Imagine Captain Kirk being beamed back to the Starship Enterprise and two versions of the Star Trek hero arriving in the spacecraft's transporter room. It happened 40 years ago in an episode of the TV science fiction classic, and now scientists at the University of York and colleagues in Japan have managed something strikingly similar in the laboratory - though no starship commander was involved.
A slim but superstrong cable reaches a mile into the sky, while robots scrabble up and down the line – one day, the cable will end in space
Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and NTT Corp. of Japan have demonstrated the first reproducible, controllable silicon transistors that are turned on and off by the motion of individual electrons. The experimental designs may have applications in low-power nanoelectronics.
A rubbery material that can purify hydrogen efficiently in its most usable form for fuel cells and oil refining has been developed by a chemical engineering group at The University of Texas, Austin.
A team of Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists, in collaboration with researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., and Albion College, in Albion, Mich., have achieved quantum key distribution (QKD) at telecommunications industry wavelengths in a 50-kilometer (31 mile) optical fiber. The work could accelerate the development of QKD cryptography for secure communications in optical fibers at distances beyond current technological limits.
Using an ultrafast, nanoscale semiconductor laser, investigators at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, have discovered a way of rapidly distinguishing between malignant and normal cells. Moreover, this new technique has the potential of detecting cancer at a very early stage, a development that could change profoundly the way cancer is diagnosed and treated.
Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered how atoms pack themselves in unusual materials known as metallic glasses. Their findings should help scientists better understand the atomic scale structure of this material, which is used to make sports equipment, cell phone cases, armor-piercing projectiles and other products.
A team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Purdue University, and the Russian Academy of Sciences has used sound waves to induce nuclear fusion without the need for an external neutron source, according to a paper in the Jan. 27 issue of Physical Review Letters.
technorati tags: fusion, sonofusion
This is pretty cool, even though it is just the paint job on a car. Think how much money this can save the consumer though!
This just seems silly to me, how much difference could it make being cloned or not? With the possible exception that it might somehow cause something like a prion disease. If it's meat, you're cooking it anyway, denaturing almost every protein and enzyme that would be in it. Plant material is less worrisome anyway, I don't think there is a disease that we can catch from plants (maybe caused by them, but not catch from them)
technorati tags: cloned food
technorati tags: tissue, engineering, organ, printing
This has allowed the researchers to watch RNAP to travel up the DNA strand and for the first time see exactly how transcription works. This currently has potential to affect the field of proteomics and protein folding study, and who knows what else down the line can be found for it.
technorati tags: microscope, protein, folding, transcription, light, optical trap
This could lead to some interesting things, I don't think the developers give their results enough credit. I think this could lead to ubiquitous computing, with truly personal computers, woven into our clothes, and even more of the products we use daily.
This could lead to very good things, if they can get some contracts going, this would speed the commercialization of space, they would also give some competition to SpaceX, both which would be a very good thing.
technorati tags: artificial, muscle
This promises to be a great thing if it ends with success. It would eventually eliminate our dependance on fossil fuels, once our infrastructure converted over. This could also give a push to the hydrogen car movement, with these generators to split the water, you wouldn't be dependant on fossil fuels for that.
technorati tags: fusion, electricity, plasma, reactor
This looks like there could be some good synergy between these two projects, but like one of the comments said, you couldn't locate the space elevator in Australia, that has to be located at the equator.
Seems like it was just two weeks ago when the possiblity of computers made of light was brought up. Oh wait, it was. IBM has made a prototype switching chip using photon waveguides which can slow down light, with the idea that such a device could synchronise data streams by slowing some streams, allowing others to catch up. However heating the waveguides takes a long time compared with the switching speed needed in an optical network. And the waveguides have to be carved with an accuracy of 1 nanometre.
Biotechnology, which is known primarily by its medical and agricultural applications, is increasingly being focused on the building of new biological materials and machines in an astonishing diversity of structures, functions, and uses. The advent of nanotechnology has accelerated this trend.