Tech

The microchip revolution has seen a steady shrinking of features on silicon chips, packing in more transistors and wires to boost chips' speed and data capacity. But in recent years, the technologies behind these chips have begun to bump up against fundamental limits, such as the wavelengths of light used for critical steps in chip manufacturing.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Compounds used in new flame-retardant products are showing up in the environment at increasing concentrations, according to a recent study by researchers at Indiana University Bloomington.

The best way to grab a sample of a rotating comet that is racing through the inner solar system at up to 150,000 miles per hour while spewing chunks of ice, rock and dust may be to avoid the risky business of landing on it. Instead, researchers want to send a spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet, then fire a harpoon to rapidly acquire samples from specific locations with surgical precision while hovering above the target.

Imprinting electronic circuitry on backplanes that are both flexible and stretchable promises to revolutionize a number of industries and make "smart devices" nearly ubiquitous. Among the applications that have been envisioned are electronic pads that could be folded away like paper, coatings that could monitor surfaces for cracks and other structural failures, medical bandages that could treat infections and food packaging that could detect spoilage.

A new chemical technique for depositing a non-crystalline form of silicon into the long, ultra-thin pores of optical fibers has been developed by an international team of scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom. The technique, which is the first of its kind to use high-pressure chemistry for making well-developed films and wires of this particular kind of silicon semiconductor, will help scientists to make more-efficient and more-flexible optical fibers.

Researchers from North Carolina State University, Sandia National Laboratories, and the University of California, San Diego have developed new technology that uses microneedles to allow doctors to detect real-time chemical changes in the body – and to continuously do so for an extended period of time.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Under the cold clear waters of Lake Huron, University of Michigan researchers have found a five-and-a-half foot-long, pole-shaped piece of wood that is 8,900 years old. The wood, which is tapered and beveled on one side in a way that looks deliberate, may provide important clues to a mysterious period in North American prehistory.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Drawing on X-ray crystallography and experimental data, as well as a software suite for predicting and designing protein structures, a UC Davis School of Medicine researcher has developed an algorithm that predicts what has been impossible to generate in the laboratory: the conformational changes in voltage-gated sodium channels when they are at rest or actively transmitting a signal in muscle and nerve cells.

It's time to stop thinking of solar energy as a boutique source of power, says Joshua Pearce.

Sure, solar only generates about 1 percent of the electricity in the US. But that will change in a few years, says Pearce, an associate professor of electrical engineering and materials science at Michigan Technological University. The ultimate in renewable energy is about to go mainstream.

It's no surprise that humans the world over use more water, by volume, than any other material. But in second place, at over 17 billion tons consumed each year, comes concrete made with Portland cement. Portland cement provides the essential binder for strong, versatile concrete; its basic materials are found in many places around the globe; and, at about $100 a ton, it's relatively cheap. Making it, however, releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide, accounting for more than five percent of the total CO2 emissions from human activity.

ABIKO, JAPAN—The quality of agricultural seedlings is important to crop growth and yield after transplantation. Good quality seedlings exhibit characteristics such as thick stems, thick leaves, dark green leaves, and large white roots. Scientists have long known that plant development and physiology are strongly influenced by the light spectrum, which affects seedling structure. Raising seedlings irradiated with blue light has been shown to increase crop yield after planting because of the high accumulation of phenolic compounds.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK—Natural products marketed as plant growth enhancers are becoming increasingly sought-after. Many of these products, typically produced by small companies with limited research capabilities, have not been tested in farm trials, nor have claims about product effectiveness been documented by scientific data. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen investigated the growth regulatory effect of Tea Seed Powder (TSP), a saponin-rich waste product from tea seed (Camellia sp.) oil production. The results of research appeared in the HortScience.

DURHAM, N.C. –- Microscopic water droplets jumping from one surface to another may hold the key to a wide array of more energy efficient products, ranging from large solar panels to compact laptop computers.

Duke University engineers have developed a new way of producing thermal diodes to regulate heat by bleeding it away or keeping it in. The method solves several shortcomings of existing devices.

Together with international colleagues, scientists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have added another important component towards understanding the material graphene; a material that is currently receiving a lot of attention: They have determined the lifetime of electrons in graphene in lower energy ranges. This is of great relevance for the future development of fast electronic and optoelectronic components. The results were published just recently in the online edition of the journal Physical Review Letters (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.237401).