“Traditional color printing — whether done with an inkjet, laser or silkscreen — requires a page to be laid out with several different inks in various colors to produce a full color image. But Korean engineers have developed a different process using a single nanoparticle-imbued ink, which could produce color prints in fractions of a second.
The new ink, called M-Ink by its developers, creates colors by changing its physical structure rather than by having a unique pigment. Like many colors in the natural world (the iridescence of a butterfly’s wing, for example) the same M-Ink can appear as different colors depending on the way light reflects off of its structural patterns. Magnetic nanoparticles in the ink can be manipulated to arrange themselves in different ways, instantly creating any color in the visual spectrum.”
Continue reading at PopSci.com
“MIT engineers have developed a cheap, compact robotic fish that can go where no man (or underwater vehicle) has been able to go before. The pint-sized robofish, developed by Kamal Youcuf-Toumi and Pablo Valdivia y Alvarado, could potentially be used to detect underwater environmental pollutants and inspect submerged boats and oil and gas pipes. Another plus is that they don’t smell.”
Continue reading at Inhabitat.com
Australian Scientists Develop World’s Most Efficient Solar Cell
“The race for the world’s most efficient solar power cell is forever played out in fractions of percentages. The latest victory comes from scientists at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who have concocted a multi-cell combination that converts 43% of sunlight into electricity, besting the previous record of 42.7%!”
Inhabitat
Spray-On Solar Cells Energize Almost Any Surface
“Bulky and expensive photovoltaic panels are so 2008. What does the future look like? Entire buildings, rooftops and even windows spray-painted with revolutionary nanoparticle inks that channel solar power into a thin, semi-transparent and relatively inexpensive medium.”
Via – Inhabitat
“In an effort to meet the challenge posed by the book How To Build A Dinosaur, Hans Larsson, the Canada Research Chair in Macroevolution at Montreal’s McGill University, has claimed he will attempt to reverse-engineer a dinosaur from a chicken by altering chicken genes known to have evolved since the Cretaceous.”
Continue reading at PopSci.com
“Developments in genetics are now making it possible to invite custom-engineered symbiotic creatures into our bodies to help perform the functions we can’t. In two separate developments, scientists have created a strain of bacteria that stimulates insulin production in the stomach of diabetic mice, and a different strain that produces a protein that treats the stomach disease colitis. This is the first time genetically engineered bacteria have been used directly as therapeutic agents.”
Continue reading at PopSci.com