Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Building a Better Shuttle
Researchers are working on both more heat-tolerant materials and totally new designs for vehicles that might ultimately replace the space shuttle.
- Computing
Pictures Only a Computer Could Love
New, unconventional lenses shape scenes into pictures for computers, not people, so that computer-equipped microscopes, cameras, and other optical devices can see more with less.
- Tech
Refueling Rockets
Hybrid-rocket fuels—part solid, part liquid—have been around for a half-century, and they may just now be taking off.
- Tech
Invention Playhouse
Aimed at children, the “Invention at Play” Web site offers a variety of interactive activities to encourage and exercise creativity. Developed by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, the site accompanies a traveling exhibit that looks at similarities between the way children play and creative processes used by science and technology […]
- Tech
Chip Collection
The Smithsonian’s “Chip Collection” Web site offers all sorts of nuggets of information for those interested in the history of integrated circuits. Developed and frequently updated by Nance L. Briscoe of the National Museum of American History, the site features more than 2,000 images, a “chip talk” glossary, examples of chip graffiti, information on patents, […]
- Tech
On the Rebound
When electronically reversed in time, acoustic echoes can zero in on a spot in space, focusing sound energy so that it may zap tumors, detect submarines, or transmit private and secure information.
- Tech
Watching the Big Wheelers: In sea of cars, trucks reveal traffic flow
A new way to sense traffic jams more quickly tracks the motion of trucks within the overall traffic flow.
- Tech
The Little Engines That Couldn’t
Tired of grinding their gears, micromachine researchers turn to surface science.
- Tech
Worms may spin silk fit for skin
Silk cocoons could become puffs of valuable human proteins if a new bioengineering method pans out.
- Tech
A Theremin’s Electronic Wail
A pioneering electronic instrument played without touch, the theremin can produce a wide range of eerie sounds. Introduced by Lev Sergeyvich Termen in 1921, the instrument responds to hand motions, which control the pitch and loudness. Information about the theremin is available at various Web sites, and if you’re dying to play it yourself, you […]
- Tech
Technique boosts data rate in light pipes
Turning a liability into an asset, a new technique for passing information through optical fibers increases the data flow by exploiting the very trait that has long held that flow back.
- Tech
Light Splash: Transparent pipes shape microstructures
A new technique using fluid dyes in microplumbing to create miniature fluid-carrying chips improves the 3-D topography of these microstructures and makes that topography relatively easy to modify.
