With climate change and higher incidence of crop diseases, global cocoa production and supply is being threatened. A research team from the National University of Singapore (NUS), motivated by these reports, set out to enhance the taste of carob, making it a more appealing and sustainable alternative to cocoa.

The NUS team, led by Associate Professor Liu Shao Quan from the Department of Food Science and Technology at the NUS Faculty of Science, has developed two innovative techniques to enhance the taste of carob pulp.

“Our carob-based innovation meets the relatively untapped and nascent market of alternative chocolate sources. Additionally, our new techniques improve the taste of carob itself, without the use of additives such as flavourings. So, consumers can have the best of both worlds – better flavour and a simple ingredients list. With these innovations, we aim to make a meaningful contribution towards addressing the current challenges and needs of the chocolate industry,” said Assoc Prof Liu.

A KAIST research team has drawn attention by developing a new water-based air purification technology that combines “nano water droplets that capture dust” with a “nano sponge structure that autonomously draws up water,” enabling dust removal using nano water droplets without filters, self-supplied water operation, and long-term, quiet, and safe performance.

Recently, addressing the inherent timescale mismatch challenge between fast and slow responses in optoelectronic sensors, a collaborative team from Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics (SINANO), Chinese Academy of Sciences (Yukun ZHAO, Shulong LU, Min JIANG), Fudan University (Lifeng BIAN), and Suzhou University of Science and Technology (Jianya ZHANG) has proposed an innovative monolithic integration scheme. By combining surface defect introduction and local contact interface design with a gallium nitride (GaN) nanowire lift-off technique that eliminates the interference from the underlying silicon substrate, the team integrates fast and slow responses into a single device. This results in a transparent bifunctional device capable of self-driven detection and neural synaptic integration, with omnidirectional (360°) detection capability. As a photodetector, the device demonstrates the millisecond-level response speeds, while it exhibits the second- to minute-level relaxation time as an artificial synapse, achieving an over 1000-fold contrast in response dynamics. The device has been validated in the intelligent perception systems for humanoid robots successfully, advancing the development of multifunctional monolithic optoelectronic devices and providing a solid foundation for further research in related fields.

 

The work entitled "A dual-mode transparent device for 360° quasi-omnidirectional self-driven photodetection and efficient ultralow-power neuromorphic computing" was published in Light: Science & Applications.

Metallenes are atomically thin metals, whose unique properties make them extremely promising for nanoscale applications. However, their extreme thinness makes them also flimsy. Now, researchers at the Nanoscience Center of the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) have succeeded in identifying the principles that can maximize their stability. The solution may open up opportunities in materials design, nano-electronics, energy production, and biomedicine. 

Secures core technology for high-resolution wearable devices through semiconductor transfer technology... Speeds up the commercialization of next-generation health monitoring devices. - Research results published in the prestigious international journal Materials Today.