New “RevoMaker” creates working products straight from 3-D printer

A new system allows a 3-D printer to produce functioning products with enclosed electronic and motorized components and customized devices such as a computer mouse molded to a user's hand.

"Toys work right out of the printer," said Karthik Ramani, Purdue Univ.'s Donald W. Feddersen Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Because conventional 3-D printers create objects layer-by-layer from the bottom up, this poses a challenge when printing overhanging or protruding features like a figure's outstretched arms. They must be formed using supporting structures—which are later removed—adding time and material to the process. In traditional manufacturing the parts have to be assembled along with electronics packaging that goes on the inside.

NanoGriptech: Gecko-Inspired Adhesives

Dexterous climbers, geckos have long been a source of inspiration for materials scientists. The lizards boast a unique sticking ability, allowing them to climb walls and hang upside down.

“Nature’s had millions of years to evolve solutions” and “humans have been engineering only for hundreds,” says Paul Glass, vice president of engineering at nanoGriptech, in an interview with R&D Magazine. “I think there’s limits to what we can learn from nature, but it’s a fantastic starting point.”

For close to a year, nanoGriptech has been offering the world’s first commercially available dry adhesive technology inspired by geckos. Called Setex, the product has applications in a variety of industries from sports and apparel to upholstery and manufacturing.

NanoGriptech’s beginnings lie at Carnegie Mellon Univ.’s campus. At the time, Glass was a PhD student studying biomedical engineering. His thesis research focused on applying biologically inspired materials to medical devices. On top of exploring gecko-inspired microstructure materials, he delved into polymers inspired by marine mussels.       

Nanotweezer to create advanced plasmonic technologies

A new type of "nanotweezer" capable of positioning tiny objects quickly and accurately and freezing them in place could enable improved nanoscale sensing methods and aid research to manufacture advanced technologies such as quantum computers and ultra-high-resolution displays.

The device, fabricated at Purdue Univ.'s Birck Nanotechnology Center, uses a cylindrical gold "nanoantenna" with a diameter of 320 nm, or about 1/300th the width of a human hair. The structures concentrate and absorb light, resulting in "plasmonic hotspots" and making it possible to manipulate nanometer-scale objects suspended in a fluid.

"The proposed approach enables the immediate implementation of a myriad of exciting applications," said Alexandra Boltasseva, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Findings are detailed in a paper appearing online in Nature Nanotechnology.

Empathizing with Human-like Robots

James Coan, a psychology professor at the Univ. of Virginia, claims empathy is hardwired into the human brain. Given enough time and familiarity, you begin associating friends, spouses and lovers with yourself. A lover’s pain becomes your pain; their joy, your joy, and so forth.

Using electroencephalography (EEG) studies on 15 adults, Japanese researchers found neurophysiological evidence of humans’ ability to empathize with robots in perceived painful situations. Albeit, there are still some differences when it comes to human-human empathy versus human-robot.

Study participants were shown a series of photographs showing human and robot hands cutting fruit with knives. In four photos, the human and robot hands are positioned in such a manner it appears as if they’ll cut their fingers.

Making Glass Stronger than Steel

It’s almost everywhere you look. When you glance at your phone, peer upwards at high-rise buildings or check your right and left before making a turn in your automobile. Glass is fairly ubiquitous. And the journey to strengthen the material just made some strides.

Univ. of Tokyo and Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute researchers have developed a glass material with high elasticity and hardness, making it stronger than many metals.

“Glasses with high elastic moduli and high hardness values have been in demand for years because the thickness of sheet glass with these properties can be decreased while maintaining its strength,” write the researchers in Scientific Reports. “Thinner and lighter glass are desired for windows in buildings and cars, substrates for (thin-film transistor) displays and covers of smart-phones.”

Antimatter not so different after all

Due to the diligence of a Rice Univ. student and his calculations, humanity now knows a little more about the universe.

Kefeng Xin, a graduate student at Rice, is one of a handful of primary authors who revealed evidence that the attractive force between antiprotons is similar to that between protons—and measured it.

Specifically, the team measured two important parameters: the scattering length and the effective range of interaction between two antiprotons. This gave scientists a fundamental new way to understand the force that holds together the nuclei in antimatter and how this compares to matter.

New lost-cost battery could help store renewable energy

Wind and solar energy projects are growing at a respectable clip. But storing electric power for days when the air is still or when the sun goes down remains a challenge, largely due to cost. Now researchers are developing a new battery that could bring the price of storage to more affordable levels. They report their new battery that uses low-cost materials—sodium and magnesium—in Chemistry of Materials.

Today, lithium-ion batteries are the storage technology of choice for many applications, from electric cars to smartphones. And, it appears, saving up power for homes is next. For example, Tesla, the maker of luxury electric cars, is ambitiously expanding its lithium-ion technology to fill that niche and has already started rolling out systems to homeowners in a pilot project. But the $3,000 price tag for the pack itself plus installation costs put it out of reach for most customers. To make larger-scale energy storage more accessible, Maksym V. Kovalenko and colleagues wanted to develop an affordable alternative to lithium-ion.

A new paradigm for cancer research

The $100 billion federal government investment in the “War on Cancer,” has produced only relatively modest progress in cancer research advances, according to Yale School of Medicine researcher Dr. Cary Gross, and his collaborator Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel.

The pair authored a recent viewpoint article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, tackling the issue of value in cancer research.

Gross and Emanuel recommend a new paradigm for research, one that focuses on improving efficacy and value, as well as ensuring population health impact and generating new knowledge. Specifically, they call for changes to the design of clinical trials, charging the cancer research community to set a target of reducing the cost of trials by more than 50%.

Volkswagen Scandal “Delights” UN Climate Chief

It might seem surreal. A large automotive manufacturing company is found producing cars with software capable of cheating emissions tests. Then, Volkswagen admits 11 million of its diesel cars worldwide were outfitted with the device. Finally, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change says she’s “delighted” by the scandal.

At a recent event hosted by The Christian Science Monitor, Christiana Figueres said the recent VW scandal has given the car company the opportunity to live up to its name “the car of the people.”

“What is their corporate strategy? We are going to scrap diesel...and we’re moving to electric vehicles. Well, now we have a little revolution underway because Tesla is certainly opening up very, very new ground, but Tesla, as we all know, is not exactly the people’s vehicle,” Figueres said at the event. “So, if the people’s vehicle says ‘We’re going to electric vehicles, and we’re going to make it accessible for everybody to be able to get a car,’ now” a revolution begins.

Using hydrogen to enhance lithium-ion batteries

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have found that lithium-ion batteries operate longer and faster when their electrodes are treated with hydrogen.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are a class of rechargeable battery types in which lithium ions move from the negative electrode to the positive electrode during discharge and back when charging.

The growing demand for energy storage emphasizes the urgent need for higher-performance batteries. Several key characteristics of lithium ion battery performance—capacity, voltage and energy density—are ultimately determined by the binding between lithium ions and the electrode material. Subtle changes in the structure, chemistry and shape of an electrode can significantly affect how strongly lithium ions bond to it.