Tech

This phenomenon is critical to the design principles behind digital metamaterials bytes. For a certain set of metamaterial bits, when the material with positive permittivity (typically a dielectric) is on the inside, the permittivity of the byte ranges between the values of two the materials. When the material with negative permittivity (typically a metal) is on the inside, however, the overall value varies widely outside that range. Fine-tuning the ultimate permittivity of a byte then entails altering the thickness of each of the materials.

Ideally, diamonds consist of pure carbon. But natural diamonds always contain defects. The most researched defects are nitrogen-vacancy centers comprising a nitrogen atom and a vacancy. These might serve as highly sensitive sensors or as register components for quantum computers. However, until now it has not been possible to extract the optically stored information electronically.

WASHINGTON, DC - December 1, 2014 -- Microbial succession in a sterilized restroom begins with bacteria from the gut and the vagina, and is followed shortly by microbes from the skin. Restrooms are dominated by a stable community structure of skin and outdoor associated bacteria, with few pathogenic bacteria making them similar to other built environments such as your home. The research is published ahead of print in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

In the wake of recent airline crashes, major news networks have aired concerns about pilots' ability to accurately fly "by hand" when the airplane's cockpit automation systems fail. Although many of these concerns have centered on manual skills such as operating the airplane's controls, new human factors/ergonomics research suggests that pilots' thinking skills, such as navigating, remaining aware of the status of the flight, and diagnosing troublesome situations, are most vulnerable in today's automated cockpits.

Teenage boys are perhaps more known for playing computer games but girls are better at making them, a University of Sussex study has found.

Researchers in the University's Informatics department asked pupils at a secondary school to design and program their own computer game using a new visual programming language that shows pupils the computer programs they have written in plain English.

Dr Kate Howland and Dr Judith Good found that the girls in the classroom wrote more complex programs in their games than the boys and also learnt more about coding compared to the boys.

This news release is available in German.

"A quantum computer may be thought of as a 'simulator of overall Nature," explains Fabio Franchini, a researcher at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste, "in other words, it's a machine capable of simulating Nature as a quantum system, something that classical computers cannot do". Quantum computers are machines that carry out operations by exploiting the phenomena of quantum mechanics, and they are capable of performing different functions from those of current computers. This science is still very young and the systems produced to date are still very limited.

Nearly 55 percent of U.S. infants are placed to sleep with bedding that increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, despite recommendations against the practice, report researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other institutions.

Scientists have demonstrated how noise in a microwave amplifier is limited by self-heating at very low temperatures.

Many significant discoveries in physics and astronomy are dependent upon registering a barely detectable electrical signal in the microwave regime. A famous example of this was the discovery of cosmic background radiation that helped confirm the Big Bang theory. Another example is the detection of data from scientific instruments in space missions on their way to distant planets, asteroids or comets.

Researchers have invented a single tiny structure - a nanopore - that includes all the components of a battery that they say could bring about the ultimate miniaturization of energy storage components.

ANN ARBOR--The spaghetti-like internal structure of most plastics makes it hard for them to cast away heat, but a University of Michigan research team has made a plastic blend that does so 10 times better than its conventional counterparts.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - The use of renewable energy in the United States could take a significant leap forward with improved storage technologies or more efforts to "match" different forms of alternative energy systems that provide an overall more steady flow of electricity, researchers say in a new report.

In the race to find materials of ever increasing thinness, surface area and conductivity to make better performing battery electrodes, a lump of clay might have just taken the lead. Materials scientists from Drexel University's College of Engineering invented the clay, which is both highly conductive and can easily be molded into a variety of shapes and sizes.

Chongqing, China--Dr. Tao Zhu and his team of researchers from Chongqing University, Southwest China, have discovered a new method to highly compress laser linewidth based on Rayleigh backscattering. Using their new method, Rayleigh backscattering can be collected in any waveguide structure and all wave bands to effectively compress a laser linewidth to merely hundreds of hertz, which could have a revolutionary impact on the field of laser technology.

On 24 October 2014, Sweden called off the hunt for a submarine after a week-long underwater search in the Stockholm archipelago. Triggered by a reported sighting of a Russian submarine, the alleged 'invasion' had been widely anticipated by military specialists and the media.

"Our assessment is that in the inner archipelago there was a plausible foreign underwater operation," Rear Adm. Anders Grenstad commented, "But we believe that what has violated Swedish waters has left."