Year: 2015

Imagine garments that preserve most of our body heat – there will be no need of heating up our homes. In Northern India, this would be used in winters but in temperate countries in Europe or North America, it would mean huge savings on home heating costs. Researchers from Stanford University have come up with clothes that have a thin coating of silver nanowires, according to Phys.org. Such garments preserve almost 90 percent of the body’s heat radiation by not allowing it to escape through the pores of the cloth. In comparison, plain cotton garments allow 80 percent of body heat radiation to escape. The research was led by Professor Yi Cui and others at Stanford University. The findings have been published in a recent issue of Nano Letters. In order to keep ourselves warm in cold temperatures, home interiors need to be heated up. This involves heating up empty spaces and objects in homes. This amounts to 42 percent of global energy consumption every year. Any saving in this would be huge in terms of both economic as well as environmental costs. The researchers thought that instread of heating up the whole residential space and all objects inside it, why not just keep humans warm. They call this “personal thermal management”.

Nanowires to combat cell damage, ageing in humans Nanowires made of vanadia can reduce cell damage in the human body, researchers from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore have found. This breakthrough can help develop drugs that prevent ageing, cardiac disorders, and several neurological problems like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. Vanadium oxide or vanadia is a form of vanadium, an element found close to titanium on the periodic table. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are produced during normal cellular metabolism. When the level of ROS is elevated, normal redox state of cells is disturbed, leading to damage of cellular components, including proteins, lipids, and DNA.

Their research showed that clothing dipped in a solution of metallic nanowires, such as silver nano-wires (AgNWs) can provide effective insulation and also generate heat if connected to an external power source. But won’t these silver coated garments be expensive, uncomfortable to wear and difficult to wash? No say the scientists. The nanowire structure is breathable because space between the wires is 300 nanometers whereas water molecules are just 0.2 nm, according to Phys.org. On the other hand, human body radiation has a wavelength of 9000 nm so it won’t be able to pass through the material. Only about 0.1 gram of silver nanowires will be needed to cover 1 square meter of cloth. The silver content would be less than that. So it won’t be expensive and it could be treated like any garment. The best property of this silver garment is that if plugged into a power source of as little as 0.9 volts, it can be heated to 38 degrees Celsius, one degree more than normal body temperature.

WASHINGTON (TIP): DNA strands can act as a glue to hold together 3-D-printed materials that could someday be used to grow tissues and organs in the lab, a new study has found. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin said that although scientists have used nucleic acids such as DNA to assemble objects, most of these are nano-sized — so tiny that humans can’t see them with the naked eye. Making them into larger, visible objects is costprohibitive. Current methods also do not allow for much control or flexibility in the types of materials that are created, researchers said. Overcoming these challenges could potentially have a big payoff — the ability to make tissues to repair injuries or even to create organs for the thousands of patients in need of organ transplants. Researchers set out to create a larger, more affordable material held together with DNA. They developed DNA-coated nanoparticles made of either polystyrene or polyacrylamide. DNA binding adhered these inexpensive nanoparticles to each other, forming gel-like materials that they could extrude from a 3-D printer. The materials were easy to see and could be manipulated without a microscope. The DNA adhesive also allowed the researchers to control how these gels came together. The study showed that human cells could grow in the gels, which is the first step toward the ultimate goal of using the materials as scaffolds for growing tissues.

BHOPAL (TIP): After its successful Mangalyan mission, Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) is gearing up for four satellite launches this year. Among them, IRNSS-1D will be the first, which would put in place India’s own navigation system at par with Global Positioning System of the US. And Master control facility (MCF), Isro, Bhopal, will play a big role in round-the-clock tracking and management of the navigational satellites in coordination with MCF, Hassan, Karnataka. Director, public relations, Deviprasad Karnik, told TOI over phone, “The four IRNSS series satellites will be launched to complete the constellation of navigation satellite series.” “MCF, Bhopal is responsible for orbit rising of satellites, in-orbit payload testing, and on-orbit operations all through life of these satellites. MCF activities include round-theclock tracking, telemetry and commanding operations and special operations like eclipse management, station-keeping maneuvre and recovery actions in case of contingencies,” said Karnik. The master control facility interacts with user agencies for effective utilization of satellite payloads and to minimize the service disturbances during special operations. IRNSS-1D is the fourth in the series of seven satellites the national space agency is planning to launch to put in place the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System. While four satellites would be sufficient to start operations of the system, the remaining three would make it more accurate and efficient. “The GSAT-6 communication satellite will be launched using GSLV rocket and GSAT-15 will be launched from French Guiana, using Ariane rocket of Arianespace,” said Karnik adding in both the GSAT launches, MCF, Bhopal will track and monitor the operations. Earlier, in October 2014, when the third series of navigation satellite (IRNSS-1C) was positioned in a predetermined orbit, it was MCF, Bhopal, which got down to tracking the satellite.

TORONTO (TIP): A next-generation cheaper, lighter and more powerful rechargeable battery for electric vehicles is one step closer to reality.

The discovery of a material that maintains a rechargable sulphur cathode helps to overcome a primary hurdle to building a lithium-sulphur (Li-S) battery.

Such a battery can theoretically power an electric car three times further than current lithium-ion batteries for the same weight, at a much lower cost, researchers said.

“This is a major step forward and brings the lithium-sulphur battery one step closer to reality,” said chemistry professor Linda Nazar from the University of Waterloo.

In theory, sulphur can provide a competitive cathode material to lithium cobalt oxide in current lithium-ion cells. Sulphur as a battery material is extremely abundant, relatively light and very cheap. Unfortunately, the sulphur cathode exhausts itself after only a few cycles because the sulphur dissolves into the electrolyte solution as it is reduced by incoming electrons to form polysulphides. Nazar’s group originally thought that porous carbons or graphenes could stabilize the polysulphides by physically trapping them. But in an unexpected twist, they discovered metal oxides could be the key. The researchers found that nanosheets of manganese dioxide (MnO2) work even better than titanium oxides. “You have to focus on %the fundamental understanding of the phenomenon before you can develop new, advanced materials,” said Nazar.