Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating high-quality semiconductor thin films at the atomic scale — meaning the films are only one atom thick.
The technique can be used to create these thin films on a large scale, sufficient to coat wafers that are two inches wide, or larger.
“This could be used to scale current semiconductor technologies… read more
Mobileye Vision Technologies has created a self-driving system for an Audi A7 car, John Markoff writes in The New York Times.
It is capable only of driving in a single lane at freeway speeds, as well as identifying traffic lights and automatically slowing, stopping and then returning to highway speeds.
But by blending advanced computer-vision techniques with low-cost video cameras, the company is… read more
Purdue University researchers have created a new type of transparent electrode that might find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics, and future optoelectronic circuits for sensors and information processing.
The electrode is made of silver nanowires covered with graphene, an extremely thin layer of carbon. The hybrid material shows promise as a possible replacement for indium tin oxide, or ITO, used in… read more
EPFL scientists have revealed a mechanism responsible for the creation of giant synapses in the brain that allow us to efficiently process auditory information.
Humans and most mammals can determine the spatial origin of sounds with remarkable acuity. To accomplish this small daily miracle, the brain has developed a circuit that’s rapid enough to detect the tiny lag that occurs between the moment the auditory information reaches one of… read more
Individuals whose brains are better at automatically suppressing background motion perform better on IQ tests, according to a new University of Rochester.study.
The test is the first purely sensory assessment to be strongly correlated with IQ and may provide a non-verbal and culturally unbiased tool for scientists seeking to understand neural processes associated with general intelligence.
“Because intelligence is such a broad construct, you can’t… read more
DARPA‘s Warrior Web program seeks to create a soft, lightweight under-suit that would help reduce injuries and fatigue common for soldiers, who often carry 100-pound loads for extended periods over rough terrain.
DARPA envisions Warrior Web augmenting the work of soldiers’ own muscles to significantly boost endurance, carrying capacity and overall warfighter effectiveness — all while using no more than 100W of power.… read more
Why is it that within a homogeneous population of the same species, some individuals live three times as long as others?
EPFL researchers investigated this question and found the mechanism responsible for aging hidden deep within mitochondria.
The were able to dramatically slow aging down in worms by administering antibiotics to the young, achieving a lifespan extension of 60 percent.
Mitochondia: biological timekeepers… read more
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers have developed a cradle and app for the iPhone (Android version in the works) that uses the phone’s built-in camera and processing power as a biosensor to detect toxins, proteins, bacteria, viruses and other molecules.
Having such sensitive biosensing capabilities in the field could enable on-the-spot tracking of groundwater contamination, map the spread of pathogens (using the phone’s GPS),… read more
“I’ve experienced both sides” of the privacy debate on Google Glass, Nick Bilton writes in The New York Times.
But other gadgets have plenty of privacy-invading potential too, he says. Memoto, a tiny, automatic camera that looks like a pin you can wear on a shirt, can snap two photos a minute and later upload it to an online service.
Apple is… read more
Google plans to build and help run wireless networks in emerging markets such as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, connecting a billion or more new people to the Internet.
The goal is to provide Internet access to dwellers outside of major cities where wired Internet connections aren’t available, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
As part of the plan, Google has also worked on making special balloons or… read more
University of Texas Arlington scientists have discovered a way to control the growth or repair of neurons and neuron circuits, using a non-invasive “neuronal beacon” (near-IR laser beam) — essentially rewiring brains, or even creating new ones.
This major discovery, just published today in Optics Letters, promises to enable several new applications, UT Arlington assistant professor of physics Samarendra Mohanty said in an exclusive interview with KurzweilAI:
A bioresorbable splint used for first time, successfully stopped life-threatening tracheobronchomalacia, a case featured in New England Journal of Medicine.
Every day, a baby, Kaiba, stopped breathing, his collapsed bronchus blocking the crucial flow of air to his lungs. Parents April and Bryan Gionfriddo watched helplessly.
They found hope at the University of Michigan, where a new, bioresorbable device that could help Kaiba was… read more
Scientists from the University of Southampton have developed a microfluidic electrophysiological device called a NeuroChip that records the neural activity in the microscopic worm Caenorhadbitis elegans (C. elegans) — the worm equivalent of an EEG —.to help test the effects of drugs.
How to record a worm’s ‘EEG’
With the NeuroChip, you feed the worm into a narrow, fluid-filled channel that tapers at… read more
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers have used the unique capabilities of the Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS) to advance a new concept in magnetic memory.
“What we’re working on now could make these gadgets perform hundreds of times better and also be a hundred times more energy efficient,” says the Lab’s Peter Fischer.
Four memory states
Magnetic memories store… read more
Bitcoin is gaining traction outside its existing community of enthusiastic early adopters.
An estimated 1,100 people attended Bitcoin 2013, the first large conference dedicated to Bitcoin, MIT Technology Review reports. The conference also showed that Bitcoin has begun to attract the backing of conventional technology industry investors, who have sunk millions of dollars into a handful of Bitcoin startups.
In the Bitcoin system,… read more