by Jon Cartwright Peer inside an antique radio and you’ll find what look like small light bulbs. They’re actually vacuum tubes—the predecessors of the silicon transistor. Vacuum tubes went the way of the dinosaurs in the 1960s, but researchers have now brought them back to life, creating a nano-sized version that’s faster and hardier than… [Read more…]
May 21, 2012
by Jeff Hecht SPACE exploration may have a new direction. In the 1960s, humans did the exploring but since the last moon landing in 1972, NASA’s only explorers beyond low Earth orbit have been semi-autonomous robots. Now the agency is pondering a third approach, sending astronauts who would remain in orbit around alien worlds and… [Read more…]
May 7, 2012
Magnet-making bacteria may be building biological computers of the future, researchers have said. Leeds and Japan’s Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used microbes that eat iron. As they ingest the iron, the microbes create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those in PC hard drives. The research may lead to the creation of… [Read more…]
May 4, 2012
Microchips restore sight to people suffering retinitis pigmentosa – an incurable condition that leads to blindness Condition affects one in every 3,000-4,000 people Clinical trial with two sufferers ‘exceeds expectations’ Sufferers able to detect outlines of objects ‘within days’ Vision expected to improve further as 3mm chip ‘beds in’ Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk -www.bbc.co.uk
April 30, 2012
AFTER only a few years basking in the limelight, wonder material graphene has a competitor in the shape of silicene. For the first time, silicon has been turned into a sheet just one atom thick. Silicene is thought to have similar electronic properties to graphene but ought to be more compatible with silicon-based electronic devices.… [Read more…]
April 26, 2012
This is the animation done by Globaïa for the short film ‘Welcome to the Anthropocene’ commissionned for the Planet Under Pressure conference. Watch the narrated version here: vimeo.com/anthropocene/shortfilm More on the project here: anthropocene.info http://vimeo.com/40940686 www.dailymail.co.uk
April 20, 2012
Evacuated Tube Transport could take you around the world in just 6 hours http://youtu.be/McpWcn-1RZU
March 9, 2012
… First to Transfer One Trillion Bits of Information per Second Using the Power of Light • Researchers invent novel technique by fabricating tiny holes in a single quarter-inch chip to boost data transfer rates • Until now, it was not possible to transport terabits of data for existing parallel optical communications technology • New… [Read more…]
March 8, 2012
LED converts heat into light A light-emitting diode (LED) that emits more light energy than it consumes in electrical energy has been unveiled by researchers in the US. The device – which has a conventional efficiency of greater than 200% – behaves as a kind of optical heat pump that converts lattice vibrations into infrared… [Read more…]
March 5, 2012
Physicists have built a graphene battery that harvests energy from the thermal movement of ions in solution Here’s an interesting idea for a battery. The thermal velocity of ions in aqueous solution is huge–hundreds of metres per second at room temperature. And yet few people have studied this process or its potential to generate current.… [Read more…]
March 2, 2012
Quest for quirky quantum particles may have struck gold Evidence for elusive Majorana fermions raises possibilities for quantum computers. Eugenie Samuel Reich Getting into nanoscience pioneer Leo Kouwenhoven’s talk at the American Physical Society’s March meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, today was like trying to board a subway train at rush hour. The buzz in the corridor was… [Read more…]
February 27, 2012
IBM scientists were able to measure for the first time how charge is distributed within a single molecule. This achievement will enable fundamental scientific insights into single-molecule switching and bond formation between atoms and molecules. Furthermore, it introduces the possibility of imaging the charge distribution within functional molecular structures, which hold great promise for future… [Read more…]
February 19, 2012
In a remarkable feat of micro-engineering, UNSW physicists have created a working transistor consisting of a single atom placed precisely in a silicon crystal. http://youtu.be/ue4z9lB5ZHg Read more here
February 2, 2012
An undergraduate engineering student at Johns Hopkins University, Tiras Lin, has used high-speed, high-resolution cameras to gain a new perspective on the mechanics of a painted lady butterfly’s flight patterns. Information gathered from his research may be used to construct better designs for micro-aerial vehicles that could be used by the United States military. http://youtu.be/azQeJLUWljc… [Read more…]
January 18, 2012
…of microelectromechanical systems using photoelectrowetting: proof-of-concept Microelectromechanical devices could soon be remotely controlled using light thanks to a proof-of-concept experiment demonstrating ‘photoelectrowetting’ Moving water is fairly straightforward on the human scale: a pump or a bucket will usually do the trick. But in the last couple of decades, various teams have begun to study ways of… [Read more…]
January 13, 2012
…….Using a scanning tunneling microscope, the researchers were able to encode a bit of data in just 12 iron atoms kept at a temperature just a few degrees above absolute zero. Smaller numbers of atoms were too unstable to act as bits – without neighbours to interact with and stabilise them, the atoms behaved like quantum… [Read more…]
January 12, 2012
This video simulates the time cloaking device developed by Cornell University researchers. A ball is trying to pass through a green beam of laser light without being detected. Two short pulses of red laser light change the color of the green light, and since different colors travel at different speeds, a gap is opened in… [Read more…]
January 9, 2012
Today’s robotic space missions take careful steps to avoid carrying tiny bacterial life from Earth that could contaminate the surface of Mars or other planets. That may all change if a NASA-funded effort can harness microbes as an almost endless power source for the next generation of robotic explorers. Such microbial fuel cells could power… [Read more…]
January 8, 2012
New research lays groundwork for new generation of ultrasensitive gyroscopes to measure gravity, magnetic field, and create quantum circuits A Cambridge team have built a semiconductor chip that converts electrons into a quantum state that emits light but is large enough to see by eye. Because their quantum superfluid is simply set up by shining… [Read more…]
January 7, 2012
B. Weber, S. Mahapatra, H. Ryu, S. Lee, A. Fuhrer, T. C. G. Reusch, D. L. Thompson, W. C. T. Lee, G. Klimeck, L. C. L. Hollenberg, M. Y. Simmons ABSTRACT – sciencemag.org As silicon electronics approaches the atomic scale, interconnects and circuitry become comparable in size to the active device components. Maintaining low electrical… [Read more…]
January 3, 2012
http://youtu.be/pxoL4bnLp0g Read more: Cat-brushing robot draws all signs of contentment
December 30, 2011
Graduate Assistant to Stephen Hawking The above post is expected to become available shortly, with a starting date around 20th-27th February 2012. The salary is expected to be in the region of £25k; the exact value will be confirmed in the near future. Disclaimer: This is not an official job applications page, however similar it may look! The… [Read more…]
December 18, 2011
…. One trillion frames per second MIT Media Lab researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion frames per second. That’s fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of light traveling through objects. Video: Melanie Gonick. http://youtu.be/EtsXgODHMWk Read also: How to make the Slowest Slow-Motion Video… [Read more…]
December 17, 2011
…. according to physicsworld.com 1st place: Shifting the morals of quantum measurement 2nd place: Measuring the wavefunction 3rd place: Cloaking in space and time 4th place: Measuring the universe using black holes 5th place: Turning darkness into light 6th place: Taking the temperature of the early universe 7th place: Catching the flavour of a neutrino… [Read more…]
December 1, 2011
20 Hz: A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt. Audio Data courtesy of CARISMA, operated by the University of Alberta, funded by the Canadian Space Agency. Special Thanks to Andy Kale. Made for the exhibition Invisible Fields at Arts Santa Monica in Barcelona Spain. lighthouse.org.uk/programme/invisible-fields 20 Hz observes a geo-magnetic storm occurring in the… [Read more…]
November 13, 2011
http://youtu.be/_l9RDqOxIws Too lazy to learn origami? Now you can sit back and let heat do the work, thanks to a new technique developed by Michael Dickey and his team at North Carolina State University that uses a material that can fold up on its own. The researchers used plastic sheets that shrink when placed under a heat… [Read more…]
November 13, 2011
It started with a few experiments with Scotch tape and a pencil. Then graphene, stronger than steel, one atom thick and a super-conductor, was born, a wonder material that could be as revolutionary as silicon, say its Nobel prize-winning creators. Now with £50m from the UK government, they’re out to prove it. Somehow it seems… [Read more…]
November 9, 2011
THE tiniest car in the world has gone for a drive. Made of a single molecule, the “vehicle” has four wheel-like paddles that rotate in the same direction when zapped with a beam of electrons. “The molecule is autonomous,” says Syuzanna Harutyunyan, a chemist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who worked on… [Read more…]
November 5, 2011
At the end of October 2011, Thomas Senkel of e-volo had completed a series of unmanned tests and was ready for the first manned flight on an airstrip in the southwest of Germany. The flight lasted one minute and 30 seconds, after which the constructor and test pilot stated: “The flight characteristics are good natured.… [Read more…]
November 4, 2011
A mathematician recently calculated that eBook readers ‘gain weight’ when you add new books to your library – due to the energy ‘gained’ by electrons when they store information, and the weight of that energy. http://youtu.be/WaUzu-iksi8 Filling a Kindle with books causes it to gain an infinitesimally small amount of mass – so small that… [Read more…]
October 27, 2011
Smarter, more functional clothing incorporating electronics may be possible in the near future, according to a study co-authored by Cornell fiber scientist Juan Hinestroza. Hinestroza, associate professor of fiber science, was part of an international team that developed transistors using natural cotton fibers. “Creating transistors from cotton fibers brings a new perspective to the seamless… [Read more…]
October 27, 2011
Researchers at Stanford University in the US have discovered a type of highly elastic, transparent thin film that conducts electricity extremely well. The film is made of wavy, spring-like carbon nanotubes and could be used as the electrode material in “skin-like” pressure and stretch sensors. Such devices might one day be used to help restore… [Read more…]
October 26, 2011
How much energy does the internet use? It’s hard to know where to start. There’s the electricity consumed by the world’s laptops, desktops and smart phones. Servers, routers and other networking equipment suck up more power. The energy required to manufacture these machines also needs to be included. Yet no one knows how many internet-enabled… [Read more…]
October 19, 2011
Measuring just 3.6 micrometers long, one of the smallest batteries ever made won’t be powering our electronic devices anytime soon, but it does serve as a self-powered nanomotor that is surprisingly fast and efficient. Ultimately, the nanobattery-based motor could be used as a nanomachine and to transport cargo for biomedical applications. The researchers, Dr. Ran… [Read more…]
October 18, 2011
… even your clothes Want the convenience of a touchscreen without the hassle of removing your phone from your pocket? Researchers at Microsoft have you covered, with two new touch interfaces that let you turn any surface into a touchscreen or control your phone through a trouser pocket. OmniTouch combines a pico projector and a… [Read more…]
October 18, 2011
Researchers have created a new material that can produce three or more free electrons every time it absorbs a single photon. This is unlike conventional semiconductors, which produce just one free electron per photon. Based on tiny semiconductor structures called quantum dots, the new material – developed by researchers at Delft University of Technology in… [Read more…]
October 15, 2011
HANGZHOU, (Xinhua) — The skills of China’s table tennis players are virtually unmatched. However, they may soon face competition in the form of two humanoid robots that have been programmed to serve, return and score. The robots made their debut on Sunday at east China’s Zhejiang University, where they played games of table tennis with… [Read more…]
October 8, 2011
LHSee: discover what happen at the LHC. Want to find out how to Hunt the Higgs Boson using your phone? Ever wondered how the Large Hadron Collider experiments work, and what the collisions look like? Scientists at the world’s biggest scientific experiment – the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva – are trying to answer… [Read more…]
October 6, 2011
Steven P. Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple who helped usher in the era of personal computers and then led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age, died Wednesday. He was 56. http://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve… [Read more…]
October 4, 2011
Rice University physicists have created a tiny “electron superhighway” that could one day be useful for building a quantum computer, a new type of computer that will use quantum particles in place of the digital transistors found in today’s microchips. n a recent paper in Physical Review Letters, Rice physicists Rui-Rui Du and Ivan Knez… [Read more…]
October 1, 2011
A thin sheet of plastic has been making headlines at Princeton as a magical flying carpet, after the publication of a paper describing experiments by the team with their prototype sheet of plastic that uses piezoelectric actuators and sensors to move. The sensors and conducting threads create “ripples” of air moving front to back of… [Read more…]
September 26, 2011
Researchers have designed a “cloak” that is invisible to magnetic fields both coming in and coming out. The idea of blocking magnetic fields has been proposed before, but the new design, in the New Journal of Physics, could even hide magnetic materials. It could thus find application in security or medical contexts, such as those surrounding… [Read more…]
September 21, 2011
Computer scientists have built a superconducting number cruncher with a Von Neumann architecture that paves the way for a new era of quantum computation Back in 1946, the world’s first general purpose electronic computer was switched on at the University of Pennsylvania. The huge processing power of ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) stunned the… [Read more…]
September 11, 2011
A quantum phenomenon allows detectors which sense oscillations of space-time to measure with 50 percent more accuracy. Measuring at the limits of the laws of nature – this is the challenge which researchers repeatedly take up in their search for gravitational waves. The interferometers they use here measure with such sensitivity that a particularquantum phenomenon of light… [Read more…]
September 7, 2011
Thorium lasers: The thoroughly plausible idea for nuclear cars Some proposed technological innovations seem so far out that they are easy to reject out of hand. But sometimes, a new idea has a kernel of plausibility. Such is the case with a new project to develop a thorium laser power generation system that its creator… [Read more…]
September 4, 2011
Chemists at Tufts University have developed the world’s first single molecule electric motor, which may potentially create a new class of devices that could be used in applications ranging from medicine to engineering. The molecular motor was powered by electricity from a state of the art, low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. This microscope sent an electrical… [Read more…]
August 23, 2011
Physicists use DNA assembly technique to create a ‘metafluid’ capable of manipulating visible light in new ways Back in 2003, the first metamaterial was designed to bend microwaves in ways that ordinary materials can never achieve. The material was made from c-shaped pieces of metal and wires assembled into a kind of honeycomb structure the… [Read more…]
August 18, 2011
By Christine Lavelle Candle flames contain millions of tiny diamond particles, a university professor has discovered. Research by Wuzong Zhou, a professor of chemistry at the University of St Andrews in Fife, revealed that around 1.5 million diamond nanoparticles are created in a candle flame every second it is burning. Dr Zhou used a new… [Read more…]
August 17, 2011
Applications of Integrated Optics to quantum sources, detectors, interfaces, memories and linear optical quantum computing are described in this review. By their inherent compactness, efficiencies, and interconnectability, many of the demonstrated individual devices can clearly serve as building blocks for more complex quantum systems, that could also profit from the incorporation of other guided wave… [Read more…]
August 16, 2011
Nuclear fusion will cost a fortune – or will it? A new wave of upstart companies think they’ve found cheaper, quicker ways to build a second sun A VAST earth platform looms into view above the treetops of Cadarache in France’s sultry south-east. It measures 1 kilometre long by 400 metres wide, and excavators dotted… [Read more…]
August 13, 2011
Two Lehigh physicists have developed an imaging technique that makes it possible to directly observe light-emitting excitons as they diffuse in a new material that is being explored for its extraordinary electronic properties. Called rubrene, it is one of a new generation of single-crystal organic semiconductors. Excitons, which are created by light, play a central… [Read more…]
August 12, 2011
One of the earliest lessons in science that students learn is that a ray or beam of light travels in a straight line. Students also learn that light rays fan out or diffract as they travel. Recently it was discovered that light rays can travel without diffraction in a curved arc in free space. These… [Read more…]
August 10, 2011
Two independent groups of physicists have made important breakthroughs in the control of quantum computers based on trapped ions. Instead of controlling quantum bits (qubits) using multiple laser beams, the teams have used microwave sources, which are much easier to control and integrate within quantum circuits. The work could lead to practical quantum computers that… [Read more…]
August 9, 2011
Startup Brightsource announces a new system that could allow future solar plants to run at night. Brightsource Energy has become the latest solar thermal power company to develop a system for generating power when the sun isn’t shining. The company says the technology can lower the cost of solar power and make it more reliable,… [Read more…]
August 8, 2011
… in world first: Scientists build aircraft with 100mph max speed This plane is the first in the world to be created using the groundbreaking new technology of ’3D printing’. The aircraft was built using only a computer – but it can get up to a speed of 100mph and has a two-metre wingspan. It… [Read more…]
July 25, 2011
Physicists in the US have shown that positronium – a short-lived bound state of a positron and an electron – can be produced by firing a laser beam onto a silicon surface. Because the technique is highly controllable and operates over a wide range of temperatures, it could prove extremely useful in low-temperature experiments designed… [Read more…]
July 23, 2011
As workers continue to grapple with the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan, the crisis has shone a spotlight on nuclear reactors around the world. In June, The Associated Press released results from a yearlong investigation, revealing evidence of “unrelenting wear” in many of the oldest-running facilities in the United States. That study found… [Read more…]
July 21, 2011
Research outlines math framework that could help convert ‘junk’ energy into useful power A University at Buffalo-led research team has developed a mathematical framework that could one day form the basis of technologies that turn road vibrations, airport runway noise and other “junk” energy into useful power. The concept all begins with a granular system… [Read more…]
July 20, 2011
As the United States prepares to end its space shuttle program, technologies developed to nurture the reusable spaceships through three decades of flight will live on in day-to-day use on Earth. Shuttle Atlantis and its four-member crew are due back at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5:57 a.m. EDT on Thursday after a… [Read more…]
July 19, 2011
Demonstrating the world’s first device that creates a hole in time We’ve written previously about the theoretical possibility of “event cloaks”–metamaterial space-time devices that could theoretically conceal an entire event in time from the view of an outsider. Well, while some bright minds were just talking about bending space-time to their whims, a team at… [Read more…]
July 18, 2011
It’s a concept that’s been around for decades but never really seems to get off the ground. But aviation experts are now saying a flying car could be in regular use in the UK within five years after a model was formally approved by U.S. authorities. The $250,000 (£155,000) Terrafugia Transition is a two-seater aircraft… [Read more…]
July 16, 2011
Graphene, a sheet of carbon only a single atom thick, was an object of theoretical speculation long before it was actually made. Theory predicts extraordinary properties for graphene, but testing the predictions against experimental results is often challenging. Now researchers using the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley… [Read more…]
July 10, 2011
A new generation of animal-like robots is about to emerge from the laboratory UNTIL recently, most robots could be thought of as belonging to one of two phyla. The Widgetophora, equipped with claws, grabs and wheels, stuck to the essentials and did not try too hard to look like anything other than machines (think R2-D2).… [Read more…]
June 28, 2011
On June 22, 2011, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf set a new world record for magnetic fields with 91.4 teslas. To reach this record, Sergei Zherlitsyn and his colleagues at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory Dresden (HLD) developed a coil weighing about 200 kilograms in which electric current create the giant magnetic field – for a period… [Read more…]
June 22, 2011
Green Futures: Innovative design draws on the pressure light exerts as a driving force The force is with us, even if it is very small indeed. Scientists have long been aware that radiation of any kind exerts pressure, and light is no exception. In the 1920s, the Soviet rocket-designer Friedrich Zander suggested that a spaceship… [Read more…]
June 20, 2011
Magnetic storage media such as hard drives have revolutionized the handling of information: We are used to dealing with huge quantities of magnetically stored data while relying on highly sensitive electronic components. And hope to further increase data capacities through ever smaller components. Together with experts from Grenoble and Strasbourg, researchers of KIT’s Institute of… [Read more…]
June 18, 2011
While in principle unbreakable, quantum cryptography is known to have weaknesses in practice. One shortcoming has now been graphically illustrated by physicists in Singapore and Norway, who have been able to copy a secret quantum key without revealing their presence to either sender or receiver. The researchers are now working to remove the loophole they… [Read more…]
June 17, 2011
Huge mirrors that reflect the sun’s light back into space are one of a number of measures being considered to battle climate change…..
June 15, 2011
A new technique could reduce friction with the mere flick of a switch, say physicists The usual way to overcome friction is with a liberal coating of lubricant, whether it be some kind of oily liquid or a solid such as graphite. But that’s a distinctly macroscopic solution. In recent years, however, physicists have become… [Read more…]
June 13, 2011
A new generation of high speed, silicon-based information technology has been brought a step closer by researchers in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at UCL and the London Centre for Nanotechnology. The team’s research, published in next week’s Nature Photonics journal, provides the first demonstration of an electrically driven, quantum dot laser grown directly on… [Read more…]
June 13, 2011
A single living cell has been coaxed into producing laser light, researchers report in Nature Photonics. The technique starts by engineering a cell that can produce a light-emitting protein that was first obtained from glowing jellyfish. Flooding the resulting cells with weak blue light causes them to emit directed, green laser light. The work may have… [Read more…]
June 10, 2011
IBM researchers have made the first graphene circuit in which all of the circuit elements are integrated on a compact single chip. The new circuit is another important step forward for graphene-based electronics and potential applications include wireless communications and amplifiers….. Read more: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/46237
June 10, 2011
GREEN power may no longer be as fickle as the weather, thanks to a device that can generate electricity in any conditions – be it sun, wind or rain. Most forms of renewable energy are intermittent, says Elias Siores at the Institute for Materials Research and Innovation at the University of Bolton in the UK… [Read more…]
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May 24, 2012
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