Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Body-fluid battery
A battery that's activated by body fluids such as saliva or urine may one day power devices ranging from disposable home health-care testing kits to emergency radio transmitters that turn on with a lick.
- Tech
Wings warp for birdlike agility
An easily maneuverable, bird-size airplane whose wings can change shape in flight may be able to carry out a variety of assignments in tight spots.
- Tech
Roughing up counterfeiters
A new anticounterfeiting scheme generates unique, reproducible identity codes that could be used to authenticate passports, credit cards, and other items on the basis of inherent, microscopic irregularities in the items' surfaces.
- Tech
Electronic Leap: Plastic component may lead to ubiquitous radio tags
Tiny radio circuits cheap enough to be embedded into countless products have moved closer to reality with the development of a fast, plastic semiconductor diode.
- Tech
Speed Reader: Gene sequencing gets a boost
The first lab-ready technology to challenge the dominant gene-sequencing technique known as the Sanger method taps miniaturization and parallel reading of hundreds of thousands of DNA stretches to boost speed and slash cost.
- Tech
Easy Striders
New robots based on the mechanics of human walking use less energy and move more naturally than traditional bipedal robots do, suggesting new ways to approach two-legged robots and prosthetic design.
- Tech
Tapping Tiny Pores: Nanovalves control chemical releases
After creating arrays of nanovalves, each made from a single molecule, chemists used them to generate minuscule chemical discharges.
- Tech
Wiring up molecules
Minuscule gaps of controlled sizes in gold microwires may serve as test sites for probing properties of specks of material as small as a single molecule and as a basis for novel sensors and circuit components.
- Tech
A nanoprinter for cheaper diagnostics
Using strands of DNA as movable type, scientists have created a miniaturized printing technique for mass-producing medical diagnostic chips.
- Tech
Sensor measures mass of one DNA molecule
A new biosensor that can detect the mass of a single DNA molecule could lead to faster and more accurate screening for HIV infection, cancer, and other diseases.
- Tech
Slick trick snags catalyst
A costly type of catalyst sticks to Teflon, suggesting a new way to recover these chemicals from solutions.
- Tech
Smart Trap: Nanosensor tracks major brain chemical
The study of neurological diseases and brain functions could get a lot more precise with the invention of an optical sensor that can closely monitor a key chemical in the brain.
