Materials chemists have been trying for years to make a new type of battery that can store solar or other light-sourced energy in chemical bonds rather than electrons, one that will release the energy on demand as heat instead of electricity — addressing the need for long-term, stable, efficient storage of solar power. Now a […]
Off-The-Shelf, Power-Generating Clothes Are Almost Here
A lightweight, comfortable jacket that can generate the power to light up a jogger at night may sound futuristic, but materials scientist Trisha Andrew at the University of Massachusetts Amherst could make one today. In a new paper this month, she and colleagues outline how they have invented a way to apply breathable, pliable, metal-free […]
Microbiologists Make Big Leap in Developing ‘Green’ Electronics
Microbiologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst report that they have discovered a new type of natural wire produced by bacteria that could greatly accelerate the researchers’ goal of developing sustainable “green” conducting materials for the electronics industry. The study by Derek Lovley and colleagues appears this week in mBio, the American Society of Microbiology’s premier […]
Advancing Self-Driving Car Design
University of Massachusetts Amherst computer science graduate students Kyle Wray and Luis Pineda, with their professor Shlomo Zilberstein, today described a new approach to managing the challenge of transferring control between a human and an autonomous system, in a paper they presented at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in New York City. Their […]
Electric Charge Propagates in Microbial Nanowires
The claim by microbiologist Derek Lovley and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst that the microbe Geobacter produces tiny electrical wires, called microbial nanowires, has been mired in controversy for a decade, but the researchers say a new collaborative study provides stronger evidence than ever to support their claims. UMass Amherst physicists working with […]
Blades of Grass Inspire Advance in Organic Solar Cells
Using a bio-mimicking analog of one of nature’s most efficient light-harvesting structures, blades of grass, an international research team led by Alejandro Briseno of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has taken a major step in developing long-sought polymer architecture to boost power-conversion efficiency of light to electricity for use in electronic devices. Briseno, with colleagues […]