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Intelligence agencies turn to crowdsourcing

October 16, 2012

skyfall

Research firm Applied Research Associates has just launched a website, Global Crowd Intelligence, that invites the public to sign up and try their hand at intelligence forecasting, BBC Future reports.

The website is part of an effort called Aggregative Contingent Estimation, sponsored by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (Iarpa), to understand the potential benefits of crowdsourcing for predicting future events by… read more

Topics: Social Networking/Web/Education | Survival/Defense

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How to double the power of solar panels

October 16, 2012

Solar collectors: A micrograph shows silicon nanowires produced by Bandgap Engineering. They can help a solar cell absorb more light. (Credit: Bandgap Engineering)

In an attempt to further drop the cost of solar power, Bandgap Engineering has a long-term project to develop a nanowire-based solar cell that could eventually generate twice as much power as conventional solar cells, Technology Review reports.

Meanwhile the company is about to launch a simpler version of the technology, using silicon nanowires that can improve the performance and lower the cost of conventional silicon solar cells.… read more

Topics: Energy | Nanotech/Materials Science

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How to create beating heart muscle cells

October 15, 2012

ucla_embryonic_stem_cells_heart

UCLA stem-cell researchers have found for the first time a surprising and unexpected plasticity in the embryonic endothelium, the place where blood stem cells are made in early development.

They found that the lack of one transcription factor, a type of gene that controls cell fate (by regulating other genes), allows the precursors that normally generate blood stem and progenitor cells in blood-forming tissues to… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech

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Creating instant graphene electronic devices on demand

Rice University researchers find plasmonics show promise for optically induced electronics
October 15, 2012

Graphene

Rice University researchers are doping graphene with light in a way that could lead to the more efficient design and manufacture of electronics, as well as novel security and cryptography devices.

Manufacturers chemically dope silicon to adjust its semiconducting properties. But the breakthrough reported in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano details a novel concept: plasmon-induced doping of graphene, the ultrastrong, highly conductive, single-atom-thick form… read more

Topics: Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Cracking the quantum safe

October 15, 2012

unsw_quantum_bit

The Nobel Prize in Physics went to achievements in quantum information, Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, writes in The New York Times.

It may not catch as many headlines as the hunt for elusive particles, but the field of quantum information may soon answer questions even more fundamental — and upsetting —… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology | Quantum

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New web-based model for sharing research datasets could have huge benefits

October 15, 2012

(Credit: iStockphoto)

A group of researchers have proposed creating a new web-based data network to help researchers and policymakers worldwide turn existing knowledge into real-world applications and technologies and improve science and innovation policy.

Researchers around the world have created datasets that, if interlinked with other datasets and made more broadly available, could provide the needed foundation for policy and decision makers. But these datasets are spread across countries, scientific disciplines… read more

Topics: Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Internet/Telecom | Social Networking/Web/Education

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Organic solar cells recharge portable electronics at low light levels

October 15, 2012

(Credit: Apple Inc.)

An organic solar cell that generates a sufficiently high voltage to recharge a lithium-ion battery directly has been created by scientists from the University of Warwick, in collaboration with spinoff company Molecular Solar.

The development means portable electronic devices such as e-book readers, cameras and some mobile phones could soon be recharged on the move in low light levels and with partial shading.

Organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells, the… read more

Topics: Electronics | Energy | Nanotech/Materials Science

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‘Invisibility’ could be a key to better electronics

MIT team applies technology developed for visual ‘cloaking’ to enable more efficient transfer of electrons
October 15, 2012

probability_flux_electrons

A new approach that allows objects to become “invisible” using matamaterials has now been applied to an entirely different area: letting particles “hide” from passing electrons, which could lead to more efficient thermoelectric devices and new kinds of electronics.

The concept — developed by MIT graduate student Bolin Liao, former postdoc Mona Zebarjadi (now an assistant professor at Rutgers University), research scientist Keivan… read more

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

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‘Nanoflowers’ increase battery and supercapacitor storage capacity

October 15, 2012

The GeS "nanoflowers" have petals only 20-30 nanometers thick, and provide a large surface area in a small amount of space (credit: Cao, et al./North Carolina State University)

Researchers from North Carolina State University have created flower-like structures out of germanium sulfide (GeS) — a semiconductor material — that have extremely thin petals with an enormous surface area.

The GeS flower holds promise for next-generation energy storage devices, including supercapacitors used with solar cells.

“Creating these GeS nanoflowers is exciting because it gives us a huge surface area in a small amount… read more

Topics: Electronics | Energy | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Dyson sphere hunt using Kepler data

October 12, 2012

med_fractaldyson_bowers

Geoff Marcy has received a grant from the UK’s Templeton Foundation to look for Dyson spheres, Paul Gilster writes on Centauri Dreams, the news forum of the Tau Zero Foundation.

Freeman Dyson hypothesized the vast structures over fifty years ago that could ring or completely enclose their parent star. Such structures, the work of a Kardashev Type II civilization — one capable of drawing on the… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology | Singularity/Futures | Space

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Prospective Alzheimer’s drug builds new brain-cell connections

October 12, 2012

572px-PET_Alzheimer

Washington State University researchers have developed a new drug candidate that dramatically improves the cognitive function of rats with Alzheimer’s-like mental impairment.

Their compound, which is intended to repair brain damage that has already occurred, is a significant departure from current Alzheimer’s treatments, which either slow the process of cell death or inhibit cholinesterase, an enzyme believed to break down a key neurotransmitter involved in… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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3D model for lung cancer mimics the real thing

October 12, 2012

lung_cancer_methodist_hospital

Using a new technique that allows scientists to grow lung cancer cells in three dimensions, researchers at The Methodist Hospital and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have created a model that uses biological matter to form miniature lungs that mimic the structure and function of real lung cancer, after which human lung cancer cells are added.

The model could accelerate discoveries for a type of cancer that has benefited… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech

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The world’s first 3D-printed guitar

October 12, 2012

1011_3d_guitar_630x420

Scott Summit created a 3D model of his ideal guitar and sent the computer design to 3D Systems, which used its massive 3D printers to transform the graphic model into an actual acoustic instrument that Summit can play, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

As far as anyone seems to know, this is the first 3D-printed guitar on the planet, and it raises all kinds musical possibilities. “It’s rich and full and… read more

Topics: Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Panetta warns of dire threat of cyberattack on US

October 12, 2012

(Credit: iStockphoto)

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned Thursday that the United States was facing the possibility of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor” and was increasingly vulnerable to foreign computer hackers who could dismantle the nation’s power grid, transportation system, financial networks and government, The New York Times reports.

He said he was reacting to increasing aggressiveness… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Survival/Defense

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A ‘compound eye’ on light sent from galaxies 10 billion years ago

October 12, 2012

15711_VLT_alt_Iztok_Boncina_ESO

At ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile they are about to fit a new instrument called KMOS that can record the light from 24 galaxies simultaneously.

KMOS has 24 robotic arms tipped with gold-plated mirrors that can be trained on a different galaxy — each arm has almost 200 facets making them rather like an insect’s compound eye. Light from these mirrors is channelled… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology

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