Inspired by biological systems that have the inherent skill to generate considerable bioelectricity from the salt content in fluids with highly selective ion channels and pumps on cell membranes, herein, a fully abiotic single‐pore nanofluidic energy‐harvesting system that efficiently converts Gibbs free energy in the form of a salinity gradient into electricity is demonstrated. The maximum power output with the individual nanopore approaches ∼26 pW. By exploiting parallelization, the estimated power density can be enhanced by one to three orders over previous ion‐exchange membranes. A theoretical description is proposed to explain the power generation with the salinity‐gradient‐driven nanofluidic system. Calculation results suggest that the electric‐power generation and its efficiency can be further optimized by enhancing the surface‐charge density (up to 100 mC m−2) and adopting the appropriate nanopore size (between 10 and 50 nm). This facile and cost‐efficient energy‐harvesting system has the potential to power biomedical tiny devices or construct future clean‐energy recovery plants.

This review highlights the recent advances in X-ray microcomputed tomography (Micro-CT) applied in dental research. It summarizes Micro-CT applications in measurement of enamel thickness, root canal morphology, evaluation of root canal preparation, craniofacial skeletal structure, micro finite element modeling, dental tissue engineering, mineral density of dental hard tissues and about dental implants. Details of studies in each of these areas are highlighted along with the advantages of Micro-CT, and finally a summary of the future applications of Micro-CT in dental research is given.

Switchable ion channels that are made of membrane proteins play different roles in cellular circuits. Since gating nanopore channels made of proteins can only work in the environment of lipid membrane, they are not fully compatible to the application requirement as a component of those nanodevice systems in which lipid membranes are hard to establish. Here we report a synthetic nanopore-DNA system where single solid-state conical nanopores can be reversibly gated by switching DNA motors immobilized inside the nanopores. High- (on-state) and low- (off-state) conductance states were found within this nanopore-DNA system corresponding to the single-stranded and i-motif structures of the attached DNA motors. The highest gating efficiency indicated as current ratio of on-state versus off-state was found when the length of the attached DNA molecule matched the tip diameter of the nanopore well. This novel nanopore-DNA system, which was gated by collective folding of structured DNA molecules responding to the external stimulus, provided an artificial counterpart of switchable protein-made nanopore channels. The concept of this DNA motor-driven nanopore switch can be used to build novel, biologically inspired nanopore machines with more precisely controlled functions in the near future by replacing the DNA molecules with other functional biomolecules, such as polypeptides or protein enzymes.