Military uniforms of the future may offer a new layer of critical protection to wearers, thanks to research by teams at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and several other institutions who are developing a nanotube-based fabric that repels chemical and biological agents.
The researchers say the fabric will be able to switch reversibly from a highly breathable state to a protective one in… read more
A new generation of free online schedulers uses natural-language processing to interpret spoken commands and ordinary written sentences to build calendars and personal organizers.
The organizers are part of an emerging trend away from graphical user interfaces (which can disrupt the work flow) to the ease and simplicity of text-based computing enhanced with natural-language processing.
Startup Ion Torrent has launched its new semiconductor-based sequencing machine — at $50,000, a comparatively inexpensive device.
Most advanced sequencing technologies rely on fluorescently tagged molecules and a microscope to sequence DNA. At the heart of Ion Torrent’s machine are sequencing chips that detect DNA sequences electronically.
This approach removes the need for expensive lasers and cameras. The chips are made in the same semiconductor fabs as computer… read more
Research at the Italian Institute of Technology suggests a way to make higher-quality, more biocompatible retinal implants by integrating living neural cells with a soft organic polymer semiconductor. It could lead to a retinal implant that produces much clearer vision.
The researchers grew neural cells in a petri dish directly on top of the polymer. Light shined on the polymer activates the photodiodes, which stimulate individual neurons… read more
With recent data showing an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency, a growing chorus of economists, scientists and students of energy policy are saying that whatever benefits a cap on greenhouse gas emissions yields, it will be too little and come too late.
A Shortcut Through Time: The Path to the Quantum Computer by George Johnson (Knopf, 2003) aims to explain how a quantum computer would work to nonspecialists.
The book uses “clocks, tops, and waves to explain a Tinkertoy version of quantum computing that quickly gets the reader involved and hungry to learn more,” according to a review in the June 6 Science.
“The science in the book is fairly… read more
City College of New York researchers have developed paint containing silver nanoparticles, which can kill bacteria and other microbes, and are recommending that hospitals paint their walls and countertops to fight infection.
Bacteria cannot build up resistance to silver nanoparticles as they can to antibiotics, because the nanoparticles destroy the physical structure of cells.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one… read more
The Simputer (Simple Inexpensive Mobile Computer), a computer priced and designed for the billions of people without access to computers, has been developed by India-based Simputer Trust.
The prototype features Intel chip, 32 MB of RAM, 16 MB of flash memory, Linux OS, multilingual text-to-speech, picture-based touch-sensitive screen, Palm-like grafitti writing and Internet access via phone line, with a target retail price of $200.
A metal object can be made invisible to to electromagnetic radiation at microwave frequencies by approximately 70 per cent with the help of ordinary plastic, Aalto University researchers have shown.
In practical terms, this means that electromagnetic waves travelling, for example, between two antennas, do not detect an object located in their path, allowing the waves to travel the distance between them despite the obstacle, without any disruption… read more
A simple, soft robotic hand that can grab a range of objects delicately and automatically adjust its fingers to get a good grip has been developed by researchers from Harvard and Yale Universities, and might also be useful as a prosthetic arm.
A team of physicists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics has built a single-photon server based on a single trapped neutral atom.
The high quality of the single photons and their ready availability are important for future quantum information processing experiments with single photons.
A single-protein wet biotransistor has been devised by physicists. It uses a bacterial protein called azurin in a strategic position between two gold electrodes, which act as the source and drain of a transistor. A third electrode, acting as the gate, enables the centrally located azurin to allow the passage of an electrical current
A measurement has been performed on the time that muon neutrinos take to travel from their production point at CERN to the Opera detector, finding that neutrinos take a handful of nanoseconds less than if they were traveling at light speed, experimental particle physicist (CERN and Fermilab) and blogger Tommaso Dorigo reports.
Neutrinos seen by the Opera detector are produced when a high-intensity spill of protons from… read more
What if, seconds before your laptop began stalling, you could feel the hard drive spin up under the load? Or you could tell if an electrical cord was live before you touched it?
For the few people who have rare earth magnets implanted in their fingers, these are among the reported effects — a finger that feels omagnetic fields along with the normal sense of touch.
Wall Street is adopting nonlinear decision making processes akin to how a brain operates, including neural networks, and genetic algorithms, and other advanced computer-science techniques.
“Artificial intelligence is becoming so deeply integrated into our economic ecostructure that some day computers will exceed human intelligence,” Ray Kurzweil told fund managers at a recent conference. “Machines can observe billions of market transactions to see patterns we could never see.”