ScienceDaily: Engineering and Construction News

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• World's smallest propeller could be used for microscopic medicine
• A new way to make microstructured surfaces: Method can produce strong, lightweight materials with specific surface properties
• Tough foam from tiny sheets: Lab uses atom-thick materials to make ultralight foam
• Beyond invisibility cloaks? Flexible metamaterial absorbers developed
• Printing the metals of the future
• Models for polymer macromolecules using magnets and DNA 'springs'
• Superconductivity could form at high temperatures in layered 2-D crystals
• Simulating the invisible: How palladium nanoparticles interact
• New technology detects probiotic organisms in food

World's smallest propeller could be used for microscopic medicine Posted: 29 Jul 2014 01:47 PM PDT Scientists have created robots that are only nanometers in length, small enough to maneuver inside the human body and possibly inside human cells.

A new way to make microstructured surfaces: Method can produce strong, lightweight materials with specific surface properties Posted: 29 Jul 2014 09:38 AM PDT A team of researchers has created a new way of manufacturing microstructured surfaces that have novel three-dimensional textures. These surfaces, made by self-assembly of carbon nanotubes, could exhibit a variety of useful properties -- including controllable mechanical stiffness and strength, or the ability to repel water in a certain direction.

Tough foam from tiny sheets: Lab uses atom-thick materials to make ultralight foam Posted: 29 Jul 2014 09:38 AM PDT Tough, ultralight foam of atom-thick sheets can be made to any size and shape through a new chemical process. In microscopic images, the foam dubbed "GO-0.5BN" looks like a nanoscale building, with floors and walls that reinforce each other. The structure consists of a pair of two-dimensional materials: floors and walls of graphene oxide that self-assemble with the assistance of hexagonal boron nitride platelets.

Beyond invisibility cloaks? Flexible metamaterial absorbers developed Posted: 29 Jul 2014 08:53 AM PDT Scientists have created flexible metamaterial absorbers designed to suppress electromagnetic radiation from mobile electronics. Electromagnetic metamaterials boast special properties not found in nature and are rapidly emerging as a hot research topic for reasons extending far beyond "invisibility cloaks."

Printing the metals of the future Posted: 28 Jul 2014 04:20 PM PDT 3-D printers can create all kinds of things, from eyeglasses to implantable medical devices, straight from a computer model and without the need for molds. But for making spacecraft, engineers sometimes need custom parts that traditional manufacturing techniques and standard 3-D printers can't create, because they need to have the properties of multiple metals. Now, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are implementing a printing process that transitions from one metal or alloy to another in a single object.

Models for polymer macromolecules using magnets and DNA 'springs' Posted: 28 Jul 2014 08:33 AM PDT Scientists are making models for polymer macromolecules using magnets and DNA 'springs' that can be tuned for flexibility.

Superconductivity could form at high temperatures in layered 2-D crystals Posted: 28 Jul 2014 05:05 AM PDT An elusive state of matter called superconductivity could be realized in stacks of sheetlike crystals just a few atoms thick, new analysis determined. Electrons and 'holes' would accumulate in separate layers of a 2D semiconductor compound in response to an electrical field forming a superfluid gas of indirect excitons. Counterflow superconductivity would result.

Simulating the invisible: How palladium nanoparticles interact Posted: 28 Jul 2014 05:04 AM PDT Panagiotis Grammatikopoulos in the OIST Nanoparticles by Design Unit simulates the interactions of particles that are too small to see, and too complicated to visualize. In order to study the particles' behavior, he uses a technique called molecular dynamics. This means that every trillionth of a second, he calculates the location of each individual atom in the particle based on where it is and which forces apply. He uses a computer program to make the calculations, and then animates the motion of the atoms using visualization software. The resulting animation illuminates what happens, atom-by-atom, when two nanoparticles collide.

New technology detects probiotic organisms in food Posted: 23 Jul 2014 08:04 AM PDT In the food industry, it is very important to ensure the quality and safety of products to improve their properties and reduce foodborne illness. Toward this end, a team of researchers developed a sensing microbiosensor that detects beneficial bacteria. This micromechanical device is inexpensive, fast, selective and reliable, and has been used to evaluate the growth of L. plantarum 299vm,  a probiotic microorganism useful in the development of fermented dairy products.

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