Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Pile-o’-polymers breaks up on command
Stacks of polymers designed to break apart in acid solution or at a certain voltage may prove useful for releasing drugs, pesticides, or other compounds where and when needed.
- Computing
Calculating Swarms
Ant teamwork suggests models for computing faster and organizing better.
- Tech
Aircraft trick may give big rigs a gentle lift
Using sheet-like jets of air to control aerodynamic drag and lift—a technology first developed for aircraft—may boost gas mileage and improve braking and handling of tractor-trailer trucks.
- Tech
Software enhances view of aircraft flaws
New software can run an ultrasonic machine that will map corrosion beneath the surface of an airplane more quickly, safely, and effectively than can existing devices.
- Computing
Virtual stampede sees faces in crowd
A new computer model based on particle interactions suggests ways to prevent a panicked crowd from stampeding.
- Tech
Device ups hydrogen energy from sunlight
A solar-electric cell that stands above an acid bath on electrode legs has converted light to hydrogen fuel with unprecedented efficiency.
- Tech
Robots making robots, with some help
A new type of robotic system that designs and produces robotic offspring may represent a first step toward self-replicating "artificial life."
- Computing
Going to digital extremes
A researcher designs the ultimate laptop, stretching the laws of physics to their limits to achieve blazing computation rates.
- Computing
Resistance leaps as magnetism mounts
A tiny traffic island for electrons promises to serve as an extraordinarily sensitive detector of magnetic fields.
- Tech
Coddled crystal slams door on light
A better fabrication process yields such a high-quality optical material that microchips using light, rather than electrons, may be close to reality.
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- Computing
Computation Takes a Quantum Leap
A quantum computation involving a custom-built molecule furnishes experimental evidence that a quantum computer can solve certain mathematical problems more efficiently than can a conventional computer.
