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Wind could meet many times the world’s total power demand by 2030, Stanford reseachers say

September 11, 2012

wind farms

Researchers at Stanford University’s School of Engineering and the University of Delaware have used what they call the “most sophisticated weather model available” to  meet many times the world’s total power demand by 2030 — in fact, enough to exceed the total demand by several times, even after accounting for reductions in wind speed caused by turbines.

In related news today, Lawrence Livermore and Carnegie Institute researchers have found… read more

Topics: Energy | Environment/Climate

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iRobot files patent application for autonomous all-in-one 3D printing, milling, drilling and finishing robot

January 28, 2013

irobot_patent

Well, just when you thought 3D printing was finally putting you back in charge of creating your own stuff, along comes iRobot Corporation with a U.S. patent application for a “Robotic Fabricator.”

It’s conceived as a completely autonomous all-in-one product fabrication robot that handles manufacturing (including 3D printing) and all the post-printing work, from seed component to mature product, 3Ders reports.

A… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Nanotech/Materials Science | Social Networking/Web

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Immortal worms defy aging

February 29, 2012

Planarian flatworm

Researchers from The University of Nottingham have discovered how planarian flatworms overcome the aging process to be potentially immortal: they can rejuvenate their telomeres.

The discovery, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC), may eventually lead to alleviating aging and age-related characteristics in human cells.

Planarian worms have amazed scientists with their apparently limitless ability to regenerate. Researchers have… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech

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Brain-boosting technique might help some functions while hurting others

March 6, 2013

transcranial_stimulation

Electrically stimulating the brain may enhance memory, but impede a person’s ability to react without thinking, MIT Technology Review reports.

Using a noninvasive technique called transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) to stimulate the brain, researchers found they could enhance learning when they targeted a certain spot.

But that also made people worse at automaticity, or the ability to perform a task without really thinking about it. Stimulating another… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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How to identify and predict human activities from video

October 30, 2012

minds_eye_cmu

A video shows a woman carrying a box into a building.  Later, it shows her leaving the building without it. What was she doing?

Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) Mind’s Eye program is creating intelligent software that will recognize human activities in video and predict what might happen next. It will also flag unusual events and deduce actions that may be occurring off-camera.

Automating the time-consuming job of… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biomed/Longevity | Survival/Defense

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Fast, cheap water desalination using graphene

Graphene sheets with precise one-nanometer pores have potential to purify seawater more efficiently than existing methods
July 2, 2012

graphene-desalination

MIT researchers have invented a new kind of filtration material for desalination: sheets of graphene, a one-atom-thick form of the element carbon, which they say can be far more efficient and possibly less expensive than existing desalination systems.

The availability of fresh water is dwindling in many parts of the world, a problem that is expected to grow with populations. The world’s supply of seawater is virtually… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science

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Cray unveils Cray XC30 supercomputer, capable of scaling to 100 petaflops

November 12, 2012

Cray XC30 supercomputer (credit:

Cray Inc. has launched the Cray XC30 supercomputer, previously code-named “Cascade,” designed to scale high performance computing (HPC) workloads of more than 100 petaflops, with more than one million cores.

Cray did not specify whether the 100 petaflops was Rpeak or Rmax, or when a 100 petaflops installation might be planned.

China’s Guangzhou Supercomputing Center also recently announced the development of a supercomputer… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI

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New solar structure cools buildings in full sunlight, replacing air conditioners

Homes and buildings chilled without air conditioners? Car interiors that don't heat up in the summer sun? Tapping the frigid expanses of outer space to cool the planet? Yes.
March 29, 2013

sunlight_building

Stanford University researchers have designed an entirely new form of cooling structure that cools even when the sun is shining, eliminating the need for air conditioning.

Such a structure could vastly improve the daylight cooling of buildings, cars, and other structures by reflecting sunlight back into space.

“We’ve developed a new type of structure that reflects the vast majority of sunlight, while at the same… read more

Topics: Energy | Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology

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Making solar power competitive with coal

February 24, 2012

This 25-micrometer-thick film of silicon, used to make solar cells, has a metal backing that keeps it from breaking (credit: Astrowatt)

By the end of the decade, U.S. manufacturers could make solar panels that are less than half as expensive as the ones they make now.

At 52 cents per watt, that would be cheap enough for solar power to compete with electricity from fossil fuels, according to a new study by MIT researchers in Energy & Environmental Science.

Assuming similar cost reductions for installation and equipment, solar power would… read more

Topics: Energy | Environment/Climate

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The threat of silence

Meet the groundbreaking new encryption app set to revolutionize privacy and freak out the feds
February 6, 2013

silent_circle_zimmerman

For the past few months, some of the world’s leading cryptographers have been keeping a closely guarded secret about a pioneering new invention. Today, they’ve decided it’s time to tell all, Slate Future Tense reports.

Back in October, the startup tech firm Silent Circle ruffled governments’ feathers with a “surveillance-proof” smartphone app to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Social/Ethical/Legal | Survival/Defense

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Single-atom transistor is ‘end of Moore’s Law’ and ‘beginning of quantum computing’

February 20, 2012

A controllable transistor engineered from a single phosphorus atom has been developed by researchers at the University of New South Wales, Purdue University and the University of Melbourne. The atom, shown here in the center of an image from a computer model, sits in a channel in a silicon crystal. The atomic-sized transistor and wires might allow researchers to control gated qubits of information in future quantum computers. (Credit: Purdue University)

The smallest transistor ever built has been created using a single phosphorous atom by an international team of researchers at the University of New South Wales, Purdue University and the University of Melbourne.

The latest Intel chip, the “Sandy Bridge,” uses a manufacturing process to place 2.3 billion transistors 32 nanometers apart.

A single phosphorus atom, by comparison, is just 0.1 nanometers across, which would significantly reduce… read more

Topics: Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology

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Thiel tells Schmidt: ‘Google is out of ideas’

July 18, 2012

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and investor Peter Thiel took aim at each other in a recent debate, CNET reports.

Schmidt said technology and access to information has increased productivity and quality of life worldwide. Thiel thanked Schmidt for “doing a fantastic job” as “minister of propaganda” for Google. The tech sector has made remarkable strides in the areas of computers and software, he said, but has seen a “catastrophic” failure in other… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Singularity/Futures

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Math ability requires hemisphere crosstalk in the brain

Could special training in improving hemispheric cross-communication improve math abilities? What kinds of devices or exercises would be most effective?
August 31, 2012

Numerical and Arthimetic Tasks

The strength of communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain predicts performance on basic arithmetic problems, a new study by researchers at UT Dallas’ Center for Vital Longevity, Duke University, and the University of Michigan has found.

The findings shed light on the neural basis of human math abilities and suggest a possible route to aiding those who suffer from dyscalculia — an… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Human Enhancement

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New results indicate that new particle is a Higgs boson

March 14, 2013

An example of simulated data modelled for the CMS particle detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Here, following a collision of two protons, a Higgs boson is produced which decays into two jets of hadrons and two electrons. The lines represent the possible paths of particles produced by the proton-proton collision in the detector while the energy these particles deposit is shown in blue. (Image credit: CERN)

At the recent Moriond Conference, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) presented preliminary new results, finding that the new particle is looking more and more like a Higgs boson, the particle linked to the mechanism that gives mass to elementary particles.

It remains an open question, however, whether this is the Higgs… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology

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A world record for highest-surface-area materials

Greatly expands storage density for natural gas (for vehicles), light harvesting, and drug delivery
September 13, 2012

NU-110

Northwestern University researchers have broken a world record by creating two new synthetic materials with the greatest amount of surface areas reported to date.

Named NU-109 and NU-110, the materials belong to a class of crystalline nanostructure known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that are promising vessels for natural-gas and hydrogen storage for vehicles, and for catalysts, chemical sensing, light harvesting, drug delivery, and other uses requiring a large… read more

Topics: Energy | Nanotech/Materials Science

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