Smart polymers transform electrical energy into mechanical work

CTsystems, a spin-off of Empa, and Daetwyler, the Swiss specialist for sealing solutions, partner up to market and industrialize polymer transducer technology. CTsystems has already presented the first prototype of electromechanical ...

Light-controlled gearbox for nanomachines

Rewarded with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016, nanomachines provide mechanical work on the smallest of scales. Yet at such small dimensions, molecular motors can complete this work in only one direction. Researchers from ...

Kinect research captures game play exertions

A Kinect sensor has proved to be an unlikely tool to help estimate the amount of energy that people expend while they are playing video games that utilise the sensor technology.

Snap to attention: Polymers that react and move to light

Microvehicles and other devices that can change shape or move with no power source other than a beam of light may be possible through research led by the University of Pittsburgh. The researchers are investigating polymers ...

Molecular motors: Power much less than expected?

An innovative measurement method was used at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw for estimating power generated by motors of single molecule in size, comprising a few dozens of ...

How cells get a skeleton

The mechanism responsible for generating part of the skeletal support for the membrane in animal cells is not yet clearly understood. Now, Jean-François Joanny from the Physico Chemistry Curie Unit at the Curie Institute ...

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