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Gizmorama - May 11, 2015
Good Morning,
Dry your eyes! Apparently, scientists are turning onion cells into artificial muscles. That's a fantastic development! Get it!?
Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
Erin
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* Scientists turn onion cells into artificial muscles *
TAIPEI, Taiwan (UPI) - En route to designing a new and improved synthetic muscle, researchers at National Taiwan University realized the cells of an onion might work just as well.
The goal was to build a more versatile artificial muscle -- one that can both expand and contract, allowing it to bend in different directions in reaction to the orientation of the electric current being applied. The structure of an onion cell turned out to be an ideal vehicle toward these ends.
"The initial goal was to develop an engineered microstructure in artificial muscles for increasing the actuation deformation [the amount the muscle can bend or stretch when triggered]," lead researcher Wen-Pin Shih said in a press release. "One day, we found that the onion's cell structure and its dimensions were similar to what we had been making."
So the scientists changed course, and constructed an artificial muscle using an onion. But it's not as simple as it sounds.
First, the researchers treated the cells with acid to neutralize hemicellulose, a fibrous protein that enhances the rigidity of cell walls. Next, researchers coated onion layers with gold, allowing the onion cells to conduct electricity. Bursts of voltage caused the gold-coated onion cells to bend and stretch like a muscle in action.
"We intentionally made the top and bottom electrodes a different thickness so that the cell stiffness becomes asymmetric from top to bottom," explained Shih.
The asymmetric coating cause the faux muscle to respond to different voltage levels -- a small shock caused the onion cells to flex downward, while a more intense shock caused the muscle to flex upward.
Shih and his colleagues tested their onion muscles by installing them onto a pair of tweezers. Using a choreographed series of electric shocks, researchers were able to manipulate the tweezers and pick up a cotton ball.
Researchers plan on conducting further experiments in order to scale up their technology -- increasing lifting power while reducing the amount of voltage needed to flex the artificial muscle.
The study was published in the latest issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters.
*-- NASA tests 10-engine electric airplane --*
HAMPTON, Va. (UPI) - Researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center, in Hampton, Va. have developed a ten-engine, battery-powered plane that takes off and lands like a helicopter but, once airborne, maneuvers like an airplane.
Last week, engineers successfully tested the remote-controlled plane at a military base a couple hours from the research center. This week, the technology is being showcased at the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International 2015 conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
The prototype, called the Greased Lightning or GL-10, remains in the design and testing phase, but after a series of test flights the consensus is: so far, so good.
"During the flight tests we successfully transitioned from hover to wing-borne flight like a conventional airplane then back to hover again. So far we have done this on five flights," Bill Fredericks, an aerospace engineer at Langley, said in a press release. "We were ecstatic. Now we're working on our second goal -- to demonstrate that this concept is four times more aerodynamically efficient in cruise than a helicopter."
Orginally, the idea was to build a hybrid plane, with a combination of diesel and electric engines. But a process of rapid prototyping -- in which several smaller versions were lost to hard landings -- resulted in the current all-electric plane.
The plane, as it stands, could serve a number or purposes, or it could serve as a model for a larger prototype.
"It could be used for small package delivery or vertical take off and landing, long endurance surveillance for agriculture, mapping and other applications," Fredericks said. "A scaled up version -- much larger than what we are testing now -- would make also a great one to four person size personal air vehicle."
More research is needed to confirm the GL-10's aerodynamic efficiency. But the latest test flights prove that at the very least that their model is sky-worthy.
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