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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 8 4 7 STRESS RELIEF LITTLE SHOP OF NIGHTLIGHTS Instead of switching on a lamp when it gets dark, what if you could read by the light of a glowing plant on your nightstand? MIT engineers have taken a critical first step toward making that vision a reality. By embedding specialized nanopar- ticles into the leaves of a watercress plant, they induced the plants to give off dim light for nearly four hours. With further optimization, they believe that such plants will one day be bright enough to illuminate a workspace. “The vision is to make a plant that will function as a desk lamp—a lamp that you don’t have to plug in. The light is ultimately powered by the energy metabolism of the plant itself,” explains Michael Strano, professor of chemical engineering. The technology could also be used to provide low-intensity indoor lighting, or to transform trees into self-pow- ered streetlights, say researchers. web.mit.edu . WORLD’S SMALLEST FIDGET SPINNER One drop of liquid, a laser 3D printer, and a few hours are all it takes to make a fidget spinner smaller than the width of a human hair. The tiny whirligig was created by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) to illustrate the facility’s unique resources and expertise available to scientists across the world. The microscale fidget spinner measures only 100 microns wide, but the capabilities it represents are enormous. “We felt like it would be an inter- esting demonstration for younger people who may not know that the federal govern- ment maintains these user facilities across the country, which anybody can use as long as they submit a successful proposal,” says ORNL’s Adam Rondinone. The Nanoscribe machine that built the fidget spinner is also used by researchers to create microfluidic and micromechanical devices for scientific applications. The instru- ment uses a focused laser to convert a liquid into a solid at a microscopic level. Much like 3D printing, the process allows researchers to precisely create and build complex designs to make functional microscale devices with moving components. All the tools at CNMS are available through the facility’s user program, which is open to users from academia, the private sector, and research institutes worldwide . ornl.gov. GIANT FUNGUS AMONGUS Care to guess what the largest terrestrial organism is? Hint: It’s much bigger than a giant sequoia or African elephant. According to a recent blog post from the Soil Science Society of America, the largest land organism is a fungus. The biggest honey fungus identified in North America lives in Oregon and measures 3.4 miles across. Scientists also believe that this particular specimenmay be over 2000 years old. The giant fungus gets its size from its ability to fuse into a single organism. Soil scientist Jesse Morrison of Mississippi State University explains, “When mycelia from different individual honey fungus bodies meet, either in or on the soil sur- face, they can attempt to fuse to each other. The fungi must be genetically identical honey fungi. When the mycelia successfully fuse to each other, they link very large fungal bodies together. This, in turn, changes extensive networks of fungal ‘clones’ into a single individual.” http://bit.ly/2B1dDY3 . Researchers at ORNL created a microscale fidget spinner that measures just 100 microns wide. “Paradise Lost” by John Milton, illuminated by MIT’s nanobionic light-emitting watercress plants. Courtesy of Seon-Yeong Kwak. Amanitamuscaria fungus growing in Hawaii. Much of the mushroom lives above ground, but it has a huge underground structure as well. Courtesy of J. Meulemans.