NewScITech

In a breakthrough that could free nanomachines from the bulk of batteries, researchers have developed a novel nanogenerator–an array of tiny filaments that converts the smallest motions into electrical current. Read the rest of this entry »

With the help of a new type of suture based on MIT research, patients who get stitches may never need to have them removed. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time, scientists of the BaBar experiment at the Department of Energy’s Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) have observed the transition of one type of particle, the neutral D-meson, into its antimatter particle. Mesons, of which there are about 140 types, are made up of fundamental particles called quarks, which can be produced when particles collide at high energy. The new observation will be used as a test of the Standard Model, the current theory that best describes all the universe’s luminous matter and its associated forces. Read the rest of this entry »

Ape-like human ancestors known as australopiths maintained short legs for 2 million years because a squat physique and stance helped the males fight over access to females, a University of Utah study concludes. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists return this week to the world’s deepest known sinkhole, Cenote Zacatón in Mexico, to resume tests of a NASA-funded robot called DEPTHX, designed to survey and explore for life in one of Earth’s most extreme regions and potentially in outer space. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine a car that accelerates from zero to 60 in 250 feet, and then rockets to 120 miles per hour in just one more inch. The achievement demonstrates a technology that may drive future of accelerators and further ‘rich tradition of discovery’. Read the rest of this entry »

So far, astronomers have discovered about 200 planets outside our solar system, known as “extrasolar” planets. Very little is known about most of them, but for the first time, scientists have obtained new information about the atmospheres of two such planets by splitting apart the light emitted from them. Read the rest of this entry »

Longer-lasting laptop and mobile phone batteries could be a step closer thanks to research by scientists at the University of Oxford. Researchers from Oxford’s Department of Physics are part of an international team investigating sodium cobaltate: a material similar in structure to the lithium cobaltate used in rechargeable batteries for many electronic devices. Read the rest of this entry »

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have successfully generated electricity from heat by trapping organic molecules between metal nanoparticles, an achievement that could pave the way toward the development of a new source for energy. Read the rest of this entry »

New research has cracked the old puzzle of why bees and other insects are so good at flying, paving the way for aircraft just a few centimeters wide to be built. Read the rest of this entry »

In work that could dramatically boost the capabilities of “lab on a chip” devices, MIT researchers have created a way to use tiny bubbles to mimic the capabilities of a computer. Read the rest of this entry »

In work that could lead to completely new devices, systems and applications in computing and telecommunications, MIT researchers are bringing the long-sought goal of “optics on a chip” one step closer to market. Read the rest of this entry »

Brown University researchers are creating a technology that will allow doctors and scientists to do the seemingly impossible: See inside living humans and animals and watch their bones move in 3-D as they run, fly, jump, swim and slither. Read the rest of this entry »

Brown University engineers and biologists have joined forces to record the fine details of wing and body movement in bat flight – together with the patterns of air movement that generate lift. Similar measurements have been made in insects and some birds, but this is the first such data for bats, which are highly flexible and maneuverable flyers and a potential model for engineered micro air vehicles. Read the rest of this entry »

Researchers at the University of Michigan Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS) and the W.K. Kellogg Eye Center are working together to develop new laser systems to perform precise procedures, such as intraocular microsurgery, on delicate eye tissue. Once perfected, the new lasers could avoid many of the complications of current surgical and laser treatments. Read the rest of this entry »