Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Speed Bump: Tip’s tricks sort DNA, write at nanoscale
An atomic-force microscope tip has been transformed into a microinstrument for sorting DNA and depositing nanostructures by means of cleverly applied voltages that propel molecules along the tip's surface.
- Tech
Aircraft Photos
The Dryden Flight Research Center is NASA’s center for aeronautical flight research and atmospheric flight operations. The Center’s Web site has an extensive photo collection, which features images of many of the research and experimental aircraft flown at the test facility, from the 1940s to today. Go to: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/index.html
- Tech
Long-lasting liposomes
A coat of nanoparticles can prevent a popular lab-made capsule from fusing with its neighbors and losing its structure.
- Tech
Switch-a-Vision: Electric spectacles could aid aging eyes
A new type of eyeglasses that change their focus in response to electric signals may one day replace bifocals and other types of reading glasses.
- Tech
A better test for lung cancer?
A genetic test of cells lining the windpipe can detect lung cancer in smokers.
- Tech
Cool Wire: Nanostructure boosts superconductor
The extraordinary performance of a prototype superconductive wire is encouraging superconductivity specialists, even though the prototype is unlikely to be mass-produced.
- Tech
Corralling Brownian motion
A new microscope system uses electrically controlled fluid motions to counteract Brownian motion, preventing those random jitters from driving proteins, viruses, and other tiny objects out of the field of view.
- Tech
Device rids homes of sounds of rap
Woodpeckers cause millions of dollars of damage to homes and buildings each year, but a battery-operated, sound-activated, spider-shaped device installed beneath a home's eaves can help prevent this avian scourge.
- Tech
Viral building blocks
Proteins taken from a spherical virus and combined with pieces of DNA can form tubular nanostructures, researchers report.
- Tech
Meddling with Metal: Novel nanocontrol yields chromium rival
A new, nontoxic alloy that might reduce use of toxic chromium springs from a novel way to manipulate crystalline metal structures via precise control of their atomic composition.
- Tech
Making the most of chip fabrication
An advance in the way microelectronic circuit patterns are created may help preserve conventional chip-making methods beyond the currently predicted date of their demise.
- Tech
A dim view of biologic and chemical agents
Microscopic gel balls that act as lenses may become the active ingredient of quick-acting sensors for bioagents and chemicals.
