Spray-on Skin Is a Reality

We’ve heard about the spray-on skin gun back in 2008 but we didn’t think it’d become this real, this useful, this fast. Though it is still technically in an experimental stage, the skin gun has already successfully treated over a dozen burn victims. The way it works is by using stem cells from the patient’s healthy skin and mixing it with a solution to come up with the spray paint. And combined with that fancy gun, the rest is easy. Doctors say skin cell spraying is like paint spraying — via w–hawkins.newsvine.com

New transistors: An alternative to silicon and better than graphene

Smaller and more energy-efficient electronic chips could be made using molybdenite. In an article appearing online 30 January in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, EPFL’s Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structures (LANES) publishes a study showing that this material has distinct advantages over traditional silicon or graphene for use in electronics applications — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Bat uses carnivorous plant as a toilet

A bat and a carnivorous plant in Borneo enjoy an unusual mutually beneficial relationship, according to a new paper.

The discovery, outlined in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, represents only the second known case of a mutualistic association between a carnivorous plant and a mammal. The other case was reported in 2009, when scientists saw three tree shrews pooping into the pitchers of another carnivorous plant — via ABC Science

Graduates’ textiles combine wool and precious metals

Two Australian PhD graduates from Victoria University have combined wool with gold and silver nanoparticles to create a new range of textiles.

Dr Fern Kelly and Dr Kerstin Burridge completed parallel research projects that pioneered a way of embedding tiny nanoparticles of gold and silver in New Zealand wool, resulting in colourful textiles that have functional and aesthetic benefits. Kelly worked with silver and Burridge with gold — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A brave new world of fossil fuels on demand

In September, a privately held and highly secretive US biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for a proprietary organism – a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that produces liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (US) a barrel of crude oil. It will deliver, the company says, fossil fuels on demand — via redwolf.newsvine.com

New super-tough glass strengthens gadget screens

One of Japan’s largest glass manufacturers debuted on Thursday a new glass designed for smartphones and tablet PCs that is considerably tougher than conventional glass.

Asahi Glass said its Dragontrail glass is about six times as tough as typical chemically-treated soda lime glass and should be better suited to the rough-and-tumble life to which portable gadgets are subjected — via redwolf.newsvine.com