The 4 coolest things on Earth this month
A brain implant that could help restore sight, a knife three times sharper than a steel table knife and GE boosts servicing of industry-leading HA gas turbines. This week’s coolest things are visions to behold.
A microelectric brain implant and glasses with an artificial retina helped restore some visual function in this patient, who is blind. Image credit: Asociación RUVID.
Scientists at Spain’s Miguel Hernández University (UMH) implanted electrodes in a blind woman’s brain that enabled her to see simple shapes and patterns.
The brain implant, which is only four millimeters wide, produced these results with lower electric current, which UMH professor and research leader Eduardo Fernández Jover says is safer for the patient. The study, published recently in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, also found that the current did not impact brain cortex function or nearby neurons.
Researchers created a pair of glasses equipped with an artificial retina. The glasses registered the patient’s visual field and converted the information to electrical signals, then sent them to the 100 microelectrodes in the implant that stimulated the patient’s cerebral cortex. By bypassing the eyes entirely, Jover said, “the implanted person was able to recognize several complex stimulation patterns and accurately perceive shapes and letters.”
Engineers used chemicals, heat, pressure and oil to make natural wood 23 times harder, then turned it into sharp knives and tough nails. Image credit: Bo Chen et al.
Engineers at the University of Maryland (UMD) used super-hardened wood to create a knife three times sharper than a steel table knife.
Sharp knives are usually made from high-quality stainless steel or ceramic. Using a renewable resource like wood with a more sustainable manufacturing process could help support a lower-carbon future.
Researchers took a two-step approach to hardening the wood. First, they boiled the wood in a chemical solution at 100 degrees Celsius. This reduced the amount of lignin, a weak binding material, while retaining its strongest component. “Cellulose, the main component of wood, has a higher ratio of strength to density than most engineered materials, like ceramics, metals, and polymers, but our existing usage of wood barely touches its full potential,” said Teng Li, a mechanical engineering professor at UMD and senior author of a study on the method, published in the journal Matter. In the second step, Li’s team applied heat and pressure, which removed water and made the wood denser. The engineered material was 23 times harder than natural wood and had far fewer defects.
GE boosts servicing of industry-leading HA gas turbines
The new AMRT Centre has significantly increased GE’s research and development capabilities
GE announced the completion and delivery of the first repaired HA component from the recently opened Advanced Manufacturing & Repair Technology Center (AMRT) in Singapore. The center is co-located in Global Repair Solutions Singapore Center (GRSS), which was established in 2019, with the support of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), to develop next-generation repair capabilities for GE HA gas turbines.
The first delivery of parts out of the center is a significant milestone following GE’s 2019 announcement to invest up to $60 million over 10 years to make GRSS a world leader in power generation technology development, implementation and repairs. This commitment is designed to strengthen repair capabilities globally—with a specific focus in Asia—where GE has over 90% in-region self-sufficiency for repair of heavy-duty gas turbines and a growing installed base.
This investment allowed the shop to grow from 250 to 350 employees in two years, adding positions for both HA and Aeroderivative Repair Business, with the goal to add further jobs to handle more complex repairs on HA turbines—including repair on high-tech components, such as HA nozzles and blades. Four new lean lines to repair the HA Hot Gas Path (HGP) components were also added to support the global 9HA component repairs demand. By the fall of 2022, GRSS will also be qualified to support the 7HA HGP components repair within the Asia region.
An artist’s representation of chalcogenide perovskite growing into a thin film for new semiconductors. Top image: An artist’s representation of chalcogenide perovskite growing into a thin film for new semiconductors. Images credit: Felice Frankel.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers are a step closer to developing a new type of material for semiconductors used for high-tech electronics.
French chemists developed similar materials, called chalcogenide perovskites, in the 1950s, and their potential in semiconductors was realized a decade ago. Unfortunately, “the chemicals needed to make chalcogenides are nasty. They stink, and they can gum up equipment,” said lead researcher and MIT professor Rafael Jaramillo. Researchers say their version of the ultrathin film is stable, nontoxic and cheap to produce, and could someday be useful in computing, solar cells and efficient lighting.
Jaramillo and his team created the materials from barium, zirconium and sulfur. They built a nano-scale framework of atoms, then used a method called molecular beam epitaxy, or MBE, to arrange molecules of the compounds in specific crystalline structures that “grew” off the framework into a high-quality film. “You can make variations by changing the composition. So it is indeed a family of materials, not just a one-off,” Jaramillo said. “The history of semiconductor research shows that new families of semiconductors are generally enabling in ways that are not predictable.” Translation: The possibilities are endless.