A new breakthrough in biotechnology could have the potential to eradicate the Ebola virus infection. Through the construction of a supermolecule made up of 13 fullerenes, a new door has been opened in the world of antiviral agents.

A team from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid/IMDEA-Nanociencia (UCM) has designed a giant fullerene molecule, covered in carbohydrates. When the team tested the new supermolecule on an artificial Ebola virus model, the researchers saw a result that stops cell infection of Ebola.

The study was led by ECS member and UCM professor Nazario Martín.

“Fullerenes are hollow cages exclusively formed by carbon atoms,” says Martín.

This from UCM:

These molecules decorated with specific carbohydrates (sugars) present affinity by the receptor used as an entry point to infect the cell and act blocking it, thus inhibiting the infection. Researchers employed an artificial Ebola virus by expressing one of its proteins, envelope protein GP1, responsible of its entry in the cells. In a model in vitro, this protein is covering a false virus, which is able of cell infection but not of replication.

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The new study also opens the door to identifying other molecules floating in space.
Image: NASA/JPL

Buckyballs—or buckminsterfullerenes, named for their structural similarities to the designs of Buckminster Fuller—have just answered the 100-year-old question of odd variations in light coming through interstellar space.

Astronomers once assumed that this cosmic-light was the result of dust or other tiny space detritus, but a team of chemists have now determined that it is actually the result of buckyballs floating around in space.

Though this isn’t the first time that buckyballs were found in far-off locations. In 2010, researchers spotted the first ever buckyballs in space using the Spitzer telescope.

ECS Podcast – “A Word About Nanocarbons”
Listen as some of the world-leading scientists in nanocarbon and fullerene research discuss the monumental role buckyballs have played in science.

However, the spotting in 2010 proved that buckyballs can indeed exist in space, whereas the current buckyball spotting solve a nearly century-long question that has troubled astronomers globally.

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Yarn made of niobium nanowires can be used to make very efficient supercapacitors.
Image: MIT

With the recent surge in wearable electronics, researchers and looking for a way to get larger amounts of power to these tiny devices. Due to the limited size of these devices, it is difficult to transmit data via the small battery.

Now, MIT researchers have found a way to solve this issue by developing an approach that can deliver short but big bursts of power to small devices. The development has the potential to affect more than wearable electronics through its ability to deliver high power in small volumes to larger-scale applications. The key to this new development is the team’s novel supercapacitor.

This from MIT:

The new approach uses yarns, made from nanowires of the element niobium, as the electrodes in tiny supercapacitors (which are essentially pairs of electrically conducting fibers with an insulator between). In this new work, [Seyed M. Mirvakili] and his colleagues have shown that desirable characteristics for such devices, such as high power density, are not unique to carbon-based nanoparticles, and that niobium nanowire yarn is a promising an alternative.

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Carbon nanotubes, seamless cylinders of graphene, do not display a total dipole moment. While not zero, the vector-induced moments cancel each other out.
Image: Rice University

Theoretical physicist at both Rice University and institutes in Russia have concluded that the best way to control graphene’s electrical qualities is to flex the material.

Rice University’s Boris Yakobson and his lab are collaborating with Moscow researchers to calculate the electrical properties of nanocones, which should be universal for other forms of graphene.

(PS: You can take a look at some of Yakobson’s past meeting abstracts in the Digital Library.)

This from Rice University:

The researchers discovered it may be possible to access what they call an electronic flexoelectric effect in which the electronic properties of a sheet of graphene can be manipulated simply by twisting it a certain way. The work will be of interest to those considering graphene elements in flexible touchscreens or memories that store bits by controlling electric dipole moments of carbon atoms, the researchers said.

Read the full article here.

“While the dipole moment is zero for flat graphene or cylindrical nanotubes, in between there is a family of cones, actually produced in laboratories, whose dipole moments are significant and scale linearly with cone length,” Yakobson said.

ICYMI: Check out our podcast, “A Word About Nanocarbons,” featuring another Rice University carbon nanotube expert, Dr. Bruce Weisman.

Interested in carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, and nanocarbons? Make sure to check out ECS’s Nanocarbons Division!

Dirk Guldi of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg will be awarded the 2015 Nanocarbons Division Richard E. Smalley Research Award for his outstanding contributions to the areas of charge-separation in donor-acceptor materials and construction of nanostructured thin films for solar energy conversion.

The prestigious award was established in 2006 to recognize in a broad sense, those persons who have made outstanding contributions to the understanding and applications of fullerenes.

Dr. Guldi’s career has a robust background in academia and research. He has held positions at Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory, and has also served as the Associate Editor of the journal Nanoscale. Since 2004, Dr. Guldi has authored or co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and has been named among the world’s 2014 Highly Cited Researchers by Thomas Reuters.

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