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Infrared digital holography allows firefighters to see through flames

February 28, 2013

fire images

Other applications could include monitoring breathing, cardiac beat detection and analysis, body deformation measurements during exercise

One of their greatest challenges for firefighters is seeing through thick veils of smoke and walls of flame to find people in need of rescue. So a team of Italian researchers has developed a new imaging technique that uses infrared (IR) digital holography, described in a paper published today in the… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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Russia calls for united meteor defense

February 28, 2013

asteroid

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin says the world should unite to establish a defense system against space objects that threaten Earth, under the umbrella of the United Nations, Space Daily reports.

The Russian leader said the threat from asteroids, meteorites, comets and other stray space objects should serve to “unite humanity in the face of a common enemy.”

Alexander Bagrov, a senior researcher at the Institute… read more

Topics: Space | Survival/Defense

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Brain Activity Map Project is futile, say some scientists, others enthused

Complete human brain generates about 300,000 petabytes of data each year
February 28, 2013

brain-rays

In setting the nation on a course to map the active human brain, President Obama may have picked a challenge even more daunting than ending the war in Afghanistan or finding common ground with his Republican opponents, The New York Times reports.

Many neuroscientists are skeptical that a multiyear, multibillion dollar effort to unlock the brain’s mysteries will succeed.“I believe the scientific paradigm… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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This Is how Dennis Tito plans to send people to Mars

February 28, 2013

Mars-Capsule_220213.m

If Dennis Tito has his way, two people will leave our planet in January 2018 and make a trip to Mars and back, with a quick flyby, SpaceRef reports.

The project is being spearheaded by a non-profit organization, the Inspiration Mars Foundation.

Tito’s mission will be facilitated by donors, not investors.

Tito and a group of coauthors from NASA and several aerospace companies… read more

Topics: Space

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Complex circuits made of carbon nanotubes demonstrated

February 27, 2013

nanotube.transistorx299

A simple sensor circuit made of hard-to-handle but promising carbon nanotubes is a first step in making the materials practical for computing, MIT Technology Review reports.

Transistors made from these nanomaterials are faster and more energy efficient than silicon ones, and computer models predict that carbon nanotube processors could be ten times less power-hungry. But it’s proved difficult to turn individual transistors into complex working circuits.… read more

Topics: Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Giant laser creates an artificial star to clear the sky

February 27, 2013

giant_star_eso

Death Star’s superlaser? No, a new, improved laser that acts as an artificial star, as a reference to monitor atmospheric turbulence for the Very Large Telescope in Chile, compensating for the atmosphere’s distortions and creating much sharper images, reports New Scientist.

The laser shoots 90 kilometers into the atmosphere, where it interacts with the 10-kilometer-thick layer of sodium atoms left around our planet by meteoroid… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology

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Android smartphone to control satellite in orbit

February 27, 2013

surrey_sat_tech

A satellite with an Android Google Nexus One smartphone at its heart is now orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 785 kilometers.

Called STRaND-1,  the UK’s first cubesat, the satellite’s incorporation of a phone is a bold attempt to test how well cheap, off-the-shelf consumer electronics handle the harsh temperature variations and microchip-blasting cosmic radiation of space, New Scientist reports.

The shoebox-sized satellite… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Space

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Graphene micro-supercapacitors to replace batteries for microelectonics devices

Will power biomedical implants, active RFID tags, embedded micro-sensors, and flexible electronics
February 27, 2013

Micro-supercapacitor

UCLA researchers have developed a groundbreaking technique that uses a DVD burner to fabricate miniature graphene-based supercapacitors — devices that can charge and discharge a hundred to a thousand times faster than standard batteries.

These micro-supercapacitors, made from a one-atom–thick layer of carbon, can be easily manufactured and readily integrated into small devices, such as next-generation pacemakers.

The new cost-effective fabrication method holds promise for the… read more

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

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‘Wet’ computer server could cut wasted energy for cooling

February 27, 2013

iceotope_leeds

A revolutionary liquid-cooled computer server design that could slash the carbon footprint of the Internet is being tested at the University of Leeds.

Unlike most computers, which use air to cool their electronics, all of the components in the new server are completely immersed in liquid. The power-hungry fans of traditional computing are replaced by a silent liquid-cooling process that relies on the natural convection… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Energy | Internet/Telecom

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A protein ‘passport’ that helps nanoparticles get past immune system

February 26, 2013

penn_protein_passport

The body’s immune system exists to identify and destroy foreign objects, whether they are bacteria, viruses, flecks of dirt or splinters. Unfortunately, nanoparticles designed to deliver drugs, and implanted devices like pacemakers or artificial joints, are just as foreign and subject to the same response.

Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science and Penn’s Institute for Translational Medicine and… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Special RNAs guide epigenetic factors to activate genes

Blocking the action of piRNAs could lead to new way to treat cancers
February 26, 2013

mit_editing_genome

If a genome is the blueprint for life, then the chief architects are tiny slices of genetic material that orchestrate how we are assembled and function, Yale School of Medicine researchers report.

The study pinpoints the molecular regulators of epigenetics — the process by which unchanging genes along our DNA are switched on and off at precisely right time and place.… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech

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How tension changes the structure of DNA

Changing structures may be important for genome regulation and stability
February 26, 2013

Fluorescence microscopy images (below) reveal the three different structures of DNA under mechanical tension (credit:

Researchers from VU University Amsterdam and from France and Singapore have discovered how mechanical tension changes the structure of DNA.

Advanced physics techniques show that the DNA structure can be disrupted in three distinct ways when the DNA molecule is stretched.

Three different structures

DNA consists of two parallel strands that are connected to each other in a double helix structure. While pulling on the DNA… read more

Topics: Biotech

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3D-printed cyborg muscle produces artificial heartbeat

February 26, 2013

artificial heartbeat

You might expect a robot’s heartbeat to be a metallic ticking. But the pulsing in this video isn’t completely artificial: it’s powered by living material, New Scientist reports.

Created by Peter Walters from the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK, and colleagues, the pump uses the gas released by live yeast to generate pressure and distend a membrane, turning it into an… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biotech | Nanotech/Materials Science

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How to build a robotic bat wing

Could lead to the design of a small aircraft
February 26, 2013

A robotic bat wing lets researchers measure forces, joint movements, and flight parameters — and learn more about how the real thing operates in nature (credit: Breuer and Swartz labs/Brown University)

Researchers at Brown University have developed a robotic bat wing that is providing valuable new information about dynamics of flapping flight in real bats — the function of ligaments, the elasticity of skin, the structural support of musculature, skeletal flexibility, upstroke, and downstroke.

The strong, flapping flight of bats offers great possibilities for the design of small aircraft, among other applications.

The robot, which… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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New carbon-nanotube films improve prospects of solar energy devices

February 26, 2013

New research by Yale University scientists helps pave the way for the next generation of solar cells, a renewable energy technology that directly converts solar energy into electricity (credit: /Yale university)

New research by Yale University scientists helps pave the way for the next generation of solar cells, a renewable energy technology that directly converts solar energy into electricity.

Yale engineers have developed a cost-effective new way to improve the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells: using thin, smooth carbon nanotube films.

These films could be used to produce hybrid carbon/silicon solar cells with far… read more

Topics: Electronics | Energy | Nanotech/Materials Science

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