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Categories: Engineering: Nanotechnology, Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology

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Scientists have used light-activated molecular machines to induce cell-to-cell calcium signaling, revealing a powerful new strategy for drug design. This technology could lead to improved treatments for people with heart problems, digestive issues and more.

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With the goal of advancing biomimetic microscale materials, the research team has developed a new method to create microscale superstructures, called MicroSpine, that possess both soft and hard materials which mimic the spine structure and can act as microactuators with shape-transforming properties. This breakthrough was achieved through colloidal assembly, a simple process in which nano- and microparticles spontaneously organize into ordered spatial patterns.

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Researchers are using a new model to clarify why millions of years ago more animal species from Asia made the leap to the Australian continent than vice versa. The climate in which the species evolved played an important role.

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A new platform enables researchers to 'grow' halide perovskite nanocrystals with precise control over the location and size of each individual crystal, integrating them into nanoscale light-emitting diodes.

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Researchers have discovered some of the largest early prehistoric stone tools in Britain.

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Birds are the only group of dinosaurs that survived the asteroid-induced mass extinction 66 million years ago. But not all the birds alive at the time made it. Why the ancestors of modern birds lived while so many of their relatives died has been a mystery that paleontologists have been trying to solve for decades. Two new studies point to one possible factor: the differences between how modern birds and their ancient cousins molt their feathers.

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Biomechanical studies on the arachnid-like front 'legs' of an extinct apex predator show that the 2-foot (60-centimeter) marine animal Anomalocaris canadensis was likely much weaker than once assumed. One of the largest animals to live during the Cambrian, it was probably agile and fast, darting after soft prey in the open water rather than pursuing hard-shelled creatures on the ocean floor.

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A research group has used nanosheet technology to develop a dielectric capacitor for advanced electronic and electrical power systems. Innovations in energy storage technology are vital for the effective use of renewable energy and the mass production of electric vehicles. The capacitor has the highest energy storage density recorded. It has a short charging time, high output, long life, and high temperature stability, making it a major advancement in technology.

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Chemists have measured the energy transfer between photosynthetic light-harvesting proteins. They discovered that the disorganized arrangement of light-harvesting proteins boosts the efficiency of the energy transduction.

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Researchers have demonstrated a new material for single-molecule electronic switches, which can effectively vary current at the nanoscale in response to external stimuli. The material for this molecular switch has a unique structure created by locking a linear molecular backbone into a ladder-type structure. A new study finds that the ladder-type molecular structure greatly enhances the stability of the material, making it highly promising for use in single-molecule electronics applications.

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In trying to produce artificial chirality in the lab, chemists have found that the distribution of a magnetic field is itself chiral.

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Researchers have used materials inspired by molecular gastronomy to create smart wearables that surpassed similar devices in terms of strain sensitivity. They integrated graphene into seaweed to create nanocomposite microcapsules for highly tunable and sustainable epidermal electronics. When assembled into networks, the tiny capsules can record muscular, breathing, pulse, and blood pressure measurements in real-time with ultrahigh precision.

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With a flick of a switch, current technologies allow you to quickly change materials from being dark to light, or cold to hot, just by blocking or transmitting specific wavelengths. But now, inspired by squid skin, researchers report a soft film that can regulate its transparency across a large range of wavelengths -- visible, infrared and microwave -- simultaneously. They demonstrated the material in smart windows and in health monitoring and temperature management applications.

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Urea reacts extremely quickly under the conditions that existed when our planet was newly formed. This new insight furthers our understanding of how life on Earth might have begun.

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Scientists have filled a major gap in the state's fossil record -- describing the first known Jurassic vertebrate fossils in Texas. The weathered bone fragments are from the limbs and backbone of a plesiosaur, an extinct marine reptile.

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How the megalodon, a shark that went extinct 3.6 million years ago, stayed warm was a matter of speculation among scientists. Using an analysis of tooth fossils from the megalodon and other sharks of the same period, a study suggests the animal was able to maintain a body temperature well above the temperature of the water in which it lived. The finding could help explain why the megalodon went extinct during the Pliocene Epoch.

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Researchers have developed a metasurface that enables strong coupling effects between light and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs).

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According to a new study, eukaryotes -- complex life forms with nuclei in their cells, including all the world's plants, animals, insects and fungi -- trace their roots to a common Asgard archaean ancestor. That means eukaryotes are, in the parlance of evolutionary biologists, a 'well-nested clade' within Asgard archaea, similar to how birds are one of several groups within a larger group called dinosaurs, sharing a common ancestor.

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A team of scientists has observed past episodic intraplate magmatism and corroborated the existence of a partial melt channel at the base of the Cocos Plate. Situated 60 kilometers beneath the Pacific Ocean floor, the magma channel covers more than 100,000 square kilometers, and originated from the Galápagos Plume more than 20 million years ago, supplying melt for multiple magmatic events -- and persisting today.

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The face of a 16-year-old woman buried near Cambridge (UK) in the 7th century with an incredibly rare gold and garnet cross (the 'Trumpington Cross') has been reconstructed following analysis of her skull. The striking image is going on public display for the first time on 21st June, with new scientific evidence showing that she moved to England from Central Europe as a young girl, leading to an intriguing change in her diet.