molecules – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Dutch scientists’ artificial leaf can create medicine anywhere

Wouldn’t it be great to have the ability to concoct medicine anywhere the sun shines, even if it’s on another planet? A team of Dutch scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology have developed an artificial leaf-like device that could make that happen. The researchers, inspired by plants that can make their own food through photosynthesis , used materials that can match leaves’ capability to capture and store sunlight for later use. These materials are called luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs), which have special light-sensitive molecules that can capture huge amounts of incoming light. The team designed a device that looks like a leaf by incorporating thin, microchannels mimicking veins in a silicon rubber LSC. By pumping liquids into those channels, their molecules can get into contact with the sunlight absorbed by the LSC. The energy is intense enough to trigger chemical reactions. According to the researchers, the device’s chemical production was 40 percent higher than the rate demonstrated by similar experiments without LSC. “Using a reactor like this means you can make drugs anywhere, in principle, whether malaria drugs in the jungle or paracetamol on Mars, ” lead researcher Dr. Timothy Noël explained. “All you need is sunlight and this mini-factory.” Source: Eindhoven University of Technology

Scientists make a transistor from a single molecule

You’re looking at what could be not just one of the smallest semiconductor parts ever, but one of the smallest semiconductor parts possible . A worldwide research team has built a transistor that consists of a single copper phthalocyanine molecule, a dozen indium atoms and an indium arsenide backing material. The trick was to abandon the usual mechanics of a transistor, which normally controls current by modulating the gate voltage, in favor of a field effect. Here, you only need to vary the distance of the gate (in this case, the atoms) to modulate electricity. Don’t start preparing for a world full of tiny-but-complex gadgets just yet. The scientists created their transistor in a near-total vacuum, at a temperature barely above absolute zero. That’s a far cry from real-world conditions, and it’ll take much more research before transistors this small are in devices you can actually buy. Nonetheless, the breakthrough is promising — it shows that there’s still a long, long way to go before we hit the physical limits of electronics . [Image credit: US Naval Research Laboratory] Filed under: Science Comments Via: IEEE Spectrum Source: NRL , Nature

See more here:
Scientists make a transistor from a single molecule

Scientists watch how the brain makes memories for the first time ever

For the first time in history, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have captured how our brain makes memories in video, watching how molecules morph into the structures that, at the end of the day, make who we are. It’s there’s a soul, this how it gets made. Read more…

View original post here:
Scientists watch how the brain makes memories for the first time ever