Cool Science

Mar 17, 2025

High School Students Win Top Science Fair Awards with AIF’s SEM Imaging

The AIF is proud to support the next generation of scientists! Two high school students, Maheshwar (Mahesh) Murugesan and Zhe (David) Wang, recently won first place in the Environmental Science…

Oct 26, 2020

Cool Science: Understanding How Materials Behave in Extreme Environments

Radiation induced damage causes premature failure of materials in critical and extreme environments. Understanding the mechanisms that produce damage and designing materials in ways that mitigates such damage is an…

Jan 9, 2020

Cool Science: Nanotubes and Lungs

Unstained alveolar macrophage containing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT’s) in the cytoplasm. Dr. Mary Jane Thomassen’s group at East Carolina University is currently investigating the potential deleterious effects of inhaled MWCNT’s…

Nov 22, 2019

Cool Science: Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis

“In summary, evidence has been found in the Pilauco section that is similar to that found at >50 YDB sites on four continents. This is the first time that extensive…

Oct 16, 2019

Cool Science: Plant Health

“The main innovation of this work lies in two areas: first, we use plasmonic nanostructures as a new class of sensing elements to greatly expand the library of targets that…

Sep 19, 2019

Cool Science: Solar Cell Operation

  “The stability of organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells is limited by degradation from oxygen and water. Yang et al. show that in situ reaction of perovskites with sulfate or phosphate…

Aug 16, 2019

Cool Science: SEM of the Emerald Ash Borer Insect

    Chuck Mooney used the Hitachi S-3200N to collect SEM images of the Emerald ash borer, a green buprestid or jewel beetle native to north-eastern Asia that feeds on…