Show Notes 16 August 2024
Story 1: Dune-inspired spacesuit recycles astronauts’ urine into drinkable water
Source: Engadget.com Story by Mat Smith
See also: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/space-technologies/articles/10.3389/frspt.2024.1391200/full
See video here explaining “stillsuits” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvcihrciJes
- The traditional NASA spacesuit design has been in circulation since the 1970s and only has an absorbent polymer to catch astronauts’ urine. This outdated waste system has also led to hygiene and medical issues, like urinary tract infections and gastrointestinal problems, for astronauts.
- A new space suit designed by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell University, inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune, could make spacewalks longer and less disgusting by recycling expelled urine in a special filtration backpack.
- In the Dune series these suits are referred to as “stillsuits” – which can absorb and purify water lost through sweating and urination and recycled it into drinkable water.
- The study’s lead author and research staff member Sofia Etlin in a press release noted that the new stillsuits have a “vacuum-based external catheter leading to a combined forward-reverse osmosis unit” that astronauts carry on their back.
- Side note – the forward and reverse osmosis technology plays a crucial role in water treatment and desalination processes.
- The suits were designed with future NASA space missions in mind including the Artemis II and Artemis III missions that will orbit the moon and touch down on its south pole in the next two years.
- NASA and Axiom Space have already approved a spacesuit design for its moon missions, but it looks like this new filtration system could be added to them. The stillsuits can also be used for the manned Mars space mission in the early 2030s.
- Time out, what is Axiom Space? Axiom Space is the leading provider of human spaceflight services. They operate end-to-end missions to the ISS while developing its successor, Axiom Station, and building next-generation spacesuits for low-Earth orbit, the Moon and beyond.
- The research and design teams from both schools published a paper of their findings in the scientific journal Frontiers.
Story 2: A scientific leap towards smart, self-watering, self-fertilizing soils
Source: Anthropocene Magazine Story by Emma Bryce
- Self-watering, self-fertilizing soil is now a step closer to reality. Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin have developed little beads called hydrogels that can capture water from the ambient air and use it to irrigate soil—while simultaneously dosing the surrounding plants with nutrients, too.
- The study from the University of Texas, published in ACS Materials Letters, is the latest step in a research project which has been advancing the development of hydrogels for years.
- The gels are made from a matrix of polymers that are ‘hygroscopic’, meaning they absorb water—in this case, from vapor in the air—swelling as they go. The hydrogels are then designed to release this liquid load when triggered by certain stimuli, including changes in soil pH or temperature.
- Previous research from the University of Texas lab has already successfully shown that the gels can capture moisture from the air even in dry conditions—possibly helping agriculture to spread into arid landscapes.
- What’s new [and unprecedented] in this latest round of research is the addition of calcium fertilizers to the gel’s polymer matrix.
- To see how well the newly developed hydrogel 2.0 works in soils, the researchers ran a sequence of experiments, which for starters measured the pace of water and fertilizer release.
- In the experiments, they infused the air with differing levels of humidity ranging from 30 to 90%.
- Under high humidity conditions, they found, the gels not only absorbed a substantial amount of the water vapor, but gradually released almost all of it over a four-hour period, triggered by 40 °C temperatures [104 degrees Fahrenheit].
- Next, they were curious to see how effectively the gels delivered the fertilizers. As it turns out, the calcium fertilizer they used is also hygroscopic, meaning it enhances the gels’ water-absorbing capacity. So, when the gel contacts water vapor, the water-loving fertilizer gets dissolved within, further hydrating the gel.
Story 3: Soft, stretchy ‘jelly batteries’ inspired by electric eels
Source: TechXplore.com Story from University of Cambridge
Link: https://techxplore.com/news/2024-07-soft-stretchy-jelly-batteries-electric.html
See also: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn5142
- Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed soft, stretchable ‘jelly batteries’ that could be used for wearable devices or soft robotics, or even implanted in the brain to deliver drugs or treat conditions such as epilepsy.
- The researchers took their inspiration from electric eels, which stun their prey with modified muscle cells called electrocytes.
- Like electrocytes, the jelly-like materials developed by the Cambridge researchers have a layered structure, like a sticky Lego, that makes them capable of delivering an electric current.
- The self-healing jelly batteries can stretch to over ten times their original length without affecting their conductivity—the first time that such stretchability and conductivity has been combined in a single material.
- The jelly batteries are made from hydrogels: 3D networks of polymers that contain over 60% water. The polymers are held together by reversible on/off interactions that control the jelly’s mechanical properties.
- The ability to precisely control mechanical properties and mimic the characteristics of human tissue makes hydrogels ideal candidates for soft robotics and bioelectronics; however, they need to be both conductive and stretchy for such applications.
- The properties of the University of Cambridge jelly batteries make them promising for future use in biomedical implants, since they are soft and mold to human tissue.
- In addition to their softness, the hydrogels are also surprisingly tough. They can withstand being squashed without permanently losing their original shape and can self-heal when damaged.
- The results are reported in the journal Science Advances.
Story 4: 3D-Printed Blood Vessels: A Game-Changer for Heart Bypass Surgery
Source: ScienceBlog.com
Link: 3D-Printed Blood Vessels: A Game-Changer for Heart Bypass Surgery – ScienceBlog.com
- First, some background – In coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), surgeons typically harvest either the radial artery from an arm or the saphenous vein from a leg. These healthy blood vessels are then used as grafts to create new connections, bypassing blocked coronary arteries and restoring blood flow to the heart.
- Now the news – Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have developed a new method to create artificial blood vessels using 3D printing technology.
- These gel-like tubes closely mimic the properties of human veins and could revolutionize heart bypass surgery, potentially improving outcomes for thousands of patients each year.
- The innovative technique produces strong, flexible vessels that could replace both human and synthetic veins currently used in bypass operations. This advancement addresses longstanding challenges in cardiovascular treatment, offering a promising alternative that may reduce complications and improve patient recovery.
- The research team, led by the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, employed a two-stage process to create these artificial blood vessels.
- First, they used a 3D printer equipped with a rotating spindle to produce tubular grafts from a water-based gel.
- Then, they reinforced these grafts through electrospinning, a technique that uses high voltage to create a coating of ultra-thin nanofibers made from biodegradable polyester molecules.
- The resulting artificial vessels demonstrated strength comparable to natural blood vessels. Moreover, their flexibility suggests they could integrate seamlessly into the human body.
- The researchers can produce these artificial blood vessel grafts in a wide range of sizes, from 1 to 40 mm in diameter, making them suitable for various applications in vascular surgery.
- However, it’s important to note that this technology is still in its early stages. The next phase of research will involve testing these artificial blood vessels in animal models at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute.
Honorable Mentions:
Story: This AI movie camera transforms films into whatever you can imagine
Source: TechRadar.com Story by Hal Schwartz
- Artificial intelligence to produce videos has become increasingly popular thanks to tools like Sora, Runway, and Pika. But, a new AI-augmented film camera has taken the idea to the next level.
- Creative technology agency SpecialGuestX and mixed-media production house 1stAveMachine have debuted the CMR-M1 to tackle that goal. The result is a camera that doesn’t just film the world around it; it enhances it using a generative AI video-to-video model. The digital film is sent to the cloud, where a Stable Diffusion-based model transforms them. Furthermore, the AI can also link with other APIs to further play with what it can do to the film.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Story: Intelligent skin for more precise communication and near-field sensing in robotics
Source: TechXplore Story by Jens Fiege
- Specific physical human-robot interactions are increasingly required in the manufacturing industry, the professional service sector, and health care.
- Robots need to be able to predict human actions and recognize intentions. And that calls for flexible metamaterials, and more specifically, flat metasurface antennas with highly integrated electronics that allow for sensing of the near environment.
- The Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR has teamed up with six partners in the EU’s FITNESS project to develop these kinds of surfaces, which cover a robot like an adaptive, intelligent skin. The idea is that robots equipped with metasurface antennas will be able to scan their near-field environment with greater accuracy and communicate more effectively with their base station in the far field.
- The project aims to optimize communication and interaction between humans and machines through intelligent antenna solutions in the form of innovative electromagnetic metamaterial surfaces with integrated electronics.
- The flexible, stretchable metasurface antennas, which are suitable for emitting surface waves, are expected to scan their near-field surroundings much more effectively than conventional antennas, thereby improving both human safety and the robots’ own performance.
- The metasurface antennas are flat antennas integrated into film-like substrates that adapt to the robot’s contours. Thanks to their flat structure, these antennas can bend and stretch, wrapping around the robot like a skin. Alternatively, and depending on the application, they can also be positioned only on the robot arm, for example. That is how they came to be called “smart skins.”
- “What makes our future antenna solution special is that it can scan the near-field environment and detect movement while also being proficient at radio-based communication with the base station on the shop floor,” says Andrej Konforta, 3D-Print HF Systems group manager at Fraunhofer FHR. “No other solution like it exists on the market so far.”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Story: Researchers create world’s first anode-free sodium solid-state battery
Source: TechExplorist.com Story by Ashwini Sakharkar
- UChicago Pritzker Molecular Engineering Prof. Y. Shirley Meng’s Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion has achieved a major breakthrough by developing the world’s first anode-free sodium solid-state battery.
- This groundbreaking research, conducted in collaboration with the University of California San Diego‘s Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering, brings us closer to realizing inexpensive, fast-charging, and high-capacity batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Story: Super-black wood can improve telescopes, optical devices and consumer goods
Source: University of British Columbia
- Thanks to an accidental discovery, researchers at the University of British Columbia have created a new super-black material that absorbs almost all light, opening potential applications in fine jewelry, solar cells and precision optical devices.
- Professor Philip Evans and PhD student Kenny Cheng were experimenting with high-energy plasma to make wood more water-repellent. However, when they applied the technique to the cut ends of wood cells, the surfaces turned extremely black.
- Measurements by Texas A&M University’s department of physics and astronomy confirmed that the material reflected less than one per cent of visible light, absorbing almost all the light that struck it.
- Instead of discarding this accidental finding, the team decided to shift their focus to designing super-black materials, contributing a new approach to the search for the darkest materials on Earth.
- “Ultra-black or super-black material can absorb more than 99 per cent of the light that strikes it – significantly more so than normal black paint, which absorbs about 97.5 per cent of light,” explained Dr. Evans, a professor in the faculty of forestry and BC Leadership Chair in Advanced Forest Products Manufacturing Technology.
- Super-black materials are increasingly sought after in astronomy, where ultra-black coatings on devices help reduce stray light and improve image clarity. Super-black coatings can enhance the efficiency of solar cells. They are also used in making art pieces and luxury consumer items like watches.
- The researchers have developed prototype commercial products using their super-black wood, initially focusing on watches and jewelry, with plans to explore other commercial applications in the future.
- The team named and trademarked their discovery Nxylon (niks-uh-lon), after Nyx, the Greek goddess of the night, and xylon, the Greek word for wood.
- Most surprisingly, Nxylon remains black even when coated with an alloy, such as the gold coating applied to the wood to make it electrically conductive enough to be viewed and studied using an electron microscope. This is because Nxylon’s structure inherently prevents light from escaping rather than depending on black pigments.
- The UBC team have demonstrated that Nxylon can replace expensive and rare black woods like ebony and rosewood for watch faces, and it can be used in jewelry to replace the black gemstone onyx.