Through understanding that the fluid in the vortex fluidic device (VFD) housing an inclined rapidly rotating tube exhibits resonance behaviours from the confining boundaries of the glass surface and the...

A 'top down' synthesis of carbon and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nano-scrolls has been developed using the shear forces within dynamic thin films of N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) generated on a rapidly rotating spinning disc processor (SDP), along with a theoretical understanding of the formation of the scrolls.

Exfoliated 2D materials including graphene, BN, MoS(2) and WS(2) are accessible in water over a wide range of pH for a synergistic process involving sonication in the presence of p-phosphonic acid calix[8]arene.

Dimensional considerations on the torque coefficient of coaxial cylinders, inner one rotating and outer one at rest, result in the expression CM = f(T/Ri, Re) where Re is the Couette Reynolds number, T is the clearance between the cylinders, and Ri is the inner radius. Experimental data published in the literature and additional data obtained by the authors are analyzed to determine the above functional relationship. It is shown that, depending on the Couette Reynolds number and dimensionless gap width, four different regimes exist and that the fractional characteristics of a coaxial cylinder can accordingly be optimized.

The growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a major threat to human health. Paradoxically, new antibiotic discovery is declining, with most of the recently approved antibiotics corresponding to new uses for old antibiotics or structurally similar derivatives of known antibiotics. We used an in silico approach to design a new class of non-toxic antimicrobials for the bacteria–specific mechanosensitive ion channel of large conductance, MscL. One antimicrobial of this class, compound 10, is effective against methicillin–resistant Staphylococcus aureus with no cytotoxicity in human cells lines at the therapeutic concentrations. As predicted from in silico modelling, we show that the mechanism of action of compound 10 is at least partly dependent on interactions with MscL. Moreover we show that compound 10 cured a methicillin–resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection in the model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Our work shows that compound 10, and other drugs that target MscL, are potentially important therapeutics against antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.