Archive for the ‘materials’ category: Page 275
Mar 1, 2016
Could protein-powered ‘biocomputers’ be the future of IT?
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: computing, materials, singularity
This does make it easier for the whole concept of Singularity to exist.
Scientists prove we are tantalisingly close to creating the next generation of computer components made of organic living materials, as we move beyond Moore’s Law and into exotic new devices.
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Feb 29, 2016
These bizarre organisms could represent a new branch on the tree of life
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: biotech/medical, materials
The strangest life forms on Earth just got a lot stranger.
In 2003, Didier Raoult of Aix-Marseille University in France and his colleagues discovered a new kind of virus lurking inside single-celled protozoans.
Like other viruses, it couldn’t grow on its own, lacking the biochemical machinery to build proteins and genes. Instead, it had to infect host cells and use their material to produce new viruses.
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Feb 29, 2016
Graphene Patterned After Moth Eyes Could Give Us ‘Smart Wallpaper’
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: materials
Tweaking the structure of graphene so that it matches patterns found in the eyes of moths could one day give us “smart wallpaper,” among a host of other useful technologies.
Using a novel technique called “nano texturing,” scientists at the University of Surrey in England have successfully modified ultra-thin graphene sheets to create the most efficient light-absorbent material to date, which is capable of generating electricity from both captured light and waste heat. They described their work in a new paper in Science Advances.
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Feb 29, 2016
A Material That’s Better Than Graphene? Scientists Say They’ve Found it
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: materials, particle physics
What could be better than a material that’s super flexible, only one atom thick, and is 200 times stronger than steel? A material that’s equally strong and flexible, also only one atom thick, and inexpensive.
Scientists are asserting that this new discovery could potentially upstage the world’s greatest wonder material, graphene.
Feb 27, 2016
New Virtual Reality Suit Lets You Reach Out & Touch ‘Environment’
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: materials, mobile phones, virtual reality, wearables
And, this will only be the beginning because with the lightering weight materials that have been develop we will see some amazing VR suits coming.
Virtual reality could one day incorporate all the senses, creating a rich and immersive experience, but existing virtual reality headsets only simulate things you can see and hear. But now, a group of engineers wants to help people “touch” virtual environments in a more natural way, and they built a wearable suit to do just that.
Designed by Lucian Copeland, Morgan Sinko and Jordan Brooks while they were students at the University of Rochester, in New York, the suit looks something like a bulletproof vest or light armor. Each section of the suit has a small motor in it, not unlike the one that makes a mobile phone vibrate to signal incoming messages. In addition, there are small accelerometers embedded in the suit’s arms.
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Feb 26, 2016
ATR 72 prototype tests all-electrical energy management system
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: electronics, energy, materials, transportation
European turboprop aircraft manufacturer ATR said a prototype ATR 72 conducted a demonstration flight to test an all-electrical energy management system that aims to optimize electrical power distribution.
The flight is the second the ATR 72 demonstration aircraft has flown as part of the European Union’s “Clean Sky Joint Undertaking” program. The first test flight by the ATR 72 prototype, conducted in July 2015, trialed “new and more effective composite insulation materials and new vibro-acoustic sensors integrated into a large panel of the ATR aircraft fuselage,” ATR said in a statement.
The manufacturer said the two demonstration flights “also tested new generation optical fibers for improved identification of micro-cracks and easier maintenance.”
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Feb 26, 2016
NASA’s IBEX Observations Pin Down Interstellar Magnetic Field
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: materials, particle physics, space
The new paper is based on one particular theory of the origin of the IBEX ribbon, in which the particles streaming in from the ribbon are actually solar material reflected back at us after a long journey to the edges of the sun’s magnetic boundaries. (NASA Image)
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – The new paper is based on one particular theory of the origin of the IBEX ribbon, in which the particles streaming in from the ribbon are actually solar material reflected back at us after a long journey to the edges of the sun’s magnetic boundaries.
A giant bubble, known as the heliosphere, exists around the sun and is filled with what’s called solar wind, the sun’s constant outflow of ionized gas, known as plasma.
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Feb 26, 2016
Artificial control of exciplexes opens possibilities for new electronics
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: computing, electronics, materials, solar power, sustainability
Demonstrating a strategy that could form the basis for a new class of electronic devices with uniquely tunable properties, researchers at Kyushu University were able to widely vary the emission color and efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes based on exciplexes simply by changing the distance between key molecules in the devices by a few nanometers.
This new way to control electrical properties by slightly changing the device thickness instead of the materials could lead to new kinds of organic electronic devices with switching behavior or light emission that reacts to external factors.
Organic electronic devices such as OLEDs and organic solar cells use thin films of organic molecules for the electrically active materials, making flexible and low-cost devices possible.
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Feb 26, 2016
Microrobots learn from ciliates
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, materials, robotics/AI
Ciliates can do amazing things: Being so tiny, the water in which they live is like thick honey to these microorganisms. In spite of this, however, they are able to self-propel through water by the synchronized movement of thousands of extremely thin filaments on their outer skin, called cilia. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart are now moving robots that are barely perceptible to the human eye in a similar manner through liquids. For these microswimmers, the scientists are neither employing complex driving elements nor external forces such as magnetic fields. The team of scientists headed by Peer Fischer have built a ciliate-inspired model using a material that combines the properties of liquid crystals and elastic rubbers, rendering the body capable of self-propelling upon exposure to green light. Mini submarines navigating the human body and detecting and curing diseases may still be the stuff of science fiction, but applications for the new development in Stuttgart could see the light-powered materials take the form of tiny medical assistants at the end of an endoscope.
Their tiny size makes life extremely difficult for swimming microorganisms. As their movement has virtually no momentum, the friction between the water and their outer skin slows them down considerably — much like trying to swim through thick honey. The viscosity of the medium also prevents the formation of turbulences, something that could transfer the force to the water and thereby drive the swimmer. For this reason, the filaments beat in a coordinated wave-like movement that runs along the entire body of the single-celled organism, similar to the legs of a centipede. These waves move the liquid along with them so that the ciliate — measuring roughly 100 micrometres, i.e. a tenth of a millimetre, as thick as a human hair — moves through the liquid.
“Our aim was to imitate this type of movement with a microrobot,” says Stefano Palagi, first author of the study at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, which also included collaborating scientists from the Universities of Cambridge, Stuttgart and Florence. Fischer, who is also a Professor for Physical Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart, states that it would be virtually impossible to build a mechanical machine at the length scale of the ciliate that also replicates its movement, as it would need to have hundreds of individual actuators, not to mention their control and energy supply.
