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Research Watch

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Brain-to-brain communication over the Internet

By Darren Quick

22:14 October 6, 2009 PDT

Dr. Chris James demonstrates brain to brain communication, using BCI to transmit thoughts ...

Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) is a hot area of research. In the past year alone we’ve looked at a system to allow people to control a robotic arm and another that enables users to control an ASIMO robot with nothing but the power of thought. Such systems rely on the use of an electroencephalograph (EEG) to capture brain waves and translate them into commands to control a machine. Now researchers at the University of Southampton have used a similar technique to show it is possible to transmit thoughts from one person to another. Read More

Femtoseconds lasers will help formation flying in space

By Dario Borghino

14:26 October 6, 2009 PDT

The X-Ray Observatory set for launch after 2020 might be the spacecrafts to use femtosecon...

Theoretical work commissioned to the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) by the European Space Agency has recently concluded that lasers capable of generating extremely short pulses — known as "femtosecond comb lasers" — could be of great help in measuring the distance between two or more spacecraft to an accuracy of just a few microns, an essential component to formation flying space missions scheduled for the next decades. Read More

A hard rain's gonna fall on exoplanet COROT-7b

By Mick Webb

04:12 October 5, 2009 PDT

An artist's impression of the exoplanet COROT-7b. Theoretical models suggest it may have l...

Raining rocks? The concept may not be as preposterous as it sounds according to scientists at Washington University in St Louis who have theorized that a recently-discovered exoplanet, COROT-7b, may have an atmosphere that does exactly that. Read More

'Time telescope' speeds up optical transmission by 27 times

By Dario Borghino

22:17 October 4, 2009 PDT

The time telescope could speed up optical communication by over 27 times. (Photo: Wikimedi...

Most of today's telecommunication data is encoded at a speed of 10 Gbit/s, but researchers are constantly looking for new ways to push this limit even further. A group of researchers at Cornell University have recently come up with the "time telescope," a sophisticated system that can speed up optical communication by 27 times to an outstanding 270 Gbits/s by squeezing more information into a single flash of light and that, unlike previous solutions, does so in an energy-efficient manner. Read More

Better control over nanotube growth promises important advances in electronics

By Dario Borghino

02:12 October 3, 2009 PDT

Researchers have found that using argon or helium during the nanotube growth process can i...

Researchers at the Honda Research Institute, Purdue University and the University of Louisville have discovered a way to systematically grow carbon nanotubes with either metallic or semiconducting properties, solving a long-standing problem in nanotechnology research and paving the way for the widespread use of nanotubes in electronics. Read More

Glass casting meets the digital age: 3-D glass printing method developed

By Dario Borghino

17:25 September 28, 2009 PDT

Vitraglyphic allows for much faster and cheaper manufacturing of high-precision glass prot...

A team of engineers and artists at the University of Washington's Solheim Rapid Manufacturing Laboratory has revived an ancient Egyptian glass casting method and developed "Vitraglyphic," a technique to manufacture glass objects from fine glass powder using computer-aided design and a 3-D printer, paving the way for a significantly faster and cheaper method for artists, architects and designers to build high-precision prototypes. Read More

Scientists block insects' sense of smell to protect crops

By Jeff Salton

15:00 September 27, 2009 PDT

Scientists are hoping that by confusing insects' sense of smell, they won't be able to loc...

Good news for crop farmers this week with UK scientists discovering molecules they hope will confuse insects’ sense of smell and therefore their ability to detect plants – and each other. The researchers believe this could reduce the damage insects cause to crops and lead to better food security. Roughly one-quarter of the world’s crops are lost annually to pests and disease. Read More

New computer tool could lead to better crops and safer pesticides

By Jeff Salton

21:11 September 23, 2009 PDT

Scientists are hoping their computing tool prototype will lead to better crops, like longe...

Researchers engaged in developing new strains of crops, such as drought-resistant wheat and new pesticides that are more environmentally-friendly, are also creating a computing tool that could help scientists predict how plants will react to different environmental conditions. It’s hoped their findings will help create better crops, such as tastier and longer-lasting tomatoes. Read More

Adding graphene could mean cheaper Lithium-ion batteries

By Darren Quick

01:01 September 23, 2009 PDT

Graphene - the one-atom thick wonder material made up of a honeycomb lattice of carbon ato...

It’s not only integrated circuits that look set to benefit from the use of graphene, the one-atom thick wonder material made up of a honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms. Researchers have discovered that adding graphene to titanium dioxide for use as electrodes in batteries improves performance over standard titanium oxide by a factor of three. This could pave the way for inexpensive titanium dioxide to replace the expensive, rare-earth metals or fire-prone carbon-based materials used in today's lithium-ion batteries. Read More

Self-healing electronics using carbon nanotube-filled microcapsules

By Darren Quick

21:02 September 17, 2009 PDT

Microcapsules filled with carbon nanotubes could be used to repair electronic circuits 
 (...

Dropping an electrical device such as a mobile phone or laptop can prompt a few anxious moments as you rush to see whether your beloved device has survived the fall. Now researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are working to make such incidents a little less distressing - they're developing a self-healing first-aid kit for electrical systems that could stop circuits failing and lead to safer, longer lasting batteries. Read More

NAVTEQ study shows traffic-enabled navigation saves drivers four days a year

By Jude Garvey

01:47 September 16, 2009 PDT

Traffic-enabled navigation systems could save you time and money

It wasn’t so long ago that most of us relied on the humble road map to get us from A to B, but with the advent of GPS navigation systems, our map-reading skills are rarely required. There is no denying the usefulness of GPS systems, particularly if you have a tendency to get lost, but do they actually save you time? According to a recent proprietary research study, if you have a traffic-enabled GPS and spend most of your time on busy roads, you could save yourself up to four days a year. Read More

Heart of research lies in Xbox 360 chip

By Jeff Salton

21:27 September 15, 2009 PDT

Dr Simon Scarle used the processing power of the Xbox 360 to conduct scientific simulation...

Finally, video-gamers whose parents told them that playing games would never help them get a job can point to research that proves them wrong – well, sort of, anyway. A new study by a University of Warwick researcher has demonstrated that scientists trying to model a range of processes could ‘borrow’ an Xbox chip to get all the power and capabilities they need, saving thousands of dollars on parallel processing hardware and/or countless man-hours. Read More

Carbon nanotubes used to build a near-ideal efficiency solar cell

By Dario Borghino

04:34 September 14, 2009 PDT

The carbon nanotube photodiode forces electrons one by one, resulting in much higher-effic...

Today's photovoltaic technology, while certainly promising, offers very poor efficiency because of inherent issues in its working mechanism. Using carbon nanotubes, however, Cornell University researchers now hope to lead the way to the next generation of highly efficient solar panels. Read More

Graffiti-proofing our history

By Jeff Salton

01:09 September 14, 2009 PDT

A new polymer coating has been designed to protect historic buildings from graffiti while ...

Graffiti is not only ugly, it costs society millions of dollars to remove it. But graffiti on historic landmarks is worse because it often can't be removed using basic caustic solutions without damage to the underlying surface. Now a new, breathable coating could help preserve some of our most beautiful and priceless links to the past by providing them with an efficient, all-round protection against attacks by taggers. Read More

New thinner, safer, blast-resistant glass

By Darren Quick

00:54 September 14, 2009 PDT

Sanjeev Khanna, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the MU Coll...

Conventional blast-resistant glass is more than an inch thick and expensive, but researchers are developing and testing a new type of blast-resistant glass that is less than one-half of an inch thick, lighter and yet less vulnerable to small-scale explosions. Read More

Graphite could revolutionize mass data storage AND circuit design

By Dario Borghino

11:25 September 10, 2009 PDT

Graphite stripes are deposited onto silicon with industry-standard lithography to obtain a...

Graphite has long been known to have unique electrical properties and has therefore been put forward by many as a possible substitute for silicon for use in integrated circuitry. Now, in a major step towards making graphene-based electronics, researchers from Rice University have published the results of work on graphite-based mass data storage and reprogrammable gate arrays. Read More

New NanoPen technique could make your home projector a cutting-edge nanotech lab

By Dario Borghino

17:10 September 9, 2009 PDT

A few examples of the NanoPen in action. Gold particles 90 nanometers in diameter and a co...

A research team from the University of California, Berkeley, has reported developing NanoPen, an innovative and accessible technique that could prove especially useful in laying down patterns of nanoparticles for conveniently manufacturing miniaturized electronics with great speed and accuracy. Read More

Arctic warming overtakes 2,000 years of natural cooling

By Gizmag Team

20:55 September 6, 2009 PDT

The blue line shows estimates of Arctic temperatures over the last 2,000 years. The green ...

Arctic temperatures in the 1990s reached their warmest level of any decade in at least 2,000 years, new research indicates. The study, which incorporates geologic records and computer simulations, provides new evidence that the Arctic would be cooling if not for greenhouse gas emissions that are overpowering natural climate patterns. The international study, led by Northern Arizona University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will be published in the September 4 edition of Science. Read More

Newly-developed 'graphone' makes spintronic devices closer than ever

By Dario Borghino

19:29 September 3, 2009 PDT

Representation of a graphone sheet. The semi-hydrogenation of graphene (hydrogen atoms are...

A team of researchers from the Virginia Commonwealth University, Peking University in Beijing, the Chinese Academy of Science, and Tohoku University in Japan has designed a new graphite-based magnetic nanomaterial that behaves as a semiconductor and could prove very important for ongoing research in the field of spintronics. Read More

Sound could be the key in building tomorrow's nanostructures

By Dario Borghino

19:55 September 1, 2009 PDT

'Acoustic tweezers' enable flexible on-chip manipulation and patterning of cells using sta...

Researchers from Penn State University have found a way to precisely manipulate tiny objects using sound rather than optical instruments with a quick, energy-effective and technologically-simple technique that could have important applications in the fields of nanotechnology and biological research. Read More

Nanoscale lasers continue to shrink, heralding new era in optical science

By Darren Quick

20:28 August 31, 2009 PDT

Schematic of light being compressed and sustained in the 5 nanometer gap (left) and an ele...

Breakthroughs are coming thick and fast – or should that be thin and fast – in the field of nanoscale lasers. It wasn’t even a month ago that we reported on the development of a laser emitting 'metal-semiconductor-metal sandwich', made up of a semiconductor as thin as 80 nanometers laying between 20-nanometer dielectric layers. But now researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have reached a new milestone in laser physics by creating the world's smallest semiconductor laser, capable of generating visible light in a space smaller than a single protein molecule. Read More

Organic molecule sandwich may satisfy appetite for molecule-sized electronic components

By Darren Quick

21:37 August 27, 2009 PDT

In comparison to the substantially rougher gold surfaces created by other methods, (left),...

Researchers have found a way of sandwiching organic molecules between silicon and metal that could allow the creation of electronic switches made from individual molecules. Using molecules as switches carries the promise of even smaller electronic components that can be produced cheaply in huge numbers, perform faster than their larger silicon brethren, and use only a fraction of their energy. Read More

Tunable electromagnetic 'invisible gateway' brings science closer to fiction

By Dario Borghino

17:30 August 26, 2009 PDT

The structure of the invisible electromagnetic gateway is comprised of two perfect electri...

Harnessing the unique properties of metamaterials, researchers in China have recently published a work detailing the implementation of a thin air, broadband and remotely controllable 'invisible gateway' that is able to shield all types of electromagnetic waves while letting through all other physical objects. Read More

Newly theorized active cloaking could achieve broadband invisibility

By Dario Borghino

18:41 August 24, 2009 PDT

With active cloaking, three devices placed around an object neutralize and later rebuild t...

Mathematicians at the University of Utah have recently announced they have elaborated an innovative way to shield two-dimensional objects from all types of waves, from electromagnetic to those caused by natural events like earthquakes and tsunamis, leading the way to a completely new approach to achieving invisibility. Read More

Extending Moore’s Law using nuclear fusion

By Darren Quick

22:22 August 20, 2009 PDT

Nuclear engineer Ahmed Hassanein in his Purdue lab (Photo: Vincent Walter)

We recently looked at a technique that could help extend Moore’s Law by using DNA molecules as scaffolding to pack more power and speed into computer chips. Now researchers from Purdue University and the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory are working to achieve the same result by adapting the same methods used in fusion-energy research to create extremely thin plasma beams for a new class of 'nanolithography'. Read More

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