What’s new in the optical tweezer from MIT’s Matt Lang and David Appleyard is that they used infrared light to move particles on silicon, the basis of microchips. (Unlike visible light, the infrared does not bounce off the silicon.) That means that MIT’s optical tweezer can be used not just for study but to build …
A new type of memory technology could lead to thumb drives or digital-camera memory cards that store a terabyte of information–more than most hard drives hold today. The first examples of the new technology, which could also slash energy consumption by more than 99 percent, could be on the market within 18 months UPDATE:I have …
FPGA processing accelerators have been developed. Warp processing” gives a computer chip the ability to improve its performance over time. Here’s how Warp processing works: When a program first runs on a microprocessor chip (such as a Pentium), the chip monitors the program to detect its most frequently-executed parts. The microprocessor then automatically tries to …
Check out the well written Carnival of Space #25 at sortingoutscience.net My contribution was preview coverage of the space elevator games The interim report on space based solar power is out and sortingoutscience lists many links to sites that are talking about it.I had made several contributions at the space based solar power website. The …
University of Manchester researchers have transformed fat tissue stem cells into nerve cells — and now plan to develop an artificial nerve that will bring damaged limbs and organs back to life. Dr Paul Kingham and his team at the UK Centre for Tissue Regeneration (UKCTR) isolated the stem cells from the fat tissue of …
Hitachi is making current perpendicular-to-the-plane giant magneto-resistive heads (CPP-GMR) for hard disk drives to enable 4 terabyte drives in 2011 and/or 1 terabyte notebook drives. The CPP-GMR drive essentially changes the structure of drive heads. Current drives come with a tunnel magnetoresistance head. In these, an insulating layer sits between two magnetic layers. Electrons can …
A discussion at resource investor about the resource demands of scaling up so that all cars are hybrids and electric cars Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and …
The Purdue University researchers, in work funded by Intel Corp, have shown tiny “ionic wind engines” that might improve computer chip cooling by 250%. When used in combination with a conventional fan, the experimental device enhanced the fan’s effectiveness by increasing airflow to the surface of a mock computer chip. The new technology could help …
Physorg talks about smaller nano-boric acid particles that can be added to motor oil within 2 years for a 4-5% fuel consumption reduction in all cars. If the new nano-particle motor oil was mandatory or added at low cost to all motor oil than at the next oil change after its introduction there would be …
The NY Times reports that Toyota has started testing Plug in Hybrid versions of the Prius The Mercury news has extra information on its blog and in the main SJ Mercury newspaper * Susan Shaheen, a UC-Berkeley researcher, said she’s still figuring out the methodology for the studies into how people react to PHEVs, but …
Carl Zeiss SMT said during SEMICON West July 2007 that it had shipped the worlds first ‘ORION’ Helium ion microscope, developed by a company called ALIS that it acquired in 2006 to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD. This was part of a project calls for a new microscope for …