Tech

PITTSBURGH—Inspired by the aquatic wriggling of beetle larvae, a University of Pittsburgh research team has designed a propulsion system that strips away paddles, sails, and motors and harnesses the energy within the water's surface. The technique destabilizes the surface tension surrounding the object with an electric pulse and causes the craft to move via the surface's natural pull. The researchers will present their findings Jan. 26 at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' 2009 Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) conference in Sorrento, Italy.

Smart' fridges that run on renewable electricity and are capable of negotiating the most energy efficient way to keep food cold have been developed by researchers from CSIRO's Energy Transformed Flagship.

CSIRO's Intelligent Energy team have developed a fridge capable of maintaining its average temperature while regulating its power consumption from renewable-energy generators, such as solar panels (photovoltaics) or wind turbines.

Scientists have always wanted to take a closer look at biological systems and materials. From the magnifying glass to the electron microscope, they have developed ever-increasingly sophisticated imaging devices.

Now, Niels de Jonge, Ph.D., and colleagues at Vanderbilt University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), add a new tool to the biology-watcher's box. In the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they describe a technique for imaging whole cells in liquid with a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM).

DURHAM, N.C. – A device that can bestow invisibility to an object by "cloaking" it from visual light is closer to reality. After being the first to demonstrate the feasibility of such a device by constructing a prototype in 2006, a team of Duke University engineers has produced a new type of cloaking device, which is significantly more sophisticated at cloaking in a broad range of frequencies.

Many hopes are pinned on spintronics. In the future it could replace electronics, which in the race to produce increasingly rapid computer components, must at sometime reach its limits. Different from electronics, where whole electrons are moved (the digital "one" means "an electron is present on the component", zero means "no electron present"), here it is a matter of manipulating a certain property of the electron, its spin. For this reason, components are needed in which electrons can be injected successively, and one must be able to manipulate the spin of the single electrons, e.g.

New Haven, Conn. -- Many Americans have already taken action to reduce their energy use and many others would do the same if they could afford to, according to a national survey conducted by Yale and George Mason universities.

New Haven, Conn. — Water and energy are two resources on which modern society depends. As demands for these increase, researchers look to alternative technologies that promise both sustainability and reduced environmental impact. Engineered osmosis holds a key to addressing both the global need for affordable clean water and inexpensive sustainable energy according to Yale researchers.

A project to speed and further safeguard the shipping of thousands of radioisotopes in the United States and afar hits the highway this year, but researchers expect the benefits to extend well beyond.

Using radio frequency identification, or RFID, in conjunction with other technologies in use and being developed, the research team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory aims to take the world of commerce to the next level of efficiency.

Thanks to an ingenious new strategy devised by researchers at University of California, Davis and Intel Corporation, computer network administrators might soon be able to mount effective, low-cost defenses against self-propagating infectious programs known as worms.

MADISON — Distorted cell-phone photos and big, clunky telephoto lenses could be things of the past.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Electrical and Computer Engineering Associate Professor Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma and colleagues have developed a flexible light-sensitive material that could revolutionize photography and other imaging technologies.

Their technology is featured on the cover of the January 5 issue of Applied Physics Letters.

Information obtained from a new application of photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is worth its weight in gold to breast cancer patients.

Troy, N.Y. – Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed and demonstrated a new type of light emitting diode (LED) with significantly improved lighting performance and energy efficiency.

The new polarization-matched LED, developed in collaboration with Samsung Electro-Mechanics, exhibits an 18 percent increase in light output and a 22 percent increase in wall-plug efficiency, which essentially measures the amount of electricity the LED converts into light.

Could a concept from information technology familiar to online file sharers be exploited to reduce road congestion and even traffic accidents? That is the question answered in the affirmative by researchers in California, writing in the International Journal of Vehicle Information and Communication Systems.

A way to make wind power smoother and more efficient that exploits the inertia of a wind turbine rotor could help solve the problem of wind speed variation, according to research published in the International Journal of Power Electronics.