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Scientists developed ultra-thin electronic skin that can measure oxygen levels when stuck to the body

The goal is to develop such "skin" to monitor oxygen levels in organs during surgery, say researchers in Japan. Tests on volunteers found the "skin" provided stable measurements of oxygen concentration in blood. The device contains micro-electronic components that light up in red, blue and green on the surface of the body. Scientists at the University of Tokyo are working on ways to display numbers and letters on the skin for health monitoring purposes. Wearable electronics are a future growth area in research, with interest in medical applications such as contact lenses that monitor glucose levels, or smart glasses. The latest findings are revealed in Science Advances. "The device unobtrusively measures the oxygen concentration of blood when laminated on a finger," said lead researcher Tomoyuki Yokota and colleagues. He added: "Ultimately, flexible organic optical sensors may be directly laminated on organs to monitor the blood ox...

A new design for lithium-air batteries overcomes several big hurdles

Lithium-air cells can store energy much more densely than today's lithium-ion batteries, making them particularly promising for electric cars. The design, published in Science, uses a spongy graphene electrode and a new chemical reaction to drive the cell. It loses much less energy and can be recharged many more times than previous attempts at lithium-air batteries. The hope for lithium-air batteries is that they will take in regular air to fuel the chemical reaction that releases electricity: lithium ions move from the positive electrode to the negative one, where they are oxidised. At present the engineers behind the new effort, at the University of Cambridge, have only made laboratory test units which operate in pure oxygen, rather than air. In a first, however, the prototypes can operate when that oxygen is moist. "What we really want is a lithium-air battery - one that just takes in air, without having to remove CO2, nitrogen and water,"...

European and Russian space agencies send a lander to an unexplored area at the Moon's south pole

It will be one of a series of missions that prepares for the return of humans to the surface and a possible permanent settlement. The spacecraft will assess whether there is water, and raw materials to make fuel and oxygen. We have obtained exclusive details of the mission, called Luna 27, which is set for launch in five years' time. The mission is one of a series led by the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, to go back to the Moon.These ventures will continue where the exploration programme that was halted by the Soviet Union in the mid 1970s left off, according to Prof Igor Mitrofanov, of the Space Research Institute in Moscow, who is one of the lead scientists. But unlike efforts in the 1960s and 70s, when the Soviet Union was working in competition with the US and other nations, he added, "we have to work together with our international colleagues"."We have to go to the Moon. The 21st Century will be the century when it will be the permanent outpos...

Oxygen Oasis seen in Antarctic Lake

Sumner and her colleagues discovered the oxygen oasis "a little by accident," she said. The team was diving in Lake Fryxell, a 2.8-mile-long (4.5 kilometers) frozen-over lake in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. Like other lakes in the region, Lake Fryxell has oxygenated layers up top, but becomes anoxic deeper down. Unlike other lakes in the region, its anoxic layers begin at depths where sunlight still penetrates. (Typically, in sunlit layers, photosynthesizing organisms spit out oxygen as part of their respiration.) Ian Hawes, a researcher at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, was diving with UC Davis graduate student Tyler Mackey, when the pair noticed green mats of cyanobacteria, a type of bacteria that use photosynthesis to survive. They found that the bacteria were generating a layer of oxygen 0.08 inches (2 millimeters) thick in the otherwise oxygen-free water.The Antarctic lake could thus provide a "natural laboratory" for study...