Posts Tagged ‘engineering’
Science & Technology - Sep 28, 2009 17:31 - 2 Comments
E. coli travel using kayak-paddle motion
YALE (US)—Engineers have for the first time observed and tracked E. coli bacteria moving in a liquid medium with a motion similar to that of a kayak paddle. The findings offer a clearer picture of how bacteria move from place to place and, potentially, how to keep them from spreading. (more…)
Science & Technology - Sep 24, 2009 4:00 - 1 Comment
Rome digitally rebuilt in hours
U. WASHINGTON (US)—Using a new computer algorithm, researchers were able to take 150,000 tourist photos tagged “Roma” or “Rome” downloaded from the photo sharing Web site Flickr and combine them into a single 3-D digital model in about 21 hours. (more…)
Science & Technology - Sep 22, 2009 12:01 - 0 Comments
Crystals to grow in low gravity on Space Station
IOWA STATE (US)—An experiment to study crystal growth patterns in a microgravity environment that is on its way to the International Space Station may have important implications for developing new materials. (more…)
Science & Technology - Sep 2, 2009 14:59 - 0 Comments
Honey, who shrunk the laser light?
A bright point of light from a single plasmon laser emanates from the optical setup used by UC Berkeley researchers. (Courtesy: Xiang Zhang Lab/UC Berkeley)
Science & Technology - Sep 1, 2009 6:00 - 2 Comments
Tiny tweezers snag living cells
While optical tweezers are large and expensive, acoustic tweezers are smaller than a dime, small enough to fabricate on a chip using standard chip manufacturing techniques. They can also manipulate live cells without damaging or killing them. Above, the interdigital transducers (yellow) emit surface acoustic waves that push particles into position. (Credit: Tony Jun Huang and Jinjie Shi/Penn State)
Science & Technology - Aug 31, 2009 13:19 - 1 Comment
Candid camera at the nanoscale
“This is engineering at the ultimate atomistic limit,” says V. Ara Apkarian, who is leading a team attempting to record the first time-lapse images of single molecules. “There’s no question the tools that enable the observation and manipulation of one molecule at a time will be the pillars on which the field of nanotechnology will be built.”
Science & Technology - Aug 27, 2009 16:42 - 2 Comments
Nanoscale, Lego by Lego
A tiny white ball is released into a Lego board with peg pieces, immersed in a tank filled with glycerol, to help researchers visualize what happens at nanoscale in microfluidic arrays. (Credit: Will Kirk/ Johns Hopkins University)
Science & Technology - Aug 26, 2009 4:00 - 1 Comment
Bend it like bright LED screens
Stretchable micro-LED display, consisting of an interconnected mesh of printed micro LEDs bonded to a rubber substrate.
Health & Medicine - Aug 24, 2009 4:00 - 2 Comments
Hackers looking at your health records?
“”We regulate drugs, transportation, communication, food, and many other goods and services,” says law professor Sharona Hoffman. “A safe and effective transition to computerized medical records cannot be achieved without federal regulation.”
Science & Technology - Aug 20, 2009 4:00 - 0 Comments
Quantum dots catch cancer early
In this illustration, quantum dots are depicted as gold spheres that attract DNA strands linked to cancer risks. When the quantum dots are exposed to certain types of light, they transfer the energy to fluorescent molecules, shown as pink globes, that emit a glow. This enables researchers to detect and count the DNA strands linked to cancer. (Credit: Yi Zhang/ Johns Hopkins University)
Science & Technology - Aug 18, 2009 4:00 - 0 Comments
‘Green’ foam that’s cheap and dirty
“The flexibility of the clay aerogel composites is amazing,” says engineering professor David Schiraldi, who adds that almost anyone can make the composites if they have pure clay in a form that resembles cat litter pellets, a blender, and a $50,000 freeze dryer.
Health & Medicine - Aug 7, 2009 4:00 - 0 Comments
Nano-painting lights up brain tumors
A mouse brain tumor imaged using nanoparticles (left column) or conventional techniques (right column) combined with optical imaging and MRI. The nanoparticles give a clearer picture of the tumor, which is located at the back of the brain in the cerebellum.
Earth & Environment - Aug 5, 2009 13:13 - 0 Comments
Solar cells with perfect mix of plastics
David Ginger, a University of Washington associate professor of chemistry, displays the tiny probe for a conductive atomic force microscope, used to record photocurrents on scales of millionths of an inch in carbon-based solar cells. (Credit: Mary Levin/University of Washington)
Science & Technology - Jul 31, 2009 14:22 - 0 Comments
Need nanotubes? Go fly a kite
Chemist Bob Hauge and his coauthors say the odako bundles are analogous to the gigantic kites that take many hands to fly, hence the many lines that trail from them. In this case, the lines are nanotubes, hollow cylinders of pure carbon.
Science & Technology - Jul 28, 2009 9:48 - 0 Comments
Tiny electronics via silicon with ‘afterburners’
“This gives the Intels and the Microns and the Samsungs of the world another tool to try, and I guarantee you they’ll be trying this,” says James Tour about a new technique that may improve integrated circuit design. (The microchips above feature an integrated circuit visible through the transparent window. Courtesy: Richard Wheeler/Wikimedia Commons)
Earth & Environment - Jul 21, 2009 12:32 - 0 Comments
Out West, hotter temps shrink water supply
Lake Powell in Utah is one of several massive Colorado River reservoirs that could be severely depleted in the coming decades as a result of warming temperatures in the West, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. (Courtesy: Bureau of Reclamation)
Earth & Environment - Jul 14, 2009 17:12 - 0 Comments
Divvying up fair share of carbon emissions
“Most of the world’s emissions come disproportionately from the wealthy citizens of the world, irrespective of their nationality,” says physicist Shoibal Chakravarty, noting that many emissions come from lifestyles that involve airplane flights, car use and the heating and cooling of large homes. “We estimate that in 2008, half of the world’s emissions came from just 700 million people.”
Science & Technology - Jul 13, 2009 15:28 - 0 Comments
Running nanodevices on ‘repulsive’ light
Tang’s team show how interacting lightwaves can be used to control devices on a silicon chip. (Photo: Hong Tang/Yale University)
