science wire

A revolutionary sound-powered stove and electrical generator is currently being tested in the conditions it was designed for — rural villages in Nepal and Bangladesh.

A new multimillion-pound centre of excellence in electronic health data research to improve patient care and public health across a wide range of conditions has been awarded to a consortium led by The University of Manchester.

Perhaps no other material is generating as much excitement in the electronics world as graphene, sheets of pure carbon just one atom thick through which electrons can race at nearly the speed of light - 100 times faster than they move through silicon. Superthin, superstrong, superflexible and superfast as an electrical conductor, graphene has been touted as a potential wonder material for a host of electronic applications, starting with ultrafast transistors.

New technique using kinetic inductance shows promise for dramatic miniaturization of metamaterials : Caroline Perry , (617) 496-1351 In a vacuum, light travels so fast that it would circle the Earth more than seven times within the blink of an eye. When light propagates through matter, however, it slows by a factor typically less than 5.

Many recent advances in microtechnology and nanotechnology depend on microscopic spherical particles self-assembling into large-scale aggregates to form a relatively limited range of crystalline structures. Directed assembly is a new branch of this field, where scientists figure out how to make particles assemble to form a broad range of structures at given locations.

: Public Can Explore Time-Lapse Videos of Earth With New Tool From Carnegie Mellon and Google-Carnegie Mellon News - Carnegie Mellon University Thirteen Years of Landsat Imagery Can Be Easily Explore

AUSTIN, Texas — Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with colleagues in Taiwan and China, have developed the world's smallest semiconductor laser, a breakthrough for emerging photonic technology with applications from computing to medicine.

Scientists at The University of Manchester and the SuperSTEM facility at STFC's Daresbury Laboratory have discovered that the 'miracle material', graphene, undergoes a self repairing process to mend holes. This research, published in Nano Letters , could hold the key in the quest to realise graphene's huge potential for use in fields from electronics to medicine.

Electrical engineers at The University of Texas at Arlington and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have devised a new laser for on-chip optical connections that could give computers a huge boost in speed and energy efficiency.

Geneva and Linz, 18 July 2012. CERN and Ars Electronica 2 today launch an open call for artists working in the digital domain to apply for the second Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN 3 .

For years, the U.S. Navy has employed human divers, equipped with sonar cameras, to search for underwater mines attached to ship hulls.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have developed a new type of amplifier for boosting electrical signals.

Miniature robots are about to get an intelligence boost from a new partnership, linking LANL and ReconRobotics, Inc.

PA 202/12 It is official! The University of Nottingham has set a new Guinness World Record for the most electrical energy generated by indoor rowers in 24 hours.

Cornell researchers have developed a new method of generating terahertz signals on an inexpensive silicon chip, offering possible applications in medical imaging, security scanning and wireless data transfer. Terahertz radiation, the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and infrared light, penetrates cloth and leather and just a few millimeters into the skin, but without the potentially damaging effects of X-rays.

: Carnegie Mellon's Smart Headlight System Will Have Drivers Seeing Through the Rain-Carnegie Mellon News - Carnegie Mellon University Shining Light Between Drops Makes Thunderstorm Seem Like a Drizz

The first evaluation of a new system that can provide electronic transmission of prescritpions from GP practices to community pharmacies is published today in an interim report commissioned on behalf of NHS Connecting for Health Evaluation programme.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A simple new improvement to an essential microscope component could greatly improve imaging for researchers who study the very small, from cells to computer chips. Joseph Lyding, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, led a group that developed a new microscope probe-sharpening technique.

The ability to distinguish and isolate rare cells from among a large population of assorted cells has become increasingly important for the early detection of disease and for monitoring disease treatments.

Graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon, has attracted a great deal of attention for its potential use as a transistor that could make consumer electronic devices faster and smaller. But the material's unique properties, and the shrinking scale of electronics, also make graphene difficult to fabricate on a large scale.

How can two materials which do not conduct electricity create an electrically conducting layer when they are joined together? Since this effect was discovered in 2004, researchers have developed various hypotheses to answer this question - each with its own advocates, who defend it and try to prove its validity.

The Jell-O-like material, from the labs of Stanford professors Yi Cui and Zhenan Bao, may have applications in areas as widespread as energy storage, medical sensors and biofuel cells. Stanford researchers have invented an electrically conductive gel that is quick and easy to make, can be patterned onto surfaces with an inkjet printer and demonstrates unprecedented electrical performance.

The world's smallest three-dimensional optical cavities with the potential to generate the world's most intense nanolaser beams have been created by a scientific team led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley.

A team of UCLA researchers has created the most powerful high-performance nanoscale microwave oscillators in the world, a development that could lead to cheaper, more energy-efficient mobile communication devices that deliver much better signal quality.

Reception and service at central level for international students after arrival at KTH.

If you hire a robot to help you move into your new apartment, you won't have to send out for pizza. But you will have to give the robot a system for figuring out where things go. The best approach, according to Cornell researchers, is to ask "How will humans use this?" Researchers in the Personal Robotics Lab of Ashutosh Saxena, assistant professor of computer science, have already taught robots to identify common objects, pick them up and place them stably in appropriate locations.

New electronic materials are expected to result in groundbreaking innovations for the next generation of computers and renewable energy carriers such as rechargeable batteries and fuel cells.

An American cockroach under a ledge. Photo by Jean-Michel Mongeau and Pauline Jennings, courtesy of PolyPEDAL Lab, UC Berkeley.

Similar to how tighter stiches make for a better quality quilt, the "stitching" between individual crystals of graphene affects how well these carbon monolayers conduct electricity and retain their strength, Cornell researchers report. The quality of this "stitching" - the boundaries at which graphene crystals grow together and form sheets - is just as important as the size of the crystals themselves, which scientists had previously thought held the key to making better graphene.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-If you are a white girl, a black girl or a black boy, exposure to today's electronic media in the long run tends to make you feel worse about yourself. If you're a white boy, you'll feel better, according to a new study. Lead author Nicole Martins, assistant professor of tele at Indiana University and Kristen Harrison, professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan, also found that black children in their study spent, on average, an extra 10 hours a week watching television.

Innovative use of language, a firm grasp of technology, and a thirst for unusual words are just some of the findings revealed about how children use language according to new Oxford University Press (OUP) research. The research was compiled by lexicographers in OUP's Children's Dictionaries team based on an analysis of thousands of short stories sent into a BBC radio competition for children in the UK.

A team of engineers at Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania has for the first time used "plasmonic cloaking" to create a device that can see without being seen - an invisible machine that detects light. It may not be intuitive, but a coating of reflective metal can actually make something less visible, engineers at Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania have shown.

Sooner than you think, we may have robots to tidy up our homes. Researchers in Cornell's Personal Robotics Lab have trained a robot to survey a room, identify all the objects, figure out where they belong and put them away.

The vast majority of the millions of microwave ovens thrown away every year could be easily fixed and reused, according to University of Manchester research. Making simple repairs could save the UK could save millions of pounds by replacing fuses or plugs rather than throwing away perfectly reusable microwaves with brand new ones.

A new electronic medical record tool that tallies patients' previous radiation exposure from CT scans helps reduce potentially unnecessary use of the tests among emergency room patients with abdomina

UK research to develop smart machines that think for themselves will receive a £16 million boost today thanks to a major partnership between the government and industry.

A tiny tattoo-like electronic device could someday provide wireless pregnancy monitoring of maternal and fetal vital signs, giving expectant mothers more mobility and improving access to prenatal care in remote areas.

As medical researchers and engineers try to shrink diagnostics to fit in a person's pocket, one question is how to easily move and mix small samples of liquid. "This allows us to move drops as far as we want, and in any kind of layout that we want," said Karl Böhringer , a UW professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering.

When Cornell engineers developed a new type of robot hand that could pick up oddly shaped objects it presented a challenge: It was easy for a human operator to choose the best place to take hold of a

  Gerard Wysocki   Photo by Frank Wojciechowski   Daniel Sigman   Photo courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation   Andrew Houck   Photo by Frank Wojciechowski   Haka

: Revolutionary Technology Enables Objects To Know How They Are Being Touched-Carnegie Mellon News - Carnegie Mellon University Disney, CMU Researchers Envision 'Smart Doorknobs' and Gesture-controll

Chris James has become the first person in the UK to have an electronic retina implanted into the back of his eye.

Robots that decompose once they have reached the end of their mission could soon be deployed in the environment, thanks to a Research Project Grant of over £200,000 from the Leverhulme Trust.

As militaries develop autonomous robotic warriors to replace humans on the battlefield, new ethical questions emerge.