Harvard University researchers have stopped light with all its photons intact for the first time by firing a short burst of red laser light into a gas of hot rubidium atoms.
This is then “frozen” with the help of two control beams. The light in the control beams interacts with the rubidium atoms to create layers that alternately transmit and reflect the pulse.
As the signal tries to… read more
Joseph Bordogna, deputy director of the National Science Foundation, called for closer cooperation between the scientific and engineering research communities on nanotechnology development to create “nano transformations” in all scientific and social fields.
NEC said it has developed the world’s smallest transistor, a breakthrough that could lead to the production of a supercomputer the size of a desktop PC.
The design is 1/18th the size of current transistors and has a gate width of only 5 nanometers.
A typical semiconductor chip will be able to hold 40 billion of the NEC transistors inside a chip measuring one square centimeter, more than… read more
The conscience or sense of free will may be located in spindle cells in the frontoinsular cortex of the brain, according to California Institute of Technology neuroscientist Dr. John M. Allman.
This is a region closely connected to the insula and part of the same elaborate circuitry in which emotions are generated and experienced.
Future sensors may take the form of microscopic finger-like structures developed at Ohio State University. The “nanofingers” are carved onto the surface of inexpensive ceramic material and consist of a single crystal of titanium oxide.
The 50-nanometers-wide nanofingers provide a large surface area, making them good for capturing chemicals from the air, gathering light for electricity-generating solar cells, or for photocatalysis, in which light activates chemical reactions that clean… read more
Magnetized nanoparticles may one day be the treatment of choice for people needing to detox.
The 100 to 5,000 nanometers nanoparticles, designed at the Argonne National Laboratory, have receptors designed to identify, and then latch onto, target molecules. The nanoparticles are injected into the bloodstream, where they circulate through the body, picking up their target toxins as they go.
A magnet housed in a handheld unit and a… read more
BushLAN, which uses a 7MHz-wide VHF channel, will support symmetrical data rates of around 250Kbps at distances of up to 40 kilometers. Over shorter distances, megabit speeds are feasible.
Note: one statement in the article is erroneous: “VHF–long known and exploited by ham radio, for example, to make international contact–is its ability to reach long distances, both because the signals follow the curvature of the atmosphere, and because they… read more
Researchers at Rice University have discovered how to create continuous fibers from single-walled carbon nanotubes.
Scientists estimate nanotubes are about 100 times stronger than steel at one-sixth the weight. By comparison, Kevlar — the fiber used in bulletproof body armor — is about five times stronger than an equal weight of steel.
By dissolving nanotubes in strong sulfuric acid, a team of chemists and chemical engineers was able… read more
Genome mappings have generated a vast amount of biological data and now more than ever, scientists need sophisticated computational techniques to make sense of it.
For example, the Human Genome Database contains approximately 3 terabytes of data and the volume of life sciences data is doubling every six months.
To meet those ever-increasing needs, bioinformatics is shifting from software designed for a specific project in academic laboratories to… read more
IBM researchers have developed polymer molecules that can assemble themselves into tiny, precise and predictable hexagonal patterns that serve as a stencil for mapping out circuits on silicon wafers.
Incorporating very small structures such as nanocrystals into chips could also become far more feasible.
The National LambdaRail system, described by some as “the Internet of the future,” is an $80 million fiber-optic network intended to become the largest and fastest scientific research network in the world, with 16,000 kilometers of fiber.
The first leg, brought online in November, links supercomputing centers in Chicago and Pittsburgh and runs at 70 Gbps.
A smart assistant is being developed to help drivers cope with the increasing number of electronic devices in cars. It will decide — based on road conditions, car performance, and other factors — when it is too dangerous for a driver to be disturbed and will divert phone calls to voicemail, hide arriving emails, and lock the controls of the satellite navigation system, radio, CD player, and other devices.
Sodarace, an online game that lets contestants build and race virtual beasts, is being used to pit humans against a variety of artificial-intelligence algorithms.
Each creature is constructed of “mass,” muscles,” “limbs” and “joints” that control the way it moves. A creature’s key parameters can driven by a computer program; AI programmers are being invited to take part.
A variety of programming approaches are being tested, including genetic… read more
Ray Kurzweil was an invited guest lecturer Wednesday Dec. 3 at MIT’s Engineering Systems Doctoral Seminar, speaking on “Insights for Complex Engineering Systems from Evolutionary Theory.”
The seminar, co-lead by Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld of MIT’s Engineering Systems Division, brings together diverse areas of expertise in the emerging field of engineering systems.
Kurzweil presented a broad overview of current thinking on the exponential pace of technological change in semiconductor technology,… read more
University of California at Berkeley researchers have taken a significant step in the development of synthetic muscles for patients who experience significant muscle loss due to injury or to diseases such as muscular dystrophy.