• Bionic mushrooms that can produce electricity
    Researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, USA, have produced electricity from mushrooms in a process involving bacteria and swirls of graphene nanoribbons. The ‘bionic’ mushrooms are actually......
    lchaoxu 写于2018.11.21
    1655 1655 0
  • Templated nanofiber synthesis via chemical vapor polymerization into liquid crystalline films
    Inspired by the extraordinary characteristics of polar bear fur, lotus leaves and gecko feet, engineering researchers have developed a new way to make arrays of nanofibers that can form coatings that are sticky, re......
    lchaoxu 写于2018.11.23
    1649 1649 0
  • Hydrogel to generate voltage
    Progress towards the integration of technology into living organisms requires electrical power sources that are biocompatible, mechanically flexible, and able to harness the chemical energy available inside biological systems. Conventional batt......
    lchaoxu 写于2018.11.23
    1953 1953 0
  • Stimuli-responsive hydroxyapatite liquid crystal with macroscopically controllable ordering and magneto-optical functions
    Liquid crystals are mostly formed by self-assembly of organic molecules. In contrast, inorganic materials available as liquid crystals are limited. Here we report the development of liquid-crystalline (LC) hydroxya......
    lchaoxu 写于2018.11.30
    2075 2075 0
  • Combining pneumatics with a hydrogel to create a baromorph—for soft robotics
    In the never-ending quest to create robots that are ever more capable, roboticists have often been inspired by creatures that nature has designed. Attempting to mimic humans is a popular research area, as is copying ......
    lchaoxu 写于2018.12.03
    2258 2258 0
  • Cholesteric liquid crystals in living matter
    Liquid crystals play an important role in biology because the combination of order and mobility is a basic requirement for self-organisation and structure formation in living systems. Cholesteric liquid crystals a......
    lchaoxu 写于2018.12.05
    1910 1910 0
  • How particles arrange themselves into complex structures
    Complexity in nature, whether in chlorophyll or in living organisms, often results from self-assembly and is considered particularly robust. Compact clusters of elemental particles can be shown to be of practic......
    lchaoxu 写于2018.12.21
    1695 1695 0
  • 'Ant bridge'-inspired nanoparticle assembly fixes broken electrical circuits
    Colonies of social insects are capable of self-organizing and accomplishing complex tasks through individual interactions. For example, to march across large gaps, ants grip the bodies of each other, forming a living br......
    lchaoxu 写于2019.05.30
    2784 2784 0
  • Learning the signatures of the human grasp using a scalable tactile glove
    Humans can feel, weigh and grasp diverse objects, and simultaneously infer their material properties while applying the right amount of force—a challenging set of tasks for a modern robot1. Mechanoreceptor networks that p......
    lchaoxu 写于2019.05.30
    1892 1892 0