World's first 3D-printed aircraft THOR

                On 1^st June 2016, Airbus displayed the world’s first 3D-printed aircraft THOR at the International Aerospace Exhibition in Schoenefe. The drone THOR is short for Test of High-tech Objectives in Reality and it resembles a large, white model airplane.

Key Features:

•          Is the world’s first 3D-printed aircraft with just 3 parts.
•          It is windowless, weighs 21 kilograms (46 pounds) and less than four metres (13 feet) long. It is Lighter, faster and cheaper.
•          Except the electrical elements, all other parts are printed (3D) from a substance called polyamide.
•          Thor’s inaugural flight was conducted in November 2015 near the northern German city of Hamburg.
•          Airbus and Boeing are already using 3D printing, notably to make parts for their huge passenger jets the A350 and B787 Dreamliner.

Space probe finds building blocks of life on comet

                ESA’s (European Space Agency) Rosetta comet-hunting spacecraft has attained a major breakthrough by discovering that comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko contains ingredients regarded as crucial for the origin of life, the space agency said on 27 May.

                According to ESA, the ingredients include amino acid glycine which is commonly found in protein, a key component of DNA and cell membranes. “This is the first unambiguous detection of glycine at a comet,” said Kathrin Alwegg, principal investigator of the ROSINA instrument on Rosetta which made the measurements and lead author of the paper published in ‘Science Advances’. Rosina was designed and developed at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

                Hints of the simplest amino acid Glycine were found in samples returned to earth in 2006 from Comet Wild-2 by Nasa’s Stardust mission. However, possible terrestrial contamination of the dust samples made the analysis extremely difficult, says ESA. “Now, Rosetta has made direct repeated detections of glycine in the fuzzy atmosphere or ‘coma’ of its comet,” according to the announcement.

Bug-Zapping lasers to kill flying insects

                Scientists have developed a novel laser system which can effectively identify, track and kill flying insects, including malaria causing mosquitoes, without harming other organisms, animals or humans. Originally invented for controlling certain types of mosquitoes that carry malaria, the system called Photonic Fence, has been adapted for more general applications in pest control for agriculture. The Photonic Fence is an electro-optical system that employs lasers, detectors and sophisticated computer software to search, detect, identify and shoot down insects in flight in real-time.

'Guided Chemo Missiles' that target only cancer cells

                Scientists have engineered novel proteins that work like ‘guided missiles’ which seek out cancer cells and deliver chemotherapy drugs to treat hard-to-reach tumours without harming healthy cells. Although chemotherapy drugs do often effectively kill cancer cells, they also damage other quickly dividing cells in the body, causing side effects ranging from cosmetic, like hair loss, to disabling.

                Sometimes, the drugs dose needed to kill a tumour may be more than what a person’s body can handle. This might happen if the tumour does not have much of a blood supply and very little of the drugs, which is delivered through the bloodstreams, can get in. A dose high enough to infiltrate the tumour could be deadly to other cells in the body.

                Some recently approved therapies get around this problem using antibodies to deliver a drug directly to tumours, by passing healthy cells and possibly overcoming some of the uglier aspects of cancer chemotherapy. Although the two techniques are conceptually similar, the specialized protein has the potential advantage of being able to pass through the barrier that protects the brain, thereby being able to treat brain tumours. It is also smaller than the antibody and might be able to reach dense tumours with little blood supply.

China's Sunway TaihuLight declared world's fastest supercomputer

                On 20 June 2016, Chinese supercomputer Sunway TaihuLight with 93 petaflop/second speed was declares as the world’s fastest supercomputer. It was revealed in the TOP500 list of supercomputers released at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) in Frankfurt, Germany. The list further revealed that the USA is not home to the largest number of systems. With a surge in industrial and research installations registered over the last few years, China leads with 167 systems and the USA is second with 165. Asian share of 218 systems, up from 173 in November 2015, includes 8 supercomputers owned by Indian –based organizations. This super computer can perform 93 petaflop operations per second. It was developed by the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology and installed at the National Supercomputing Centre in Wuxi. It displaced the Tianhe-2, an Intel-based Chinese supercomputer that has claimed the top spot om the previous six TOP500 lists.

3D-printed polymer turns methane into methanol

                Scientists have combined 3D printed polymers with methane-eating bacteria to create the first reactor that can produce methanol form the greenhouse gas, and advance that may lead to a more efficient energy production. The researchers removed enzymes from methanotrophs, bacteria that eat methane, and mixed them with polymers that they printed or molded into innovative reactors. Remarkably, the enzymes retain up to 100% activity in the polymer. The printed enzymes-embedded polymer is highly flexible for future development and should be useful in a wide range of applications, especially those involving gas-liquid reactions.

Even Hair-Like Structures Can Be 3D-Printed

                MIT scientists who developed a new way to 3D print thousands of hair-like structures within minutes on various surfaces to perform useful tasks such as sensing and adhesion. Instead of using conventional computer-aided design software to draw thousands of individual hairs on a computer the team built a new software platform, called “Cilllia,” that lets users define the angle, thickness, density, and height of thousands of hairs, in just a few minutes.

                Using the new software, the researchers design arrays of hair-like structures with a resolution of 50 microns – about the width of a human hair. They designed and then printed arrays ranging from coarse bristles to fine fur, onto flat and also curved surfaces, using a conventional 3D printer.

                The technology could possibly be used to print wigs and hair extensions. But their end goal is seeing how 3D-printed hair could perform useful tasks such as sensing, adhesion and actuation. Researcher trying to figure out how can they fully utilize the potential of 3-D printing, and create new functional materials whose properties are easily tunable and controllable.