She’s young, beautiful, and fluent in several languages. Sakura Sanae, one of the newest entrants to the Japanese diplomatic corps, and Tokyo’s goodwill ambassador to the ASEAN nations, is also entirely computer generated….
Robot creation can propel you into the world of kinetic and interactive art.
Robotic additions and creations can be simple control mechanisms or elaborate constructions. Parts and supplies can be obtained from objects which are no longer useful. Remote controls, old computer parts, erector sets, toys, etc., which you might have lying around in closets, garages, and basements, can become perfectly usable parts for a robotic work of art.… read more
Scientists microbeams have discovered that targeting just a few cells with a “microbeam,” which launches streams of helium ions a micron wide, can cause massive destruction to other diseased cells.
The findings could have important implications for improving the effectiveness of radiotherapy for cancer. It also means that even very low doses of radiation may be doing more damage to normal cells than scientists thought.
President Bush signed into law the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act on Wed. Dec. 3, with a $3.7 billion appropriation.
The bill authorizes the President to create a permanent National Nanotechnology Research Program (NNPR) to replace the expiring National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The new NNRP, according to the bill, is a “coordinated inter-agency program that will support long-term nanoscale research and development leading to potential breakthroughs in… read more
Researchers from Arizona State University have fabricated a lab-on-a-chip that can detect and analyze microorganisms and chemicals and is very cheap to produce.
The chip could eventually be used in portable devices that do genetic analysis, environmental testing, and biological warfare agent detection in the field.
What sets the chip apart from other prototype biochips is that it carries out all the work needed to prepare a sample… read more
Researchers at Cornell University have combined on-line journalism and computational biology to make it possible to automatically paraphrase whole sentences. The method could eventually allow computers to more easily process natural language, produce paraphrases that could be used in machine translation, and help people who have trouble reading certain types of sentences.
The researchers’ system uses word-based clustering methods to identify sets of text that have a high degree… read more
High-energy cosmic-ray particles from space may create black holes when they collide with molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere, say physicists.
These black holes would be invisibly small (only 10 micrograms or so) and would be so unstable that they would explode in a burst of particles within around a billion-billion-billionth of a second.
If such tiny black holes exist, it would unveil hidden dimensions in our universe and… read more
Biomaterials presentations are peppering the weeklong series of research reports at the annual Materials Research Society meeting held in Boston. Since MRS is involved in virtually every area of modern industry and technology, its shift in emphasis from inorganic to organic and biological processes may suggest a trend for society as a whole.
Key developments:
Engineers at Ohio State University have created special hybrid materials that are virtually defect-free — an important first step for making ultra-efficient electronics in the future.
They grow thin films of “III-V” semiconductors, which absorb and emit light much more efficiently than silicon, so these materials could bridge the gap between traditional silicon computer chips and light-related technologies, such as lasers, displays, and fiber optics.
The engineers have… read more
DuPont, MIT and University of Illinois scientists have discovered an innovative way to advance electronics applications through the use of DNA that sorts carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes possess excellent electrical properties that make them potential building blocks in a broad range of nanotechnology-related electronic applications, including highly sensitive medical diagnostic devices and transistors more than 100 times tinier than those found in today’s microchips. When they are fabricated, however,… read more
More information has been produced and stored in the past five years than at any time in human history with e-mails, text messages, mobile phone calls, TV, and websites. This massive explosion in information has arguably empowered millions, transforming them from passive consumers of culture into active participants in a 24 hour global debate. But others claim that when the fog of new data has cleared, we will be left… read more
Moore’s Law is coming to an end, according to a recent research paper authored by Intel researchers. It theorizes that chipmakers will hit a wall at the 5-nanometer transistor gate length for chips made on a 16-nanometer technology process.
When the gate length gets below 5 nanometers, tunneling will begin to occur. Electrons will simply pass through the channel on their own, because the source and the drain will… read more
Applied Digital Solutions has announced plans to develop a service that would allow consumers to pay for merchandise using microchips implanted under their skin. Micro-chipped customers would scan themselves using special readers.
Snowmobile-maker Bombardier envisions a futuristic personal transport vehicle called Embrio. It would use gyroscope, electronic and fuel-cell technologies to whiz around in traffic on one wheel.
The Pentagon is drafting the Segway Human Transporter as part of a plan to develop battlefield robots that think on their own and communicate with troops.
Researchers say potential applications for the robots include performing search missions on the battlefield, transporting injured soldiers to safety, or following humans around while hauling their gear.