A nanoparticle that captures fingerprints, an invisibility cloak in reach, and iron fertilizing the ocean

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Picking up on visible and non-visible fingerprints at a crime scene is about to get a whole lot easier, thanks to a fluorescent nanoparticle that could revolutionize forensic science.

Diamond’s labSAXS used a combination of nanoparticles with special properties, such as MCM-41, chitosan, and dansylglycine, to create a new solution that can capture fingerprint residue in unprecedented detail.

The new study, published in the Royal Society of Chemistry, outlines how the new forensic tool can be used on various surfaces and forgoes the need to send samples to a lab. Dive deeper into this Must-Read.

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MUST-READ

☝ New nanomaterial to be used at crime scenes without lab, can transform forensics

According to the study, traditional methods for imaging fingerprints include optical, physical, and chemical processes between the developing agent (often a colored or fluorescent reagent) and the fingermark residue.

A few studies in the past showed that chitosan could be used to detect and enhance latent fingerprints, but the new study shows that hierarchically structured MSNs modified with chitosan could enhance the interaction between the development reagent and fingerprint residue.

Not only is the nanoparticle versatile and effective, but it can also be applied directly to the crime scene without lab facilities, which could advance the field of forensics.

✨ Breakthrough wave scattering method could bring invisibility cloak closer to reality

A new software that simulates complex wave scattering for metamaterial design could bring the invisibility cloak a step closer to reality. 

Though the T-matrix has been used since the 1960s, researchers have made a big step forward in computing it for particles much larger than the wavelength and with complex shapes.

This development will improve the ability to rapidly design metamaterials that amplify, block, or deflect waves, thereby, in the latter case, rendering them invisible.

🌊 Billions of tons of CO2 could be captured as ocean iron fertilization revived

Scientists are revisiting the controversial technique of ocean iron fertilization. Iron is believed to promote the growth of phytoplankton, so scientists hope to tackle carbon emissions this way, though not uncontroversially.

A computer model has suggested that the annual introduction of one to two million metric tons of iron into the ocean could result in the removal of 45 billion metric tons of carbon by the year 2100. 

Nevertheless, the long-term ecological impacts of large-scale iron fertilization are still uncertain.

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