ScienceDaily: Top Technology News |
- Musical robot companion enhances listener experience
- Sifting through a trillion electrons
- Scientists find new primitive mineral in meteorite
- Structure of new superhard form of carbon established
- Gravitational lensing: Astronomers spot rare arc from hefty galaxy cluster
- Reaching, researching between stars: Astronomers use Lonestar supercomputer to explore role of dark matter in galaxy formation
- Better surfaces could help dissipate heat
- Seeing inside tissue for no-cut surgeries: Researchers develop technique to focus light inside biological tissue
- Rewriting quantum chips with a beam of light: Laser technique brings ultrafast computing closer to reality
- Scientists spark new interest in the century-old Edison battery
- Cheaper cell phones with better signal quality: World's most powerful nanoscale microwave oscillators developed
- Countering crowd control collapse: Crowd disasters likened to unstable fluid flows
- New toilet turns human waste into electricity and fertilizer
- The Internet of things: Smart houses, smart traffic, smart health
| Musical robot companion enhances listener experience Posted: 26 Jun 2012 01:38 PM PDT Wedding DJs everywhere should be worried about job security now that a new robot is on the scene. Shimi, an interactive musical companion recommends songs, dances to the beat and keeps the music pumping based on listener feedback.  |
| Sifting through a trillion electrons Posted: 26 Jun 2012 12:18 PM PDT Modern research tools like supercomputers, particle colliders, and telescopes are generating so much data, so quickly, many scientists fear that soon they will not be able to keep up with the deluge.  |
| Scientists find new primitive mineral in meteorite Posted: 26 Jun 2012 10:19 AM PDT In 1969, an exploding fireball tore through the sky over Mexico, scattering thousands of pieces of meteorite across the state of Chihuahua. More than 40 years later, the Allende meteorite is still serving the scientific community as a rich source of information about the early stages of our solar system's evolution. Recently, scientists discovered a new mineral embedded in the space rock -- one they believe to be among the oldest minerals formed in the solar system.  |
| Structure of new superhard form of carbon established Posted: 26 Jun 2012 10:17 AM PDT Researchers have established the structure of a new form of carbon. The team used a novel computational method to demonstrate that the properties of what had previously been thought to be only a hypothetical structure of a superhard form of carbon called "M-carbon" matched perfectly the experimental data on "superhard graphite."  |
| Gravitational lensing: Astronomers spot rare arc from hefty galaxy cluster Posted: 26 Jun 2012 10:12 AM PDT Seeing is believing, except when you don't believe what you see. Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a puzzling arc of light behind an extremely massive cluster of galaxies residing 10 billion light-years away. The galactic grouping, discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, was observed as it existed when the universe was roughly a quarter of its current age of 13.7 billion years. The giant arc is the stretched shape of a more distant galaxy whose light is distorted by the monster cluster's powerful gravity, an effect called gravitational lensing. The trouble is, the arc shouldn't exist.  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2012 08:52 AM PDT A new study reveals that dark matter is more distributed than predictions previously stated. Researchers used the TACC Lonestar supercomputer to simulate thousands of galaxy models based on the information retrieved at the McDonald Observatory and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  |
| Better surfaces could help dissipate heat Posted: 26 Jun 2012 08:52 AM PDT Researchers at MIT have found that relatively simple, microscale roughening of a surface can dramatically enhance its transfer of heat. Such an approach could be far less complex and more durable than approaches that enhance heat transfer through smaller patterning in the nanometer (billionths of a meter) range. The new research also provides a theoretical framework for analyzing the behavior of such systems, pointing the way to even greater improvements.  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2012 08:43 AM PDT Imagine if doctors could perform surgery without ever having to cut through your skin. Or if they could diagnose cancer by seeing tumors inside the body with a procedure that is as simple as an ultrasound. Thanks to a new technique, all of that may be possible in the not-so-distant future.  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2012 08:43 AM PDT The promise of ultrafast quantum computing has moved a step closer to reality with a technique to create rewritable computer chips using a beam of light. Researchers used light to control the spin of an atom's nucleus in order to encode information.  |
| Scientists spark new interest in the century-old Edison battery Posted: 26 Jun 2012 08:43 AM PDT Scientists have dramatically improved the performance of Thomas Edison's nickel-iron battery. The enhanced device could be used in electric vehicles, much as Edison originally envisioned.  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2012 06:27 AM PDT Researchers have developed the world's most powerful nanoscale microwave oscillators. The new electron spin-based oscillators use a spin-transfer torque magnetoresistive random access memory or STT-RAM, which has great potential over other types of memory currently in use for both speed and power efficiency. The new oscillators could lead to mobile communication devices that are less expensive to manufacture and deliver a much better signal quality.  |
| Countering crowd control collapse: Crowd disasters likened to unstable fluid flows Posted: 26 Jun 2012 06:26 AM PDT Understanding crowd dynamics can prevent disaster at cultural or sports events. Physicists investigating a recent crowd disaster in Germany found that one of the key causes was that at some point the crowd dynamics turned turbulent, akin to behavior found in unstable fluid flows. Never before have crowd disasters been studied by relying on a qualitative analysis of large public data sets. These include media and public authority reports, YouTube videos, Google Earth maps, 360Úphotographs, and other Internet sources.  |
| New toilet turns human waste into electricity and fertilizer Posted: 26 Jun 2012 04:29 AM PDT Scientists have invented a new toilet system that will turn human waste into electricity and fertilizers and also reduce the amount of water needed for flushing by up to 90 per cent compared to current toilet systems in Singapore.  |
| The Internet of things: Smart houses, smart traffic, smart health Posted: 26 Jun 2012 03:50 AM PDT 'The Internet of Things' involves the technology we use when the things around us are 'talking' to each other. The chips and sensors that identify these things also enable them to 'talk' to each other, or talk via the Internet and thus share and transfer information to the rest of the world. The fridge can tell you that a chicken fillet is on the verge if its expiry date. Your electric car can transfer power back to the grid so that it doesn't become overcharged, and if you have a chronic illness, you can be medically monitored and cared for via wireless sensor systems. We will soon have smart houses, smart traffic and smart health. Technology optimists claim that IoT technology will be the vital missing link enabling us to meet the major challenges associated with climate change, energy efficiency, mobility and future health services. The new technology will also create new products, new services, new interfaces and new applications.  |
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