Information Technologies
Robotic instruments provide real-time data on Maine red tide
May 8, 2013 12:36 pm | News | Comments
A robotic sensor that won an R&D 100 Award in 2009 has been put to use by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Gulf of Maine coastal waters to monitor the way red tides behave. These harmful algal blooms, which generate a potentially fatal toxin, can be a challenge to track or predict. The Environmental Sample Processors have been remotely deployed and should simplify and enhance this effort.
Earth’s mantle may affect long-term sea-level rise estimates
May 24, 2013 11:27 am | by Rob Enslin, Syracuse University | News | Comments
From Virginia to Florida, there is a prehistoric shoreline that, in some parts, rests...
Scientists offer first definitive proof of bacteria-feeding behavior in green algae
May 23, 2013 11:21 pm | News | Comments
A team of researchers has captured images of green alga consuming bacteria, offering a glimpse...
Cradle turns smartphone into handheld biosensor
May 23, 2013 10:49 pm | by Liz Ahlberg, University of Illinois | News | Comments
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers have developed a cradle and app...
Scientists build record-setting metamaterial flat lens
May 24, 2013 10:20 am | News | CommentsFor the first time, scientists working NIST have demonstrated a new type of lens that bends and focuses ultraviolet light in a way that it can create ghostly, 3D images of objects that float in free space. The easy-to-build lens could lead to improved photolithography, nanoscale manipulation and manufacturing, and even high-resolution 3D imaging, as well as a number of as-yet-unimagined applications in a diverse range of fields.
NSF and SRC to fund research to create failure-resistant circuits
May 24, 2013 5:00 am | News | CommentsLeaders of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world's leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, this week announced 18 new projects funded through a joint initiative to address research challenges in the design of failure-resistant circuits and systems.
Cell phone technology helps horses recover from surgery
May 23, 2013 12:30 pm | News | CommentsTechnology that’s used in smartphones and other electronic devices also is being used by veterinarians at the University of Illinois to help horses recover safely from anesthesia. The technology, known as accelerometers, are portable data recorders that capture information on motion, vibration, and impact
Innovation could bring flexible solar cells, transistors
May 23, 2013 8:07 am | News | CommentsResearchers have created a new type of transparent electrode that might find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics, and future "optoelectronic" circuits for sensors and information processing. The electrode is made of silver nanowires covered with a material called graphene, an extremely thin layer of carbon.
Army Ground Combat Systems adopts Sandia tool
May 21, 2013 11:35 am | News | CommentsSandia National Laboratories has developed key components of a software tool to help the Army's PEO GCS analyze countless what-if scenarios that can be manipulated as technology advances and the global environment, the federal budget, or other factors change. Sandia calls this advanced combination of modeling, simulation, and optimization decision support software the Capability Portfolio Analysis Tool (CPAT).
Iron-platinum alloys show promise for next-generation hard drives
May 21, 2013 9:56 am | News | CommentsMeeting the demand for more data storage in smaller volumes means using materials made up of ever-smaller magnets, or nanomagnets. One promising material for a potential new generation of recording media is an alloy of iron and platinum with an ordered crystal structure.
Computational tool simplifies complex data into 2D images
May 20, 2013 9:30 am | News | CommentsResearchers at Columbia University and Stanford University have developed a computational method that enables scientists to visualize and interpret "high-dimensional" data produced by single-cell measurement technologies such as mass cytometry. A sophisticated algorithm converts difficult-to-interpret data into visual representations similar to two-dimensional "scatter plots".
Nanoantennas help improve infrared sensing
May 20, 2013 7:52 am | News | CommentsA team of University of Pennsylvania engineers has used a pattern of nanoantennas to develop a new way of turning infrared light into mechanical action, opening the door to more sensitive infrared cameras and more compact chemical analysis techniques.
Weather on the outer planets only goes so deep
May 16, 2013 12:31 pm | News | CommentsThe planets Uranus and Neptune are home to extreme winds blowing at speeds of over 1,000 km/hour, hurricane-like storms as large around as Earth, immense weather systems that last for years, and fast-flowing jet streams. Researchers using a new method for analyzing the gravitational field of these planets have determined an upper limit for the thickness of the atmospheric layer, which limits the depth of stormy weather.
Insights into how materials transfer heat could lead to improved electronics
May 16, 2013 10:50 am | News | CommentsUniversity of Toronto engineering researchers, working with colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University, have published new insights into how materials transfer heat, which could lead eventually to smaller, more powerful electronic devices.
Computer research project shows shift in English language
May 16, 2013 7:38 am | News | CommentsUniversity of Illinois English professor Ted Underwood recently wrapped up a research project involving more than 4,200 books. Since that work revealed dramatic shifts in the English language between the 18th and 19th centuries, he’s now expanding his research to include more than 470,000 books—almost every English language book written during that era and preserved in a university library.
Engineers monitor heart health using paper-thin flexible 'skin'
May 15, 2013 3:21 pm | News | CommentsEngineers combine layers of flexible materials into pressure sensors to create a wearable heart monitor thinner than a dollar bill. The skin-like device could one day provide doctors with a safer way to check the condition of a patient's heart.
Making frequency-hopping radios practical
May 15, 2013 7:45 am | by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office | News | CommentsThe way in which radio spectrum is currently allocated to different wireless technologies can lead to gross inefficiencies. Cognitive radio serves as a solution. Different proposals for cognitive radio place different emphases on hardware and software, but the chief component of many hardware approaches is a bank of filters that can isolate any frequency in a wide band. Researchers have developed a new method for manufacturing such filters.
Software spots, isolates cyberattacks to protect networked control systems
May 14, 2013 11:06 am | News | CommentsResearchers from North Carolina State University have developed a software algorithm that detects and isolates cyberattacks on networked control systems—which are used to coordinate transportation, power, and other infrastructure across the United States.
GM says supercomputers to keep recalls in check
May 13, 2013 3:31 pm | by TOM KRISHER - AP Auto Writer - Associated Press | News | CommentsGeneral Motors says a new supercomputer data storage center and efforts to write its own software are paying off. The company formally opened a giant data center on Monday in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Mich. The Detroit automaker says the changes are examples of how it's moving faster to cut costs and serve customers better.
Feynman's double-slit experiment preserved
May 13, 2013 8:05 am | News | CommentsDescribed as the "most beautiful experiment in physics," Richard Feynman emphasized how the diffraction of individual particles at a grating is an unambiguous demonstration of wave-particle duality and contrary to classical physics. A research team recently used carefully made fluorescent molecules and nanometric detection accuracy to provide clear and tangible evidence of the quantum behavior of large molecules in real time.
Nano-breakthrough: Solving the case of the herringbone crystal
May 13, 2013 7:54 am | News | CommentsLeading nanoscientists created beautiful, tiled patterns with flat nanocrystals, but they were left with a mystery: Why did some sets of crystals arrange themselves in an alternating, herringbone style? To find out, they turned to experts in computer simulation at the University of Michigan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Revising Darwin's sinking-island theory
May 13, 2013 7:41 am | by Genevieve Wanucha, Oceans at MIT | News | CommentsThe three different formations of South Pacific coral-reef islands, fringing, barrier, and atoll, have long fascinated geologists. The question of how reefs develop into these shapes over evolutionary time produced an enduring conflict between two hypotheses, one from Charles Darwin and the other from Reginald Daly. But in a recently published paper, researchers use modern measurements and computer modeling to resolve this old conundrum.
Mathematics of popping bubbles in a foam
May 10, 2013 7:42 am | News | CommentsBubble baths and soapy dishwater and the refreshing head on a beer: These are foams, beautiful yet ephemeral as the bubbles pop one by one. Now, a team of researchers has described mathematically the successive stages in the complex evolution and disappearance of foamy bubbles, a feat that could help in modeling industrial processes in which liquids mix or in the formation of solid foams such as those used to cushion bicycle helmets.
Scientists find new magic in magnetic material
May 8, 2013 4:04 pm | News | CommentsFrom powerful computers to super-sensitive medical and environmental detectors that are faster, smaller, and use less energy—yes, we want them, but how do we get them? In research that is helping to lay the groundwork for the electronics of the future, University of Delaware scientists have confirmed the presence of a magnetic field generated by electrons which scientists had theorized existed, but that had never been proven until now.
Electronics comes to paper
May 8, 2013 9:43 am | News | CommentsPaper, a light and foldable raw material, could be a cost-efficient and simple basis for electronic devices if a practical solution for depositing conductive structures could be found. Researchers in Germany say they have done this by creating targeted structures by printing and heating a catalyst on a sheet of paper. The solution was created with a conventional inkjet printer.
Prototype provides pedestrian power
May 8, 2013 7:44 am | News | CommentsA group of Rice University mechanical engineering students are getting a charge out of having the coolest new shoes on campus. As their capstone project that is required for graduation, four seniors created a way to extract and store energy with every step. Their PediPower shoes turn motion into juice for portable electronics and, perhaps someday, for life-preserving medical devices.
Thomson Reuters Enhances Accelus BoardLink Mobile Offering
May 8, 2013 5:06 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsThomson Reuters announced a range of strategic enhancements to its Accelus BoardLink service, a secure board workflow solution designed to serve companies as they operate across borders and involve increasingly mobile, global boards. The boards of public companies face heightened scrutiny from investors, regulators, and the media, and are therefore increasingly reliant on technology for support and assistance.
Telling time on Saturn
May 3, 2013 12:30 pm | News | CommentsA University of Iowa undergraduate student has discovered that a process occurring in Saturn’s magnetosphere is linked to the planet's seasons and changes with them, a finding that helps clarify the length of a Saturn day and could alter our understanding of the Earth’s magnetosphere.
Study shows that individual brain cells track where we are, how we move
May 3, 2013 9:36 am | News | CommentsLeaving the house in the morning may seem simple, but with every move we make, our brains are working to create maps of the outside world that allow us to navigate and remember where we are. Ultimately, the brain constructs its own pinpoint geographical chart that is far more precise than anything you'd find on Google Maps. But just how neurons make these maps of space has fascinated scientists for decades. Until now.
