Tech

The information revolution is synonymous with the traditional quest to pack more chips and increase computing power. This quest is embodied by the famous "Moore's law", which predicts that the number of transistors per chip doubles every couple of years and has held true for a remarkably long time. However, as Moore´s law approaches its limit, a parallel quest is becoming increasingly important.

Since the first laser was invented in 1960, they've always given off heat -- either as a useful tool, a byproduct or a fictional way to vanquish intergalactic enemies.

But those concentrated beams of light have never been able to cool liquids. University of Washington researchers are the first to solve a decades-old puzzle -- figuring out how to make a laser refrigerate water and other liquids under real-world conditions.

WASHINGTON - The amount of data that flows over the internet has exploded in the last decade. Whether people are watching cat videos, streaming movies, or uploading vacation photos to social media sites, they are demanding ever higher performance from the optical networks that are the physical foundation of the World Wide Web.

A team of Australian engineers has proven -- with the highest score ever obtained -- that a quantum version of computer code can be written, and manipulated, using two quantum bits in a silicon microchip. The advance removes lingering doubts that such operations can be made reliably enough to allow powerful quantum computers to become a reality.

The result, obtained by a team at Australia's University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, appears today in the international journal, Nature Nanotechnology.

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- A new Kansas State University study finds that the over-tapping of the High Plains Aquifer's groundwater beyond the aquifer's recharge rate peaked in 2006. Its use is projected to decrease by roughly 50 percent in the next 100 years.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a device that allows people who are blind to monitor their guide dogs, in order to keep tabs on the health and well-being of their canine companions.

HOUSTON - (Nov. 16, 2015) - Though they're not quite ready for boarding a lá "Fantastic Voyage," nanoscale submarines created at Rice University are proving themselves seaworthy.

Each of the single-molecule, 244-atom submersibles built in the Rice lab of chemist James Tour has a motor powered by ultraviolet light. With each full revolution, the motor's tail-like propeller moves the sub forward 18 nanometers.

November 16, 2015 - Appropriate use of antibiotics is a critical step toward controlling the ongoing epidemic of health care-related Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), according to a special article in the November issue of Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice.

Trane Commercial Systems and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have coaxed 20 percent greater performance out of a baseline commercial rooftop air conditioning unit with the potential for even better efficiency by switching refrigerants.

Through a cooperative research and development agreement, ORNL and Trane conducted an exhaustive technologies survey to select energy-efficient and cost-effective components, said Bo Shen, who led the project for ORNL.

High-resolution imaging of materials produces complex, copious data. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are developing a visual analytics system that could essentially "look over a scientist's shoulder," learning from human actions and improving its predictions of what the scientist thinks is interesting.

The approach combines computational data analytics with interactive data visualization--human intuition and knowledge. "Humans are very good at visual processing and intuition tasks that are hard to do with a computer," ORNL's Chad Steed said.

BOSTON - November 13, 2015 - A clinical trial among more than 300 patients has found that the drug ranibizumab (Lucentis) is highly effective in treating proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), a complication of diabetes that can severely damage eyesight. The results, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, demonstrate the first major therapy advance for the condition in nearly 40 years.

A clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health has found that the drug ranibizumab (Lucentis) is highly effective in treating proliferative diabetic retinopathy. The trial, conducted by the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network (DRCR.net) compared Lucentis with a type of laser therapy called panretinal or scatter photocoagulation, which has remained the gold standard for proliferative diabetic retinopathy since the mid-1970s. The findings demonstrate the first major therapy advance in nearly 40 years.

As smartphones become people's primary computers and their primary cameras, there is growing demand for mobile versions of image-processing applications.

Image processing, however, can be computationally intensive and could quickly drain a cellphone's battery. Some mobile applications try to solve this problem by sending image files to a central server, which processes the images and sends them back. But with large images, this introduces significant delays and could incur costs for increased data usage.

Lasers could heat materials to temperatures hotter than the centre of the Sun in only 20 quadrillionths of a second, according to new research.

Theoretical physicists from Imperial College London have devised an extremely rapid heating mechanism that they believe could heat certain materials to ten million degrees in much less than a million millionth of a second.

The method, proposed here for the first time, could be relevant to new avenues of research in thermonuclear fusion energy, where scientists are seeking to replicate the Sun's ability to produce clean energy.

Researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne have helped crack the code to ultra-secure telecommunications of the future in an international research project that could also expedite the advent of quantum computing.

A team co-led by RMIT MicroNano Research Facility Director Professor David Moss has added a new twist to create photon pairs that fit on a tiny computer chip.

The breakthrough, published in Nature Communications, heralds the next-generation of integrated quantum optical technology, being compatible with current technology and secure communications.