Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Looking for Mr. Goodoxide
The impending collapse of a 40-year union between the electronic wonder materials silicon and silicon dioxide threatens the advance of chip technology and propels a high-stakes search for silicon dioxide replacements.
- Tech
Future Tech
Science fiction and fact seem to mingle at this Web site, which provides entertaining glimpses of a variety of futuristic technologies, from wearable computers to electronic healing. Links lead to other Web sites that offer additional information. Go to: http://www.21stcentury.co.uk/technology/index.asp
- Tech
Pocket Sockets
Keenly aware of user frustration with the short-lived batteries in cell phones and other portable electronics, researchers are rushing to work out the bugs in tiny fuel-cell power plants that will be as small as batteries—but last a lot longer and be refuelable.
- Tech
Electronics in the Round: Mixing plastic and silicon yields form-fitting circuitry
Investigators used ordinary integrated-circuit fabrication techniques to pattern arrays of silicon-based transistors onto a flat, deformable sheet of plastic.
- Computing
Writing faster with your eyes
A new method for gaze-operated, hands-free text entry is faster and more accurate than using an on-screen keyboard.
- Tech
Micromachine runs on nuclear power
Radioactivity creates electric fields that wiggle a tiny lever.
- Tech
Eau, Brother!
The combination of advanced sensor materials and powerful computer chips promises devices that can sense threats ranging from bacteria in food to explosives in land mines.
- Tech
Shrinking toward the Ultimate Transistor
Scientists demonstrate transistor action in an atom—or two.
- Tech
Software bugs cost big bucks
An epidemic of software errors in industrial computer programs is costing the United States $60 billion per year.
- Tech
Voltage from the Bottom of the Sea: Ooze-dwelling microbes can power electronics
Some types of bacteria living in seafloor mud can generate enough electricity to power small electronic devices.
- Tech
Putting squish into artificial organs
Artificial organs and tissues may someday feel more like the real thing if a new, rubbery polymer supplants mostly stiff materials available today for tissue engineering.
- Tech
Building a Supermodel
Researchers are combining ergonomics and biological research with computer power to build a virtual human that can simulate human biology from anatomy down to the genetic code.
