Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Catch a Wave: Carbon nanotubes go wireless
Despite all the hubbub about carbon nanotubes as possible building blocks of superstrong materials or as components of supersmall electronics, few practical applications have yet come to fruition. Integrating nanotubes into functioning electronic devices has proved especially difficult, but researchers have now built a carbon-nanotube component into a simple radio receiver. TINY RADIO. A single […]
- Tech
Virtual Worlds, Real Science
Epidemiologists and social scientists are tapping into virtual online worlds inhabited by millions to collect data with real-world uses.
- Tech
CD players could serve as cheap lab tools
Ordinary CD disc players can be adapted to perform chemical assays and possibly medical diagnoses.
- Tech
Disappearing Ink
Coming to your tattoo parlor soon: New inks that allow clients to have their designs cleanly erased if embarrassment or regret sets in.
- Tech
Nanotube Press: Printing technique makes nanotransistors
A new technique for printing networks of carbon nanotubes on a wide range of surfaces is a step toward mass production of nanotubes devices.
- Tech
Spot On: Printing flexible electronics one nanodot at a time
A new high-resolution printing technique could make flexible electronics such as plastic displays and solar cells easier to produce.
- Tech
Corny collagen
Corn engineered to produce collagen may someday replace slaughterhouse leftovers as a source of gelatin.
- Computing
Can You Face It?
The University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, has developed some face-transforming software that allows people to change the age, sex, or ethnicity of the person in an image that you export from your computer. Or, blend features from a number of faces into one amalgam. If all that is too creepy, then just import art […]
- Computing
Squashing Worms
Defeating computer worms that mutate will take some smart defense strategies.
- Tech
Fire Inside
The events of 9/11 put new urgency into efforts to design buildings able to withstand the structural damage that fire can cause.
- Tech
A Moment in the Life of a Cell: Microscopic scan images without intruding
A laser technique similar to a CAT scan produces 3-D images of living cells without the need for chemical staining.
- Tech
Uncharted atomic landscapes
A refinement to electron microscopes enables them not only to visualize atoms but also to identify different elements.
