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Researchers have figured out a way to plug into the power generated by trees. Scientists have known for some time that plants can conduct electricity. In fact, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that plants can pack up to
M Simon at iecfusiontech reports that IEC (inertial electrostatic) fusion has gotten $8 million in funding. IEC Fusion is one of the most promising routes to commercial nuclear fusion and a possible solution to all of our energy problems. If it works
In slapstick comedy, the fall guy gets the pie in the face when the clown in front of him ducks. It’s funny because most of us instinctively duck when we see something coming. But two recent experimental studies are revealing new automated capabil
The problem of people who take more than their fair share of public services is as old as public services themselves. On a small scale, the problem merely blends into all the other inefficiencies in the system. But if freeloading becomes too pe
Eric Giler wants to untangle our wired lives with cable-free electric
power. Here, he covers what this sci-fi tech offers, and demos MIT's
breakthrough version, WiTricity -- a near-to-market invention that may
soon recharge your cell phone, car, pacemaker.
Scientists have created the final predicted form of stable ice, called ice XV, in the lab. But don’t worry — Kurt Vonnegut had nothing to do with it, and the exotic new form of ice can’t destroy civilization.
Types of ice are classified by how close the water molecules pack together and the structure the molecules arrange themselves in. With the new discovery, researchers have identified 16 forms of ice (including two types of ice I) named in order of discovery. Most of the ice on Earth is type Ih (h for hexagonal, hence the six-sided symmetry of all snowflakes). Researchers had long predicted the existence of ice XV, but had never seen it before.
“We have removed the question mark from the phase diagram of water,” says Christoph Salzmann of the University of Oxford in England, coauthor of a paper published online September 2 in Physical Review Letters. A phase diagram maps how molecules will behave at certain pressures and temperatures.
To cre
Forget about 20/20. “Perfect” vision could be redefined by gadgets that give you the eyes of a cyborg.
The tech industry calls the digital enrichment of the physical world “augmented reality.” Such technology is already appearing in smartphones and toys, and enthusiasts dream of a pair of glasses we could don to enhance our everyday perception. But why stop there?
Scientists, eye surgeons, professors and students at the University of Washington have been developing a contact lens containing one built-in LED, powered wirelessly with radio frequency waves.
Eventually, more advanced versions of the lens could be used to provide a wealth of information, such as virtual captions scrolling beneath every person or object you see. Significantly, it could also be used to monitor your own vital signs, such as body temperature and blood glucose level.
Why a contact lens? The surface of the eye contains enough data about the body to perform personal health
A large international research team has decoded the genome of the notorious organism that triggered the Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century and now threatens this season's tomato and potato crops across much of the US.
Published in the September 9 online issue of the journal Nature, the study reveals that the organism boasts an unusually large genome size more than twice that of closely related species and an extraordinary genome structure, which together appear to enable the rapid evolution of genes, particularly those involved in plant infection. These data expose an unusual mechanism that enables the pathogen to outsmart its plant hosts and may help researchers unlock new ways to control it.
Much larger than modern eagles, Haast's eagle would have swooped to
prey on flightless birds — and possibly even the rare unlucky human.
An unlikely team of cardiologists and plastic surgeons have found a way to make adult induced pluripotent stem cells quickly and easily from a readily available resource--fat
Other researchers have made live frogs and grasshoppers float in mid-air before, but such research with mice, being closer biologically to humans, could help in studies to counteract bone loss due to reduced gravity over long spans of time, as might be expected in deep space missions or on the surfaces of other planets.
As part of a greater effort to someday build computing elements at an atomic scale, IBM scientists in Zurich have taken the highest-resolution image ever of an individual molecule using non-contact atomic force microscopy. Performed in an ultrahigh vacuum at 5 degrees Kelvin, scientists were able to "to look through the electron cloud and see the atomic backbone of an individual molecule for the first time," a feat necessary for the further development of atomic scale electronic building blocks.
Atomic force microscopy employs a cantilever so small that its tip tapers to a nanoscale point. As the microscope scans, the cantilever bounces up and down in response to the miniscule forces between the tip and the sample, generating a picture of the sample’s surface. The pentacene molecule sampled consists of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms and measures 1.4 nanometers in length, with the space between carbon atoms registering at 0.14 nanometers, or ha
British archaeologists said they believe they have solved the ancient mystery of how the giant stone statues on Easter Island acquired distinctive red hats.
The researchers said the key to the mystery lies in their discovery of a road on the tiny Pacific island.
Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease
have traced the evolution of the four-chambered human heart to a common
genetic factor linked to the development of hearts in turtles and other
reptiles.
Ho and his research team originally demonstrated the application of nanodiamonds for chemotherapeutic delivery and subsequently discovered that the nanodiamonds also are extremely effective at delivering therapeutic proteins. Their work further has shown that nanodiamonds can sustain delivery while enhancing their specificity as well.
It may look like a piece of honeycomb, but this lattice-shaped image is the first ever close-up view of a single molecule.
Nanostructures preserved in feather fossils more than 40 million years old show evidence that those feathers were once vivid and iridescent in color, paleontologists say.
Iridescence is the quality of changing color depending on the angle of observation — it's what makes you see a rainbow in an oil slick.
Many insects, such as butterflies, display iridescent colors on their wings, as do many modern birds on their feathers.
Researchers in the US have found that firing a camera flash at graphite oxide is enough to make graphene – atom-thick sheets of carbon first discovered in 2004 that possess unique mechanical and electrical properties. The new process could also be used to make complex patterns of graphene that could be integrated into fast and flexible carbon-based electronic circuits.
The body's appendix has long been thought of as nothing more than a worthless evolutionary artifact, good for nothing save a potentially lethal case of inflammation.
Now researchers suggest the appendix is a lot more than a useless remnant. Not only was it recently proposed to actually possess a critical function, but scientists now find it appears in nature a lot more often than before thought. And it's possible some of this organ's ancient uses could be recruited by physicians to help the human body fight disease more effectively.
Scientists have developed a [10 lb.] kidney dialysis machine small enough to be worn as a belt to allow patients to receive the treatment as they walk around.
A huge physics experiment built to detect gravitational waves has yet to find any.
Rather than be disappointed by the null findings, physicists say the results were expected, and in fact help them narrow down possibilities for what the universe was like just after it was born.
An operating speed of close to 120 mph seems plausible and is a major challenge to other carriers. Add a thirty mph tail wind by skillful navigation and it is a quick trip to Chicago from LA. It appears everyone has made the connection between present truck load size and desirable air ship design. Once there are several designs in the air providing service, markets will be proven able to handle much larger sizes. That will lead naturally to mega sized craft able to handle several shipping containers.
The achievement, unveiled in draft form in 2001 and finished in 2003, was hailed as one of humanity's major scientific achievements. Since then, sequencing "has become an order of magnitude cheaper and faster" every couple of years, said Lynda China, a medical researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. In 2007, the firm 454 Life Sciences did it in under three months and for less than a million dollars.
A new species of giant carnivorous plant has been discovered in the highlands of the central Philippines.
The pitcher plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is so big that it can catch rats as well as insects in its leafy trap.
Using supercritical fluids, researchers in the UK deposited 3nm copper wiring by infiltrating the fluid into porous SiO2.
While commercial deployment depends on next-generation patterning
methods, the process is highly extensible and scalable, making it a
prime candidate for future device fabrication.
A growing body of research shows that people with red hair need larger
doses of anesthesia and often are resistant to local pain blockers like
Novocaine. As a result, redheads tend to be particularly nervous about
dental procedures and are twice as likely to avoid going to the dentist
as people with other hair colors.
As well as being able to hold vast amounts of information, DNA is tough
and flexible, making it an attractive candidate for use as a
nanomaterial. Advances in molecular biology in recent decades have
meant that scientists are well equipped to work with DNA and program it
to do whatever they want.
Sequencing the first human genome cost billions and required an army of scientists. 8 years later a trio of researchers in the
US have matched that feat for the price mid-range BMW.
“This can be done in one lab, with one machine, and at a modest cost” of about $50,000, said
Stanford
University professor Stephen Quake, who designed the study and lent his DNA for the task.
The government has ordered 195 million doses of swine flu vaccine from five manufacturers, along with immune boosters called adjuvants that may be needed to ramp up the vaccine's potency.
Use doubles from 13 million to 27 million Americans
