news 2017

For the past 10 years, the Camera Culture group at MIT's Media Lab has been developing innovative imaging systems - from a camera that can see around corners to one that can read text in closed books - by using "time of flight," an approach that gauges distance by measuring the time it takes light projected into a scene to bounce back to a sensor.

ANN ARBOR-A new type of neural network made with memristors can dramatically improve the efficiency of teaching machines to think like humans. The network, called a reservoir computing system, could predict words before they are said during conversation, and help predict future outcomes based on the present.

A remarkable discovery was made at TU Wien recently, when particles known as 'Weyl fermions' were discovered in materials with strong interaction between electrons. Just like light particles, they have no mass but nonetheless they move extremely slowly. There was great excitement back in 2015, when it was first possible to measure these 'Weyl fermions' - outlandish, massless particles that had been predicted almost 90 years earlier by German mathematician, physician and philosopher, Hermann Weyl.

The years of careful planning and construction have paid off: At the newest large-scale research facility of the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI - the free-electron X-ray laser SwissFEL - the first experiment has been carried out successfully. With that, two goals have been achieved: First, a new scientific result is already expected.

EPFL researchers have successfully measured some of the quantum properties of electrons in two-dimensional semiconductors. This work in the field of spintronics could one day lead to chips that are not only smaller but that also generate less heat. A group of spintronics researchers at EPFL is using new materials to reveal more of the many capabilities of electrons.

By forcing light to go through a smaller gap than ever before, researchers have paved the way for computers based on light instead of electronics. Light is desirable for use in computing because it can carry a higher density of information and is much faster and more efficient than conventional electronics.

Online GP consultation systems may not be the silver bullet for reducing GP workload and patient waiting times that government policymakers are hoping for, NIHR-funded research from the University of Bristol has found. These systems offer the potential to revolutionise use of primary care, but only with careful implementation and effective marketing, the researchers concluded.

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania has constructed the first whole-brain map of electrical connectivity in the brain based on data from nearly 300 neurosurgical patients with electrodes implanted directly on the brain. The researchers found that low-frequency rhythms of brain activity, when brain waves move up and down slowly, primarily drive communication between the frontal, temporal and medial temporal lobes, key brain regions that engage during memory processing.

For the first time, physicists have developed a technique that can peer deep beneath the surface of a material to identify the energies and momenta of electrons there. The energy and momentum of these electrons, known as a material's "band structure," are key properties that describe how electrons move through a material.

Multiband tunable antennas are a critical part of many communication and radar systems. New research by engineers at the University of Bristol has shown significant advances in antennas by using optically induced plasmas in silicon to tune both radiation patterns and operation frequency. Conventional antenna tuning is performed with diodes or Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) switches.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham have pioneered a breakthrough method to rapidly 3D print fully functional electronic circuits. The circuits, which contain electrically-conductive metallic inks and insulating polymeric inks, can now be produced in a single inkjet printing process where a UV light rapidly solidifies the inks.

Forgot to water that plant on your desk again? It may soon be able to send out an SOS. MIT engineers have created sensors that can be printed onto plant leaves and reveal when the plants are experiencing a water shortage. This kind of technology could not only save neglected houseplants but, more importantly, give farmers an early warning when their crops are in danger, says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the new study.

By Birgit Baustädter The research area of molecular electronics focuses on miniaturisation. It's a further development of microelectronics and deals with circuits at the molecular level. Electronic objects of daily life are becoming increasingly smaller - but at the same time more powerful and efficient.

A two-in-one solar bio-battery and solar panel has been created by researchers who printed living cyanobacteria and circuitry onto paper. Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic micro-organisms that have been on Earth for billions of years. They are thought to be the primary reason why the Earth's atmosphere is oxygen rich.

In cities and large-scale manufacturing plants, a water leak in a complicated network of pipes can take tremendous time and effort to detect, as technicians must disassemble many pieces to locate the problem. The American Water Works Association indicates that nearly a quarter-million water line breaks occur each year in the U.S., costing public water utilities about $2.8 billion annually.

FINDINGS Neuroscientists at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA have discovered precisely where and how to electrically stimulate the human brain to enhance people's recollection of distinct memories. People with epilepsy who received low-current electrical pulses showed a significant improvement in their ability to recognize specific faces and ignore similar ones.

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Bedfordshire, in collaboration with multinational company ABB, have designed and tested a series of plasmonic nanoantenna arrays that could lead to the development of a new generation of ultrasensitive and low-cost fluorescence sensors that could be used to monitor water quality.

Artificial intelligence researchers at the University of Bath have been awarded €250,000 to conduct a series of unique experiments on how people interact with humanoid robots. Dr Joanna Bryson and her research group in the Department of Computer Science have received the funding from the AXA Research Fund , which supports scientific discoveries that contribute to societal progress.

The same electrostatic charge that can make hair stand on end and attach balloons to clothing could be an efficient way to drive atomically thin electronic memory devices of the future, according to a new study led by researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

A new imaging technique, Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), will soon be used to monitor important bodily functions. A collaborative project between TU Wien, the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, has enabled significant progress to be made with this technology.