Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Resistancefree wire takes long jump
A wire-making company has demonstrated a process that yields potentially inexpensive, high-current superconducting wires about 10 times longer than previous prototypes.
- Computing
Loony Tunes: Bugs blare in software set to music
A novel way of converting computer programs into familiar-sounding music helps programmers locate errors in their code.
- Computing
Software’s beginnings
The earliest known use of the term software to describe computer programs dates back to 1958.
- Computing
‘Love bug’ lessons
In early May, the malicious ILOVEYOU computer virus shut down hundreds of thousands of computers and caused several billion dollars in damage.
- Computing
A loosely woven Web
The World Wide Web is less like a network of heavily interconnected superhighways and more like a jungle of one-way streets often leading to dead ends.
- Tech
Hidden Costs: It takes much stuff to make one tiny chip
A new analysis reveals that the production of a single 2-gram microchip requires nearly 2 kilograms of chemicals and fossil fuels.
- Tech
Hot Flashes, Cold Cuts
By obliterating matter in a never-before-seen way, a new breed of lasers cuts everything from eyeballs to diamonds with unprecedented precision.
- Tech
Nanotech Switch: Strategy controls minuscule motor
Researchers have modified a rotating protein fragment so that it starts and stops spinning with the addition and removal of zinc.
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- Tech
Civilians get better GPS
President Clinton directed the Defense Department to stop degrading signals from 24 Global Positioning System satellites, allowing civilians to receive the same location-pinpointing accuracy long available to the U.S. military.
- Tech
Engineering Top 20
Airplanes, telephones, refrigerators, and spacecraft are among the life-changing technological accomplishments highlighted at the National Academy of Engineering’s Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century Web site. A variety of illustrations, a brief history, and a timeline of important landmarks accompany each entry. Go to: http://www.greatachievements.org/
- Tech
Solar Surgery: Sunlight acts like laser
By channeling sunlight down a fiber optic cable, scientists have produced laserlike beams that can burn tumors off major organs.
