An Amphiphilic Pillar[5]arene: Synthesis, Controllable Self-Assembly in Water, and Application in Calcein Release and TNT Adsorption

Yong Yao , Min Xue , Jianzhuang Chen , Mingming Zhang , and Feihe Huang *

MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P. R. China

J. Am. Chem. Soc., Article ASAP

DOI: 10.1021/ja3076617

Publication Date (Web): September 11, 2012

Copyright © 2012 American Chemical Society

Dry Micromanipulation of Supramolecular Giant Vesicles on a Silicon Substrate: Highly Stable Hydrogen-Bond-Directed Nanosheet Membrane

Hirotoshi Sakaino, Jun Sawayama, Shin-ichiro Kabashima, Isao Yoshikawa, and Koji Araki

Publication Date (Web): September 14, 2012 (Communication)

DOI: 10.1021/ja307231u

Aptamer-Based Origami Paper Analytical Device for Electrochemical Detection of Adenosine†

1. Hong Liu¹, 
2. Dr. Yu Xiang², 
3. Prof. Yi Lu²,
4. Prof. Richard M. Crooks^1,*

Article first published online: 25 MAY 2012

DOI: 10.1002/anie.201202929

Copyright © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Paper biosensors: An origami sensor is printed on a single piece of paper, folded into a three-dimensional fluidic device, and encapsulated by thermal lamination. Aptamer is trapped in the fluidic channel, where it binds to the target and releases an enzyme to generate a signal. The device is read out using a digital multimeter.

Robotic Tentacles with Three-Dimensional Mobility Based on Flexible Elastomers

1. Ramses V. Martinez¹, 
2. Jamie L. Branch¹,
3. Carina R. Fish¹, 
4. Lihua Jin⁴, 
5. Robert F. Shepherd¹, 
6. Rui M. D. Nunes¹, 
7. Zhigang Suo^2,4, 
8. George M. Whitesides^1,2,3,*

Article first published online: 7 SEP 2012

DOI: 10.1002/adma.201203002

Keywords:

• soft robotics;
• tentacles;
• pneumatic actuators;
• three-dimensional motion;
• composite materials

The remarkable flexibility and dexterity of the tongues of mammals and lizards, the trunks of elephants, and other biological muscular systems1 inspire new designs for actuators and robots.2 The octopus arm, for example, is a nonrigid structure that has a very large number of degrees of freedom (DOFs), the ability to bend in all directions, high dexterity, and astonishing capability for fine manipulation.3 In robotics, researchers have developed a variety of trunk-like manipulators using rigid structures and electric motors with cable tendons for actuation.4, 5 These hard robotic structures – structures based on multiple flexible joints connected by stiff links – are often heavy, and their control is complicated and expensive. Moreover, their underlying structures make it difficult to manipulate objects with parts of their arms other than their specialized end effectors.

Amphiphilic Egg-Derived Carbon Dots: Rapid Plasma Fabrication, Pyrolysis Process, and Multicolor Printing Patterns

Volume 51, Issue 37,pages 9297–9301,September 10, 2012

1. Jing Wang, 
2. Dr. Cai-Feng Wang, 
3. Prof. Su Chen^*

Article first published online: 21 AUG 2012

DOI: 10.1002/anie.201204381

How do you like your eggs? Amphiphilic carbon dots (CDs) with intense blue fluorescence have been produced from chicken eggs by treatment with plasma. They are used as effective “fluorescent carbon inks” for multicolor luminescent inkjet and silk-screen printing (see image).

Recovering three-dimensional shape around a corner using ultrafast time-of-flight imaging

Can you take a picture of someone sitting behind a wall? Well scientists at MIT can, they have developed a new camera that collects scattered light from a body that is hiding behind the wall. This camera is not an ordinary DSLR camera but its resolution is 2 picoseconds i.e. it can sense scattered light with sub-nano seconds sensitivity.

Abstract:
The recovery of objects obscured by scattering is an important goal in imaging and has been approached by exploiting, for example, coherence properties, ballistic photons or penetrating wavelengths. Common methods use scattered light transmitted through an occluding material, although these fail if the occluder is opaque. Light is scattered not only by transmission through objects, but also by multiple reflection from diffuse surfaces in a scene. This reflected light contains information about the scene that becomes mixed by the diffuse reflections before reaching the image sensor. This mixing is difficult to decode using traditional cameras. Here we report the combination of a time-of-flight technique and computational reconstruction algorithms to untangle image information mixed by diffuse reflection. We demonstrate a three-dimensional range camera able to look around a corner using diffusely reflected light that achieves sub-millimetre depth precision and centimetre lateral precision over 40 cm×40 cm×40 cm of hidden space.


Andreas Velten, Thomas Willwacher, Otkrist Gupta, Ashok Veeraraghavan, Moungi G. Bawendi & Ramesh Raskar

 Nature Communications 3, Article number: 745 doi:10.1038/ncomms1747 Received 12 September 2011 Accepted 13 February 2012 Published 20 March 2012