Tech

Tech

Gadgets from the Quantum Spookhouse

Despite much fanfare about proposed computers based on weird features of quantum mechanics, a whole array of other quantum technologies—navigation devices, chip-making equipment, atomic clocks and more—may also outshine their conventional cousins and be easier to implement than full-blown quantum computers.

Tech

Technique senses damage before it hurts

A new technique for automatically detecting damage to aircraft, buildings, and other structures may lead to practical damage-monitoring systems by reducing false alarms that make today's laboratory prototypes unsuitable for real-world use.

Computing

Sneaky Calculations

The same communication system that brings you the Web page of your choice can be exploited to perform computations.

Tech

Wiring teensy tubes, strands into circuits

Single-molecule transistors and other comparably small components are now at work in prototype circuits that may eventually lead to electronic devices crammed with up to 100,000 times more transistors per square centimeter than are on today's chips.

Tech

Exploding wires open sharp X-ray eye

Using exploding wires to make low-energy X-rays, a novel, high-resolution camera snaps X-ray pictures of millimeter-scale or larger objects—such as full insects—in which features only micrometers across show up throughout the image.

Tech

Curve on golf club sends ball straight

Although the curved faces of golf clubs called drivers blast balls sideways, their convex design works just right to compensate for other effects tending to make balls veer off the fairway, new calculations show.

Tech

Cooling film tempers tiny hot spots

Shattering a 40-year-old performance limit, a new layered, semiconductor material promises to spur wider use of so-called thermoelectric devices that cool or heat electrically and can convert heat to electric power.

Tech

Brain cells stay in focus as rats roam

So light that it doesn't weigh down a rat's head, a new microscope mounted over a hole in the awake animal's skull promises to open a window into individual neurons as a rat carries out normal activities.

Tech

Natural micromachines get the points

In custom-made microscopic channels marked with arrows, mobile and thread-like cell structures called microtubules no longer wander aimlessly but slither in a fixed direction—a potential step toward tiny, man-made factories where cellular micromachinery churns out drugs or novel materials.

Tech

Microjaws chomp cells to change them

A tiny, new biomedical device operates on such a small scale that it can grab individual red blood corpuscles in its jaws.

Tech

Nervy chip may open window into brain

Researchers have built a simple circuit that blends living neurons with silicon-based transistors.

Tech

Designing planet rovers that tumble

Before the decade is out, towering wind-driven balloons may roam the Martian surface, traveling far more extensively than wheeled rovers do.