(Funded by the National Institutes of Health)
Researchers from Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed ultrasmall, stable gas-filled protein nanostructures that could revolutionize ultrasound imaging and drug delivery. These diamond-shaped, 50-nanometer gas vesicles are believed to be the smallest stable, free-floating structures for medical imaging ever created. They can penetrate tissue and reach immune cells in lymph nodes. This discovery opens up new possibilities for imaging and delivering therapies to previously inaccessible cells. “The research has notable implications for treating cancers and infectious diseases, as lymph-node-resident cells are critical targets for immunotherapies,” said George Lu, one of the researchers involved in this study.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Energy)
To function, quantum computers need to be kept very cold – just a few degrees above absolute zero. Now, researchers at Northeastern University, the University of California, Berkeley, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have shown that one day, it might be possible to run quantum computers at room temperature. The researchers identified novel van der Waals heterostructures (created by combining layers of atomically thin materials, including graphene) that allow control of the coherent movements of atoms out of their equilibrium positions – also called acoustic phonons – at terahertz frequencies. With current quantum computer transistors, the control of acoustic phonons is limited to the gigahertz range. So, increasing the range of these transistors into terahertz frequencies – an increase by a factor of a thousand – opens the possibility of running quantum computers at room temperature.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health)
Researchers from The University of Texas at El Paso and the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station have shown that nanoplastics and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – commonly known as forever chemicals – can alter proteins found in human breast milk and infant formulas. While nanoplastics originate primarily from the degradation of larger plastic materials, like water bottles and food packaging, forever chemicals are found in various products, such as cookware and clothing.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation)
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory; Stanford University; Harvard University; Columbia University; Florida State University; and the University of California, Los Angeles, have discovered new behavior in an 50-nanometer-thick two-dimensional material, which offers a promising approach to manipulating light that will be useful for devices that detect, control or emit light, collectively known as optoelectronic devices. Optoelectronic devices are used in light-emitting diodes (LEDs), optical fibers, and medical imaging. The researchers found that when oriented in a specific direction and subjected to linearly polarized terahertz radiation, an ultrathin film of tungsten ditelluride circularly polarizes the incoming light.

(Funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy)
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and the University of Delaware have provided new insights into the variations that can occur in the atomic structure of two-dimensional materials called transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). The researchers found that one of the defects, which involves hydrogen, provides excess electrons. The other type of defect, called a chalcogen vacancy, is a missing atom of oxygen, sulfur, selenium, or tellurium. By shining light on the TMD, the researchers showed unexpected frequencies of light coming from the TMD, which could be explained by the movement of electrons related to the chalcogen vacancy.