Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Live Tour: Joystick journeys reveal tumor interiors
A new holographic technique may someday enable doctors to skip certain biopsies and choose instead to take video excursions inside suspicious growths in skin or internal body linings.
- Tech
Cold Lighting
Solid-state light sources, such as light-emitting diodes, promise greater energy efficiency than do incandescent lamps. The Sandia National Laboratories has launched a Web site that offers articles, references, and other information on semiconductor-based lighting and its use for illuminating homes, offices, and public spaces. Go to: http://lighting.sandia.gov/
- Tech
Sowing neat rows of seeds on silicon
A new way to introduce foreign atoms into silicon with atomic-scale precision may help chip manufacturers over a looming hurdle.
- Tech
Taming High-Tech Particles
Researchers are beginning to study whether nanomaterials could have unintended negative consequences in the human body or the environment.
- Computing
Finding networks within networks
A new mathematical procedure, or algorithm, picks out those members within a larger network—for instance, related sites on the World Wide Web—that have especially close ties.
- Tech
Littlest catalysts get a lot of support
Tiny metal clusters used as catalysts are getting so small that presumably inert carrier materials that host them are also getting involved in the reactions.
- Tech
Beam Team: Unusual laser emits a band of light
A novel laser on a microchip emits a band of light rather than the single, pure color usually expected from a laser.
- Tech
Itsy chain turns bitsy gears
A tiny chain with links the size of biological cells offers a new way to deliver power to micromachines.
- Tech
Circuitry in a nanowire: Novel growth method may transform chips
Made from alternating bands of different semiconductors, a new type of superthin wire incorporates working electronic and optical devices within the wire itself, raising the prospect of making extremely tiny and versatile circuits from the striped filaments.
- Computing
Calculating Cartoons
Thanks to sophisticated computer simulations of the laws of physics, spectacular special effects—plus a zoo of strange but real-looking creatures—increasingly enliven movie screens and computer-game consoles.
- Tech
Little levers for satellites: Cilia may precisely dock tiny spacecraft
Tiny artificial hairs that imitate biological cilia flex with enough muscle and finesse to maneuver tiny satellites into place for docking with a mother ship.
- Tech
Magnetic refrigerator gets down and homey
Because it uses a permanent magnet, a new, prototype magnetic cooler takes up so little space that it could give rise to ordinary household refrigerators and air conditioners that run on magnetism instead of volatile liquids.
