By reflecting nearly all the light they can’t turn into electricity, they help pave the way for storing renewable energy as heat.
Mirror-like photovoltaics get more electricity out of heat
Powering robots: biomorphic batteries could provide 72 times more energy than stand-alone cells
The researchers compare them to fat deposits in living creatures.
Study suggests method to starve pancreatic cancer cells
Rather than attacking cancer cells directly, new cell-model research probes weaknesses in pancreatic cancer’s interactions with other cells to obtain nutrients needed for tumor growth.
How rod-shaped particles might distract an out-of-control immune response
When white blood cells don’t know when to stop, an injection of rod-shaped particles may draw them away from a site of excessive inflammation.
Engineering immunity: Profiling COVID-19 immune responses and developing a vaccine
As COVID-19 looks more like a disease of the immune system, a Michigan engineer is working with doctors to look at how immune responses differ between mild and severe cases.
U-M-approved face shield design guides makers addressing the PPE shortage through 3D printing
As Ann Arbor’s maker community sprang into action making face shields, Michigan Medicine and the U-M College of Engineering offered a recommended design that is effective and straightforward to produce.
World’s most complex synthetic microparticle outdoes nature’s intricacy
Creating and measuring intricacy in particles that could improve electronics and chemical reactions.
Containment efforts appear to step down the spread of COVID-19 from the exponential norm
Deaths in China reflect a slower expansion of the new coronavirus, suggesting a fractal network.
U-M spinoff offers free coronavirus test kits to researchers
The kits help researchers understand where the virus came from and how it operates.
Cancer: Faster screening to hit “undruggable” targets
Coiled proteins could stop cancer and other diseases from overriding signals within cells.
Nanoparticle-based, bio-inspired catalyst could help make more efficient reactions affordable
Chemical processes usually give us both mirror image versions of a molecule when we want only one.
Patient cancer cells reliably grow on new 3D scaffold, showing promise for precision medicine
While previous structures guessed at the environment that cells would want, the new design lets the cells build to their own specifications.
Kirigami can spin terahertz rays in real time to peer into biological tissue
The rays used by airport scanners might have a future in medical imaging.
Biopsy alternative: “Wearable” device captures cancer cells from blood
New device caught more than three times as many cancer cells as conventional blood draw samples.
Toward protein nanomachines: just add charge
Added electrical charges can harness a protein’s shape and chemical properties to build interesting structures.
Sustainable biofuel: Design principles for bioengineered microbe catalysts
The US has been stuck on corn kernels for producing ethanol, rather than woody “cellulosic” material. Efficient microbes for converting cellulose to biofuel could change the game.
3D printing 100 times faster with light
The new method also results in a stronger print than typical layered models.
Cartilage could be key to safe ‘structural batteries’
The new prototype cells can run for more than 100 cycles at 90 percent capacity and withstand hard impacts and even stabbing.
$1.6M for solar cell windows and high-temperature solar power
New sustainability research garners support from Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.
Nanofiber carpet could mimic gecko feet, polar bear fur
A new technique that mimics biological nanofiber arrays can grow chain-like molecules into 3D nanostructures.
