News

UCLA researchers have fabricated the fastest graphene transistor to date, using a new fabrication process with a nanowire as a self-aligned gate. Self-aligned gates are a key element in modern transistors, which are semiconductor devices used to amplify and switch electronic signals. Gates are used to switch the transistor between various states, and self-aligned gates were developed to [...]

A new “smart materials” process — Multiple Memory Material Technology — developed by University of Waterloo engineering researchers promises to revolutionize the manufacture of diverse products such as medical devices, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), printers, hard drives, automotive components, valves and actuators. The breakthrough technology will provide engineers with much more freedom and creativity by enabling far [...]

Sugar, salt, alcohol and a little serendipity led a Northwestern University research team to discover a new class of nanostructures that could be used for gas storage and food and medical technologies. And the compounds are edible. The porous crystals are the first known all-natural metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that are simple to make. Most other MOFs [...]

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have devised a new technique — using a sheet of carbon just one atom thick — to visualize the structure of molecules. The technique, which was used to obtain the first direct images of how water coats surfaces at room temperature, can also be used to image a [...]

Dr. Suzanne Gildert will speak on “Building large-scale quantum computers: Fundamentals, technology and applications” at Teleplace, September 4, 10 a.m. PST. “The talk will explain why quantum computers are useful, and also dispel some of the myths about what they can and cannot do,” she says. “It will address some of the practical ways in which we can [...]

God did not create the universe, says Stephen Hawking in a new book, The Grand Design, co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow (to be released Sept. 7). He said the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics Isaac Newton that the universe could not [...]

Scientists are reporting new evidence that the fat tissue — far from being a dormant storage depot for surplus calories — is an active organ that sends chemical signals to other parts of the body, perhaps increasing the risk of heart attacks, cancer, and other diseases. They are reporting discovery of 20 new hormones and other [...]

Researchers in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering have developed software that can simulate complicated physical phenomena — how cracks form in building materials, for instance, or fluids flow through irregular channels — on an ordinary smartphone. Although the current version of the software is for demonstration purposes, the work could lead to applications that let engineers [...]

MIT researchers have developed a new concept of personalized energy systems, in which individual homes and small businesses produce their own energy for heating, cooling and powering cars. “Our goal is to make each home its own power station,” said study leader Daniel Nocera, Ph.D of MIT. “We’re working toward development of ‘personalized’ energy units that [...]

Google TV and Apple TV, introduced Wednesday, both aim to redefine the home entertainment experience by creating a seamless system for viewing movies, videos, and music from various sources on a TV.

“In Google, we are at once the surveilled and the individual retinal cells of the surveillant, however many millions of us, constantly if unconsciously participatory,” opines novelist William Gibson. ”We are part of a post-geographical, post-national super-state, one that handily says no to China. Or yes, depending on profit considerations and strategy. But we do not [...]

“Gmail Priority Inbox” video on YouTube is self-explanatory.

Author Neal Stephenson has launched Subutai, which has developed the “PULP platform” for creating digital novels, using a new model for publishing books in which authors can add additional material like background articles, images, music, and video. There are also social features that allow readers to create their own profiles, earn badges for activity on the [...]

For years, claims have circulated that red rain that fell in India in 2001 contained cells unlike any found on Earth. Now new evidence that these cells can reproduce is about to set the debate alive. “The flourescence behaviour of the red cells is shown to be in remarkable correspondence with the extended red emission observed [...]

The AlloSphere, a three-story-high globe at the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara,  facilitates interactive 3-D visualizations to enables scientists to dive into data in unprecedented ways. Inside the sphere, they can get their hands on the atoms making up the crystal structure of new solar-cell materials or enter a brain and [...]

Hewlett-Packard announced today that it has entered an agreement with the Korean electronics manufacturer Hynix Semiconductor to make memristors, starting in 2013. Storage devices made of memristors will allow PCs, cellphones, and servers to store more and switch on instantly. “The goal is to be at least double whatever flash memory is in three years–we know we’ll [...]

Rice University scientists have created the first two-terminal memory chips that use only silicon to generate nanocrystal wires as small as 5 nanometers — far smaller than circuitry in even the most advanced computers and electronic devices. The technology breakthrough promises to extend the limits of miniaturization subject to Moore’s Law, and should be easily [...]

Crispian Jago has developed a draft timeline (based on an original London underground map) showing the last 500 years of science, reason and critical thinking “to celebrate the achievements of the scientific method through the age of reason, the enlightenment and modernity.” Some of the lines are still sketchy, such as the one for Mathematics and [...]

Google has released its latest “Chrome Experiment” in the form of a music video “experience” that shows off the power of tools like HTML5 and Google products like Chrome, Maps and Street View, using real-time graphics rendering and real-world imagery pulled from Google Maps satellite and Street View imagery from your own home town. Opens up an exciting new [...]

Scientists at Rice University and Hewlett-Packard are reporting this week that they can overcome a fundamental barrier to the continued rapid miniaturization of computer memory by using memristors, or memory resistors, switches that retain information without a source of power.