12.20.10
Posted in technology at 1:11 pm by nemo
Science’s Breakthrough of the Year: The First Quantum MachineScienceDaily (Dec. 17, 2010) — Until this year, all human-made objects have moved according to the laws of classical mechanics. Back in March, however, a group of researchers designed a gadget that moves in ways that can only be described by quantum mechanics — the set of rules that governs the behavior of tiny things like molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. In recognition of the conceptual ground their experiment breaks, the ingenuity behind it and its many potential applications, Science has called this discovery the most significant scientific advance of 2010.
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12.15.10
Posted in biology, technology at 11:33 am by nemo
Biological Computers: Genetically Modified Cells Communicate Like Electronic Circuits
ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2010) — Genetically modified cells can be made to communicate with each other as if they were electronic circuits. Using yeast cells, a group of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has taken a groundbreaking step towards being able to build complex systems in the future where the body’s own cells help to keep us healthy.
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11.22.10
Posted in technology at 5:35 pm by nemo
Electrowetting Breakthrough May Lead to Disposable E-Readers Fast Enough for Video
ScienceDaily (Nov. 22, 2010) — A breakthrough in a University of Cincinnati engineering lab could clear the way for a low-cost, even disposable, e-reader. Electrical Engineering Professor Andrew Steckl’s research into an affordable, yet high-performance, paper-based display technology is being featured this week as the November cover story of ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
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11.11.10
Posted in technology at 5:00 pm by nemo
Researchers Aim to Harvest Solar Energy from Pavement to Melt Ice, Power Streetlights
ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2010) — The heat radiating off roadways has long been a factor in explaining why city temperatures are often considerably warmer than nearby suburban or rural areas. Now a team of engineering researchers from the University of Rhode Island is examining methods of harvesting that solar energy to melt ice, power streetlights, illuminate signs, heat buildings and potentially use it for many other purposes.
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11.01.10
Posted in technology at 12:12 pm by nemo
In California’s Mojave Desert,
Solar-Thermal Projects Take Off
By year’s end, regulators are expected to approve a host of solar energy projects in California that could eventually produce as much electricity as several nuclear plants. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, John Woolard, the CEO of the company that has begun construction on the world’s largest solar-thermal project, discusses the promise — and challenges — of this green energy boom.
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10.31.10
Posted in technology at 11:40 am by nemo
Advance Could Change Modern Electronics
ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2010) — Researchers at Oregon State University have solved a quest in fundamental material science that has eluded scientists since the 1960s, and could form the basis of a new approach to electronics.
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10.18.10
Posted in technology at 11:11 am by nemo
Physicists Pave the Way for Graphene-Based Spin Computer; First to Achieve ‘Tunneling Spin Injection’
ScienceDaily (Oct. 13, 2010) — Physicists at the University of California, Riverside have taken an important step forward in developing a “spin computer” by successfully achieving “tunneling spin injection” into graphene.
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Posted in technology at 11:09 am by nemo
Measurement Scientists Set a New Standard in 3-D Ears
ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2010) — Scientists at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have developed a means of representing a 3D model ear, to help redefine the standard for a pinna simulator (the pinna is the outer part of the ear) — used to measure sound in the way we perceive it.
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09.29.10
Posted in physics, technology at 12:18 pm by nemo
Single Electron Reader Opens Path for Quantum Computing
ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2010) — A team led by engineers and physicists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, have developed one of the key building blocks needed to make a quantum computer using silicon: a “single electron reader.”
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Posted in technology at 11:26 am by nemo
Solar Cells Thinner Than Wavelengths of Light Hold Huge Power Potential
ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2010) — Ultra-thin solar cells can absorb sunlight more efficiently than the thicker, more expensive-to-make silicon cells used today, because light behaves differently at scales around a nanometer (a billionth of a meter), say Stanford engineers. They calculate that by properly configuring the thicknesses of several thin layers of films, an organic polymer thin film could absorb as much as 10 times more energy from sunlight than was thought possible.
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09.15.10
Posted in technology at 1:06 pm by nemo
Electron Switch Between Molecules Points Way to New High-Powered Organic Batteries
ScienceDaily (Sep. 15, 2010) — The development of new organic batteries — lightweight energy storage devices that work without the need for toxic heavy metals — has a brighter future now that chemists have discovered a new way to pass electrons back and forth between two molecules.
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09.06.10
Posted in technology at 12:09 pm by nemo
New Self-Assembling Photovoltaic Technology Repairs Itself
ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2010) — Plants are good at doing what scientists and engineers have been struggling to do for decades: converting sunlight into stored energy, and doing so reliably day after day, year after year. Now some MIT scientists have succeeded in mimicking a key aspect of that process.
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09.04.10
Posted in technology at 11:18 am by nemo
Miniature Auto Differential Helps Tiny Aerial Robots Stay Aloft
ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2010) — Microrobots could be used for search and rescue, agriculture, environmental monitoringEngineers at Harvard University have created a millionth-scale automobile differential to govern the flight of minuscule aerial robots that could someday be used to probe environmental hazards, forest fires, and other places too perilous for people.
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09.03.10
Posted in biology, technology at 12:30 pm by nemo
Model for Implantable Artificial Kidney to Replace Dialysis Unveiled
ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2010) — UCSF researchers have unveiled a prototype model of the first implantable artificial kidney, in a development that one day could eliminate the need for dialysis.
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08.23.10
Posted in technology at 12:26 pm by nemo
DNA Puts Chemists on Scent of Better Artificial Nose
ScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2010) — A new approach to building an “artificial nose” — using fluorescent compounds and DNA — could accelerate the use of sniffing sensors into the realm of mass production and widespread use, say Stanford chemists. If their method lives up to its promise, it could one day detect everything from incipiently souring milk to high explosives.
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08.22.10
Posted in technology at 12:20 pm by nemo
Nanoscale DNA Sequencing Could Spur Revolution in Personal Health Care
ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2010) — In experiments with potentially broad health care implications, a research team led by a University of Washington physicist has devised a method that works at a very small scale to sequence DNA quickly and relatively inexpensively.
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08.17.10
Posted in technology at 11:59 am by nemo
MRSA-Killing Paint Created
ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2010) — Building on an enzyme found in nature, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have created a nanoscale coating for surgical equipment, hospital walls, and other surfaces which safely eradicates methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the bacteria responsible for antibiotic resistant infections.
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08.16.10
Posted in technology at 12:22 pm by nemo
Drugs Encased in Nanoparticles Travel to Tumors on the Surface of Immune-System Cells
ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2010) — Clinical trials using patients’ own immune cells to target tumors have yielded promising results. However, this approach usually works only if the patients also receive large doses of drugs designed to help immune cells multiply rapidly, and those drugs have life-threatening side effects.
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08.11.10
Posted in biology, technology at 1:01 pm by nemo
Robots/emotions
The objection points to the reality: emotions are an added dimension to causal machines. Will they might have causal substrate themselves, the question of action and emotion is not so simple as conventional science might indicate.
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08.10.10
Posted in technology at 11:39 am by nemo
Robots Created That Develop Emotions in Interaction With Humans
ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2010) — The first prototype robots capable of developing emotions as they interact with their human caregivers and expressing a whole range of emotions have been finalised by researchers.
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08.06.10
Posted in technology at 12:15 pm by nemo
Invisibility Cloak Advance: New Findings Promising for ‘Transformation Optics’
ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2010) — Researchers have overcome a fundamental obstacle in using new “metamaterials” for radical advances in optical technologies, including ultra-powerful microscopes and computers and a possible invisibility cloak.
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08.05.10
Posted in biology, technology at 12:26 pm by nemo
Thought-Controlled Prosthetic Limb System to Be Tested on Human Subjects
ScienceDaily (Aug. 4, 2010) — The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a contract for up to $34.5 million to The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., to manage the development and testing of the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) system on human subjects, using a brain-controlled interface.
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08.04.10
Posted in technology at 3:19 pm by nemo
Generating Energy from Ocean Waters Off Hawaii
ScienceDaily (Aug. 4, 2010) — Researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa say that the Leeward side of Hawaiian Islands may be ideal for future ocean-based renewable energy plants that would use seawater from the oceans’ depths to drive massive heat engines and produce steady amounts of renewable energy.
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08.03.10
Posted in technology at 12:21 pm by nemo
New Solar Energy Conversion Process Could Double Solar Efficiency of Solar Cells
ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2010) — A new process that simultaneously combines the light and heat of solar radiation to generate electricity could offer more than double the efficiency of existing solar cell technology, say the Stanford engineers who discovered it and proved that it works. The process, called “photon enhanced thermionic emission,” or PETE, could reduce the costs of solar energy production enough for it to compete with oil as an energy source.
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07.31.10
Posted in technology at 11:28 am by nemo
Awe and the Machine
Today we are less likely to feel awe in the presence of our machines than we are to experience what historian Jacques Barzun called “machine-made helplessness.”
The problem is that one machines made us feel intelligent, now they can make us feel unintelligent.
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Posted in technology at 11:05 am by nemo
Breaking the Language Barrier: Language Translation Devices for US Troops Tested
ScienceDaily (July 30, 2010) — At dusk, a car stops at a checkpoint in Afghanistan. It is a tense moment for all. Because an interpreter is not available, U.S. Marines use hand gestures to ask the driver to step out of the car and open the trunk and hood for inspection. There’s a lot of room for error.
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07.25.10
Posted in technology at 12:17 pm by nemo
Graphene Organic Photovoltaics: Flexible Material Only a Few Atoms Thick May Offer Cheap Solar Power
ScienceDaily (July 24, 2010) — A University of Southern California team has produced flexible transparent carbon atom films that the researchers say have great potential for a new breed of solar cells.
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07.21.10
Posted in technology at 11:27 am by nemo
Drilling Down to the Nanometer Depths of Leaves for Biofuels
ScienceDaily (July 21, 2010) — By imaging the cell walls of a zinnia leaf down to the nanometer scale, energy researchers have a better idea about how to turn plants into biofuels.
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