http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/technology-blog.html Technology blog from networlddirectory, the place for information. Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:29:47 GMT en-us http://www.networlddirectory.com/images/blogs/technology-blog.jpg http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/technology-blog.html 123 87 http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2011/junk-energy-into-useful-power.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2011/junk-energy-into-useful-power.html Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:29:47 GMT A University at Buffalo-led research team has developed a mathematical framework that could one day form the basis of technologies that turn road vibrations, airport runway noise and other "junk" energy into useful power. The concept all begins with a granular system comprising a chain of equal-sized particles -- spheres, for instance -- that touch one another........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/first-practical-artificial-leaf.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/first-practical-artificial-leaf.html Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:29:47 GMT esearchers today claimed one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy � development of the first practical artificial leaf. Speaking here at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, they described an advanced solar cell the size of a poker card that mimics the process, called photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert sunlight and water into energy........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/a-new-phase-of-matter.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/a-new-phase-of-matter.html Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:29:47 GMT Researchers have found the strongest evidence yet that a puzzling gap in the electronic structures of some high-temperature superconductors could indicate a new phase of matter. Understanding this "pseudogap" has been a 20-year quest for scientists who are trying to control and improve these breakthrough materials, with the ultimate goal of finding superconductors that operate at room temperature........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/worlds-first-time-machine.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/worlds-first-time-machine.html Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:29:47 GMT If the latest theory of Tom Weiler and Chui Man Ho is right, the Large Hadron Collider - the world's largest atom smasher that started regular operation last year - could be the first machine capable of causing matter to travel backwards in time. "Our theory is a long shot," admitted Weiler, who is a physics professor at Vanderbilt University, "but it doesn't violate any laws of physics or experimental constraints"........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/new-measurement-technology.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/new-measurement-technology.html Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:29:47 GMT The development of a new measurement technology under a research project funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation is probing the structure of composite and biological materials. "Our results have provided some of the first microscopic insights into a sixty year old puzzle about the way polymeric networks react to repeated shear strains," said Dr. Daniel Blair, Assistant Professor, and principal investigator of the Soft Matter Group in the Department of Physics at Georgetown University........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/black-holes-a-model-for-superconductors.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/black-holes-a-model-for-superconductors.html Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:29:47 GMT Black holes are some of the heaviest objects in the universe. Electrons are some of the lightest. Now physicists Robert G. Leigh and Philip Phillips along with postdoctoral fellow Mohammad Edalati and graduate student Ka Wai Lo of the University of Illinois have shown how charged black holes can be used to model the behavior of interacting electrons in unconventional superconductors........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/an-eye-on-nanoparticles.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/an-eye-on-nanoparticles.html Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:29:47 GMT Precision measurement in the world of nanoparticles has now become a possibility, thanks to researchers at UC Santa Barbara. The UCSB research team has developed a new instrument capable of detecting individual nanoparticles with diameters as small as a few tens of nanometers. The study will be published on line this week by Nature Nanotechnology, and appear in the April print issue of the journal........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2011/keeping-things-fresh-and-real-in-the-dark-box.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2011/keeping-things-fresh-and-real-in-the-dark-box.html Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:29:47 GMT This Fridge Ionizer & Ozonator hums away quietly in your refrigerator killing all those nasty little bugs which degrade your foodstuffs. The result should be longer lasting produce and a happier, healthier family. Right? It’s battery powered and small enough to sit on a door shelf doing its duty. You’ll need to buy four for $49.15 to get them shipped, so gather up some ......... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2011/new-glass-tops-steel-in-strength-and-toughness.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2011/new-glass-tops-steel-in-strength-and-toughness.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT Glass stronger and tougher than steel? A new type of damage-tolerant metallic glass, demonstrating a strength and toughness beyond that of any known material, has been developed and tested by a collaboration of scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)and the California Institute of Technology. What's more, even better versions of this new glass appears to be on the way........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2011/study-finds-energy-limits-global-economic-growth.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2011/study-finds-energy-limits-global-economic-growth.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT A study that relates global energy use to economic growth, reported in the recent issue of BioScience, finds strong correlations between these two measures both among countries and within countries over time. The research leads the study's authors to infer that energy use limits economic activity directly. They conclude that an "enormous" increase in energy supply will be mandatory to meet the demands of projected world population growth and lift the developing world out of poverty without jeopardizing standards of living in most developed countries........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2010/nuclear-magnetic-moments.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2010/nuclear-magnetic-moments.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT uclear magnetic moment provides a highly sensitive probe into the single-particle structure and serves as a stringent test of nuclear models. In recent decades, the facilities with radioactive ion beam models to study nuclear magnetic moments make it possible to measure the magnetic moments of neutron-rich and proton-rich nuclei with high precision. On the theoretical side, a number of nuclear structure models, including advanced shell models, and self-consistent mean-field theories, have succeeded analyzing a number of nuclear structure properties. However, the extension of these models to the study of nuclear magnetic moments is quite limited and unsatisfactory. The magnetic dipole moments of most atomic nuclei throughout the periodic table still remain unexplained and the under-lying physics mechanism is not fully understood........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2010/directed-self-assembly-of-vertical-nanotubes.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2010/directed-self-assembly-of-vertical-nanotubes.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT "Directed Self-Assembly of Vertical Nanotubes for Biosensors, Logic, and Nano-Biofuel Cells," will be the focus of NJIT's exhibit today . at the National Nanotechnology Innovation Summit 10 http://www.nsti.org/events/NNI/, at the Gaylord Center in Washington, DC. The event celebrates the 10th anniversary of the national nanotechnology initiative........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/antimatter-atoms-stored.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/antimatter-atoms-stored.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT Atoms of antimatter have been trapped and stored for the first time by the ALPHA collaboration, an international team of researchers working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have made key contributions to the ongoing international effort........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/nanoscale-probe-reveals-interactions.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/nanoscale-probe-reveals-interactions.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT As electronics become smaller and smaller the need to understand nanoscale phenomena becomes greater and greater. Because materials exhibit different properties at the nanoscale than they do at larger scales, new techniques are mandatory to understand and to exploit these new phenomena. A team of scientists led by Paul Weiss, UCLA's Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences, has developed a tool to study nanoscale interactions. Their device is a dual scanning tunneling and microwave-frequency probe that is capable of measuring the interactions between single molecules and the surfaces to which the molecules are attached........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/linking-geometric-problems-to-physics.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/linking-geometric-problems-to-physics.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT A Princeton scientist with an interdisciplinary bent has taken two well-known problems in mathematics and reformulated them as a physics question, offering new tools to solve challenges relevant to a host of subjects ranging from improving data compression to detecting gravitational waves. Salvatore Torquato, a professor of chemistry, has shown that two abstract puzzles in geometry -- known as the "covering" and "quantizer" problems -- can be recast as "ground state" problems in physics. Ground state problems relate to the study of molecule systems at their lowest levels of energy and have numerous applications across scientific disciplines. Torquato's conclusions are reported in a paper that was published online Nov. 10 by Physical Review E........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/flexible-nanogenerator-technology.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/flexible-nanogenerator-technology.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT Can a heart implanted micro robot operate permanently? Can cell phones and tiny robots implanted in the heart operate permanently without having their batteries charged? It might sound like science fiction, but these things seem to be possible in the near future. The team of Prof. Keon Jae Lee (KAIST, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering) and Prof. Zhong Lin Wang (Georgia Institute of Technology, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering) has developed new forms of highly efficient, flexible nanogenerator technology using the freely bendable piezoelectric ceramic thin film nano-materials that can convert tiny movements of the human body (such as heart beats and blood flow) into electrical energy........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/taming-thermonuclear-plasma.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/taming-thermonuclear-plasma.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT Physicists working on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory are now one step closer to solving one of the grand challenges of magnetic fusion researchhow to reduce the effect that the hot plasma has on fusion machine walls (or how to tame the plasma-material interface). Some heat from the hot plasma core of a fusion energy device escapes the plasma and can interact with reactor vessel walls. This not only erodes the walls and other components, but also contaminates the plasmaall challenges for practical fusion. One method to protect machine walls involves divertors, chambers outside the plasma into which the plasma heat exhaust (and impurities) flow. A new divertor concept, called the "snowflake," has been shown to significantly reduce the interaction between hot plasma and the cold walls surrounding it........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/vacuum-arcs-spark-new-interest.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/vacuum-arcs-spark-new-interest.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT Whenever two pieces of metal at different voltages are brought near each other, as when an appliance is plugged into a live socket, there is a chance there will be an arc between them. Most of the arcs people see are a breakdown of the gas between the metal surfaces, but this type of breakdown can also occur in a vacuum. This vacuum breakdown, which until recently has not been well understood, has implications for applications from particle accelerators to fusion reactors........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/pennycress-as-a-new-source-of-biofuel.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/pennycress-as-a-new-source-of-biofuel.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT A common roadside plant could have the right stuff to become a new source of biofuel, as per U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) studies. Researchers with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency, have observed that field pennycress yields impressive quantities of seeds whose oil could be used in biodiesel production........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/long-range-undersea-robot.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2010/long-range-undersea-robot.html Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:03:39 GMT research. Today's AUVs fall into two groups: 1) propeller-driven vehicles that can travel fast and carry lots of instruments, but are limited to expeditions of only a few days; and 2) "gliders," which can stay at sea for weeks or even months at a time, but cannot travel very quickly. MBARI engineers recently demonstrated a new super-efficient AUV that combines the best of these two approaches. This new long-range AUV (LRAUV) can travel rapidly for hundreds of kilometers, "hover" in the water for weeks at a time, and carry a wide variety of instruments........ ]]>