Tech

Researchers have developed a way to create ceramics using 3D printing that results in a strong material with little tendency to crack that can be fabricated into complex, curved and porous shapes. Ceramic materials offer many appealing qualities, including high-temperature stability, environmental resistance, and high strength. But unlike polymers and some metals, ceramic particles don't fuse together when heated. Thus, the few 3D printing techniques that have been developed for ceramics have slow production rates and involve additives that increase the material's tendency to crack.

Researchers say that the actions of individual farmers should be considered when studying and modelling strategies of pest control.

Research published in PLOS Computational Biology presents a model to understand the actions of humans and the dynamics of pest populations. The authors demonstrate this by using the example of the European corn borer, a moth whose larval phase is a major pest of maize.

The joint research team of Prof. Yoon Seok Jung (UNIST, School of Energy and Chemical Engineering) and Prof. Seng M. Oh (Seoul National University) discovered a new way to develop all-solid-state lithium batteries without a risk of conflagration or explosion. It is the method of melting the solid electrolyte and coating that melted electrolyte around the electrodes. This research outcome was introduced on Advanced Materials on December 22, 2015.

A fully renewable energy system is achievable and economically viable in Russia and Central Asia in 2030. Researchers from Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) modelled a renewable energy system for Russia and Central Asia. Results show that renewable energy is the cheapest option for the continent and can make Russia a very energy competitive region in the future.

Say hello to Nadine, a 'receptionist' at Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore). She is friendly, and will greet you back. Next time you meet her, she will remember your name and your previous conversation with her.

She looks almost like a human being, with soft skin and flowing brunette hair. She smiles when greeting you, looks at you in the eye when talking, and can also shake hands with you. And she is a humanoid.

Washington, DC -- California's forests are home to the planet's oldest, tallest and most-massive trees. New research from Carnegie's Greg Asner and his team reveals that up to 58 million large trees in California experienced severe canopy water loss between 2011 and today due to the state's historic drought. Their results are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A new metamaterial with an unusual refraction of light will speed up computers

A team of scientists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in the Russian Academy of Sciences has proposed a two-dimensional metamaterial composed of silver elements, that refracts light in an unusual way. The research has been published on Nov. 18, 2015 in Optical Material Express. In the future, these structures will be able to be used to develop compact optical devices, as well as to create an 'invisibility cloak.'

In the nanoworld, tiny particles of gold can operate like snow blowers, churning through surface layers of an important class of semiconductors to dig unerringly straight paths. The surprising trenching capability, reported by scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and IBM,* is an important addition to the toolkit of nature-supplied 'self-assembly' methods that researchers aim to harness for making useful devices.

AMBLER, PA - In temperate climates the colors and appearance of plants and trees change throughout the year. A study in the October 2015 issue of HortTechnology may help landscape professionals choose colors and designs that better meet consumers' needs. Rob Kuper, from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture at Temple University, used photographs of landscapes in various seasons to determine peoples' perceptions and preferences for the color complexity of changing natural scenes.

Vultures are poor flappers and need to soar in order to fly, relying on updrafts to gain altitude. Spend enough time watching vultures, though, and you'll notice them wobbling at low altitudes as well as circling high in the air. New research in The Auk: Ornithological Advances shows how vultures use small-scale turbulence to stay aloft even when weather conditions don't favor the formation of thermals. The mechanism and purpose of this behavior, which researchers have dubbed 'contorted soaring,' are explained for the first time in the forthcoming article.

A team led by researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has created a super-strong yet light structural metal with extremely high specific strength and modulus, or stiffness-to-weight ratio. The new metal is composed of magnesium infused with a dense and even dispersal of ceramic silicon carbide nanoparticles. It could be used to make lighter airplanes, spacecraft, and cars, helping to improve fuel efficiency, as well as in mobile electronics and biomedical devices.

Berkeley -- Engineers have successfully married electrons and photons within a single-chip microprocessor, a landmark development that opens the door to ultrafast, low-power data crunching.

The researchers packed two processor cores with more than 70 million transistors and 850 photonic components onto a 3-by-6-millimeter chip. They fabricated the microprocessor in a foundry that mass-produces high-performance computer chips, proving that their design can be easily and quickly scaled up for commercial production.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Using only processes found in existing microchip fabrication facilities, researchers at MIT, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Colorado have produced a working optoelectronic microprocessor, which computes electronically but uses light to move information.

Optical communication could dramatically reduce chips' power consumption, which is not only desirable in its own right but essential to maintaining the steady increases in computing power that we've come to expect.

Researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a novel way to noninvasively measure and map how and where trapped light vibrates within microscale optical resonators.*

The new technique not only makes for more accurate measurements but also allows scientists to fine-tune the trapped light's frequency by subtly altering the shape of the resonator itself.

Imagine you're baking a special cake, one in which the shape of each mote of spice mixed into the batter can have a profound effect on your dessert's color, its taste, its texture on the tongue. That's a rough description of creating new lightweight materials for aircraft, cars and windmills that use tiny nanoparticles as ingredients, and scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made* recipe development a more palatable job.