ScienceCentric: Technology

Science Centric | News | Technology

• Graphene exhibits bizarre new behaviour well suited to electronic devices
  Graphene, a sheet of pure carbon heralded as a possible replacement for silicon-based semiconductors, has been found to have a unique and amazing property that could make it even more suitable for future electronic devices...
  
  
• Behind the secrets of silk lie high-tech opportunities
  Tougher than a bullet-proof vest yet synonymous with beauty and luxury, silk fibres are a masterpiece of nature whose remarkable properties have yet to be fully replicated in the laboratory...
  
  
• Graphene under strain creates gigantic pseudo-magnetic fields
  Graphene, the extraordinary form of carbon that consists of a single layer of carbon atoms, has produced another in a long list of experimental surprises. In the current issue of the journal Science, a multi-institutional team of researchers headed by Michael Crommie, a faculty senior scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, reports the creation of pseudo-magnetic fields far stronger than the strongest magnetic fields ever sustained in a laboratory - just by putting the right kind of strain onto a patch of graphene...
  
  
• 'White graphene' to the rescue
  What researchers might call 'white graphene' may be the perfect sidekick for the real thing as a new era unfolds in nanoscale electronics...
  
  
• Nanomaterials poised for big impact in construction
  Nanomaterials are poised for widespread use in the construction industry, where they can offer significant advantages for a variety of applications ranging from making more durable concrete to self-cleaning windows. But widespread use in building materials comes with potential environmental and health risks when those materials are thrown away. Those are the conclusions of a new study published by Rice University engineering researchers this month in ACS Nano...
  
  
• Nanotechnology for water purification
  Nanotechnology refers to a broad range of tools, techniques and applications that simply involve particles on the approximate size scale of a few to hundreds of nanometres in diameter. Particles of this size have some unique physicochemical and surface properties that lend themselves to novel uses. Indeed, advocates of nanotechnology suggest that this area of research could contribute to solutions for some of the major problems we face on the global scale such as ensuring a supply of safe drinking water for a growing population, as well as addressing issues in medicine, energy, and agriculture...
  
  
• Group led by UCLA Engineering devises new method for securing location-sensitive data
  A research group led by computer scientists at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has proved that cryptography - the practice and study of hiding information - that is based solely on physical location is possible by using quantum mechanics...
  
  
• Not as Web savvy as you think
  Google it. That's what many college students do when asked to read an excerpt of a play for class, write a resume or find the e-mail address of a politician...
  
  
• First step toward electronic DNA sequencing: Translocation through graphene nanopores
  Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a new, carbon-based nanoscale platform to electrically detect single DNA molecules...
  
  
• New invention at the Weizmann Institute
  A unique device based on sniffing - inhaling and exhaling through the nose - might enable numerous disabled people to navigate wheelchairs or communicate with their loved ones. Sniffing technology might even be used in the future to create a sort of 'third hand,' to assist healthy surgeons or pilots...
  
  
• Graphene organic photovoltaics, or, will joggers' t-shirts someday power their cell phones?
  A University of Southern California team has produced flexible transparent carbon atom films that the researchers say have great potential for a new breed of solar cells...
  
  
• Penn collaboration leads to simpler method for building varieties of nanocrystal superlattices
  Collaboration by chemists, physicists and materials scientists at the University of Pennsylvania has created a simple and inexpensive method to rapidly grow centimetre-scale membranes of binary nanocrystal superlattices, or BNSLs, by crystallising a mixture of nanocrystals on a liquid surface...
  
  
• Highest X-ray energy used to probe materials
  Scientists for the first time have dived into the effect that an intense X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) has on materials...
  
  
• Nanowick at heart of new system to cool 'power electronics'
  Researchers have shown that an advanced cooling technology being developed for high-power electronics in military and automotive systems is capable of handling roughly 10 times the heat generated by conventional computer chips...
  
  
• Graphene oxide gets green
  'We can make you and we can break you.' If Rice University scientists wrote country songs, their ode to graphene oxide would start something like that. But this song wouldn't break anybody's heart...
  
  
• Now you see it, now you don't
  From Tolkien's ring of power in The Lord of the Rings to Star Trek's Romulans, who could make their warships disappear from view, from Harry Potter's magical cloak to the garment that makes players vanish in the video game classic 'Dungeons and Dragons, the power to turn someone or something invisible fascinates mankind. But who ever thought that a scientist at Michigan Technological University would be serious about building a working invisibility cloak?...
  
  
• Real ale buffs - Britain's role models for economic recovery
  Britain's beer drinkers can serve as role models for the nation as it struggles to emerge from recession, according to an academic study...
  
  
• Nanotech coatings produce 20 times more electricity from sewage
  Engineers at Oregon State University have made a significant advance toward producing electricity from sewage, by the use of new coatings on the anodes of microbial electrochemical cells that increased the electricity production about 20 times...
  
  
• Data mining made faster
  To many big companies, you aren't just a customer, but are described by multiple 'dimensions' of information within a computer database. Now, a University of Utah computer scientist has devised a new method for simpler, faster 'data mining,' or extracting and analysing massive amounts of such data...
  
  
• Liverpool scientists construct molecular 'knots'
  Scientists at the University of Liverpool have constructed molecular 'knots' with dimensions of around two nanometres (2 x 10-9 nm) - around 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair...