with very high efficiency by using the green and noncorrosive heteropoly acid catalyst.

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End of the Road for Roadrunner: Once the World’s Fastest Supercomputer; Central to the Success of Stockpile Stewardship

Roadrunner, the first supercomputer to break the once-elusive petaflop barrier—one million billion calculations per second

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Hubble observes the hidden depths of Messier 77

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured this vivid image of spiral galaxy Messier 77, one of the most famous and well-studied galaxies in the sky. The patches of red across this image highlight pockets of star formation along the pinwheeling arms, with dark dust lanes stretching across the galaxy’s energetic centre.

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Imaging methodology reveals nano details not seen before: Understanding nanoparticles at atomic scale in 3 dimensions could improve materials

A team of scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Northwestern University has produced 3-D images and videos of a tiny platinum nanoparticle at atomic resolution that reveal new details of defects in nanomaterials that have not been seen before.

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This is a graphic representation of a 3-D atomic resolution screw dislocation in a platinum nanoparticle.

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Even graphene has weak spots: Rice, Tsinghua theorists find junctions in polycrystalline graphene sap strength of super material

Graphene, the single-atom-thick form of carbon, has become famous for its extraordinary strength. But less-than-perfect sheets of the material show unexpected weakness, according to researchers at Rice University in Houston and Tsinghua University in Beijing.

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New work by theorists at Rice and Tsinghua universities shows defects in polycrystalline forms of graphene will sap its strength. The illustration from a simulation at left shows a junction of grain boundaries where three domains of graphene meet with a strained bond in the center. At right, the calculated stress buildup at the tip of a finite-length grain boundary.

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Young, Hot and Blue

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This pretty sprinkling of bright blue stars is the cluster NGC 2547, a group of recently formed stars in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sail).

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The long winter ahead

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Pondering the setting Sun

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