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Acoustic ‘cloaking device’ shields objects from sound

June 28, 2011

Acoustic Cloak

Scientists at Duke University have developed a cloaking device using metamaterials that makes objects invisible to sound waves.

The device uses stacked sheets of plastic with regular arrays of holes through them. The exact size and placement of the holes on each sheet, and the spacing between the sheets, has a predictable effect on incoming sound waves.

When placed on a flat surface, the stack redirects the waves such… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology

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Acoustic Cloak Designed

June 17, 2008

Engineers at Polytechnic University of Valencia have designed a metamaterial that redirects sounds and could be used in buildings to shield them from noises.

The sound-shielding material comprises arrays of sonic crystals, which, if made, would be the first acoustic cloaking device. It could also be useful in hiding military ships and other vessels from sonar.

Topics: Electronics

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Acoustic cell-sorting chip may lead to cell-phone-sized medical labs

October 3, 2012

acoustic_cell_sorting_chip

A technique that uses acoustic waves to sort cells on a chip may create miniature medical analytic devices.

The device uses two beams of standing surface acoustic waves (SSAW) to act as acoustic tweezers to sort a continuous flow of cells on a dime-sized chip, said Tony Jun Huang, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics, Penn State.

By changing the frequency of the acoustic… read more

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

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Acoustic Black Hole Created in Bose-Einstein Condensate

June 11, 2009

The sonic equivalent of a black hole in a Bose-Einstein Condensate has been created by Israel Institute of Technology researchers using a deep potential well to generate an event horizon between subsonic and supersonic flow of atoms.

Sonic black holes ought to produce Hawking radiation, since quantum mechanics predicts that pairs of “virtual” phonons with equal and opposite momentum ought to be constantly springing in and out of existence… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology | Quantum

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Acid Blockers Linked to Pneumonia Risk

May 27, 2009

Use of proton pump inhibitors and other acid-suppressing drugs was associated with a 30% increased risk of hospital-acquired pneumonia in a study by researcher Shoshana J. Herzig, MD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard School of Medicine.

Herzig and colleagues estimate that 180,000 cases of hospital-acquired pneumonia and 33,000 deaths each year may be due to their use.

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

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Achieving Fiber-Optic Speeds over Copper Lines

April 26, 2010

Alcatel-Lucent has developed a prototype technology that could dramatically increase the speed of data communications, using two copper phone lines: 100 megabits per second at one kilometer.

Topics: Internet/Telecom

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Acclaimed science series ‘Cosmos’ to be revamped with Neil deGrasse Tyson

August 9, 2011

Carl Sagan’s classic television series Cosmos, considered by many to be one of the greatest science series of all-time, is returning to television on Fox, reports Deadline.

Standing in for Sagan as host will be famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. The show’s producers tell Deadline that the new Cosmos will tell “the story of how human beings began to comprehend the laws of nature and find our place in… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | Physics/Cosmology

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Access to next-gen Internet may be uneven

May 23, 2008

Graham Finnie, chief analyst for the telecom research firm Heavy Reading, believes 13 percent of U.S. households will be connected to fiber by 2012. Since Verizon is the major builder, the vast majority of those will be in Verizon territory on the East Coast, Texas and California.

“A quarter of the U.S. is going to get one of the best networks in the world,” said Dave Burstein, editor of… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom

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Accelerating-change conference announced

July 14, 2003

The Accelerating Change Conference (ACC2003): Exploring the Future of Accelerating Change, will be held at Stanford University, September 12-14, 2003.

ACC2003 speakers include Ray Kurzweil (via Teleportec’s 3D Telepresence Lectern); venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson; K. Eric Drexler, Founder and Chairman of Foresight Institute; Greg Papadopoulos, CTO of Sun Microsystems; Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly & Associates; Howard Bloom, author of Global Brain; and… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

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Accelerating Change 2005 focuses on AI and IA

August 31, 2005

This year’s Accelerating Change 2005 conference (AC2005), Sept. 16-18 at Stanford, promises to be “outstanding,” organizer John Smart tells Accelerating Intelligence news, with 51 top speakers and emcees.

The conference focuses on “artificial intelligence and intelligence amplification transforming technology, empowering humanity.” Consistent with that theme, Ray Kurzweil will keynote the event and will distribute pre-publication signed copies of his The Singularity is Near to the first 250… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Singularity/Futures

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Accelerating Change

August 14, 2003

The defining political conflict of the 21st century is shaping up to be the battle over the future of technology. Fortunately, technological progress doesn’t just have opponents; it also has boosters.

The rise of neo-Luddism is calling forth self-conscious defenders of technological progress. Growing numbers of extropians, transhumanists, futurists and others are entering the intellectual fray to do battle against the neo-Luddite activists who oppose biotechnology, nanotechnology, and new… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

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Accelerated Living

September 7, 2001

“Imagine a Web, circa 2030, that will offer a panoply of virtual environments incorporating all of our senses, and in which there will be no clear distinction between real and simulated people.” That’s part of Ray Kurzweil’s imaginative view of the future in PC Magazine’s special “20th Anniversary of PCs” issue.
Among Kurzweil’s other forecasts for the next 30 years:

  • Miniaturized displays on our eyeglasses will provide

    • … read more

    Topics: Human Enhancement | Singularity/Futures

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    Accelerated electrons enable ‘extraordinarily strong’ negative refraction

    May lead to ultra-powerful microscopes and ability to grab viruses and even individual molecules
    August 2, 2012

    Metamaterials test chamber (credit: Eliza Grinnell, SEAS Communications)

    Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), collaborating with the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, have demonstrated a new way of achieving negative refraction in a metamaterial — as large as -700, more than a 100 times larger than most previously reported.

    “This work may bring the science and technology of negative refraction into an astoundingly miniaturized scale, confining the negatively… read more

    Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology

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    About Those Fearsome Black Holes? Never Mind

    July 22, 2004

    Stephen Hawking declared at a scientific conference in Dublin that he had been wrong in a controversial assertion he made 30 years ago about black holes.

    He had said information about what had been swallowed by a black hole could never be retrieved from it. This would have been a violation of quantum theory, which says that information is preserved.

    “I’m sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but… read more

    Topics: Quantum

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    Ability to ‘think about thinking’ not limited to humans

    Another distinction between "humans" and "animals" removed
    April 4, 2013

    Chimpanzee (credit: Thomas Lersch/Wikimedia Commons)

    Humans’ closest animal relatives, chimpanzees, have metacognition — knowing what one knows, according to new research by scientists at Georgia State University and the University at Buffalo.

    “The demonstration of metacognition in nonhuman primates has important implications regarding the emergence of self-reflective mind during humans’ cognitive evolution,” the research team noted.

    Metacognition is the ability to recognize one’s own cognitive states. For example, a game show… read more

    Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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