Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- Tech
Futuristic engine proves its mettle
A miniature missile shot from a cannon has demonstrated for the first time in free flight that a futuristic jet engine called a scramjet can propel itself.
- Tech
Quantum bell rings to electron beat
A new nanoscale transistor that parcels out electrons with metronome-like regularity has the potential to lead to designs for electronic noses and tiny devices inside of cell phones.
