Improving the graphene fibre’s strength is Gao’s next goal. His first-generation fibres have some structural imperfections, which compromises mechanical performance. “At the moment, the mechanical strength can’t compete with carbon fibres, but we believe that the mechanical properties can be greatly improved.”
However, strength is not necessarily needed if the fibres are to be used primarily for their electrical properties. Hua Zhang, who studies graphene synthesis at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, says that the fibres “will definitely have some applications — maybe for touch panels, for sensors or for functional textiles”.
A graphene oxide fibre measuring four metres long was wound on to this Teflon drum. CHAO GAO
Ars Technica - DARPA Adaptive Vehicle Make project may reinvent manufacturing itself, and seed the workforce with a new generation of engineers who can "compile" innovations into new inventions without having to be tied to a manufacturing plant.
The Department of Defence is on a trend that is not far off from a tongue-in-cheek statement made by former Lockheed Martin president Norman Augustine—one of "Augustine's Laws"—that by 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase one aircraft.
Adaptive Vehicle Mak seeks to reduce the "product cycle" of defense systems from an average of almost 10 years down to two years—similar to the design cycle for new integrated circuits. To do that, DARPA is funding the development of software tools, called META, that will allow engineers to design, prototype and test systems collaboratively before they are ever built.
Nature - The assembly of hybrid nanophotonic devices from different fundamental photonic entities—such as single molecules, nanocrystals, semiconductor quantum dots, nanowires and metal nanoparticles—can yield functionalities that exceed those of the individual subunits. Combining these photonic elements requires nanometre-scale fabrication precision and potentially involves a material diversity that is incompatible with standard nanotechnological processes. Although merging these different systems on a single hybrid platform is at present challenging, it promises improved performance and novel devices. Particularly rapid progress is seen in the combination of plasmonic–dielectric constituents with quantum emitters that can be assembled on demand into fundamental model systems for future optical elements.
NY Times - “China must move to IPv6,” Dr. Wu said. “In the U.S., some people don’t believe it’s urgent, but we believe it’s urgent.” IPv6 — Internet Protocol version 6 — offers advanced security and privacy options, but more important, many more I.P. addresses, whose supply on the present Internet (IPv4) is almost exhausted. China already has almost twice the number of Internet users as in the United States, and Dr. Wu, a computer scientist and director of the Chinese Educational and Research Network, points out that his nation is moving more quickly than any other in the world to deploy the new protocol.
China is now the world’s second-largest venture capital market, growing to $7.6 billion from just $2.2 billion in 2005, while the American venture capital market has remained largely stagnant
Frank Newman is probably the only American to ever run a Chinese bank and a large American bank in his career. Newman ran the Shenzhen Development Bank for five years, ending in 2010. Prior to that, he worked as a CFO at Bank of America and was a former CEO at Bankers Trust. I spoke with him recently about Chinese banking, the real estate bubble and his new book “Six Myths That Hold Back America: What America Can Learn From The Chinese Economy.”
The banks in China are in far better shape than the people outside the country realize. Non-performing loans at Shenzhen Development Bank when I got there were around 20% of our loan portfolio and when I left they were just 0.5%. We didn’t take on a lot of commercial real estate risk, and I am sure that a lot of banks will see their non-performing loans (NPL) rise because of that risk. No one knows for sure the NPLs in China, but from my point of view, whenever problems arise in China, the government has been able to move quickly. That’s not a comment on the country’s politics. It’s just how the economy works. A lot of people don’t realize that fully.
Researchers at Brown and Johns Hopkins universities have found optimal configurations for creating 3-D geometric shapes — like tiny, highly simplified geodesic domes that assemble by themselves. The Brown team developed the algorithmic tools, and the Johns Hopkins team tested selected configurations. The research may lead to advances from drug-delivery containers to 3-D sensors and electronic circuits.
2-D nets for 3-D shapes A few of the 2.3 million possible 2-D designs — planar nets — for a truncated octahedron (right column). The question is: Which net is best to make a self-assembling shape at the nanoscale? Credit: Shivendra Pandey/Gracias Lab, Johns Hopkins University
It turns out that “many of those advocating air-capture deployment and research are really lowballing the cost,” Herzog says. When the underlying chemistry and mechanics are analyzed, their numbers don’t hold up, he says. Compared with removing carbon dioxide from the emissions at a powerplant — technology that exists and can be measured — removing it from the outside air means processing about 300 times more air per ton of CO2 removed, because that’s the difference in CO2 concentration.
A package of 16 measures could, if fully implemented across the globe, save close to 2.5 million lives a year; avoid crop losses amounting to 32 million tonnes annually and deliver near-term climate protection of about half a degree C by 2040.
The report estimates that implementing these measures would help keep a global temperature rise below the 2 degrees C target, at least until mid-century.
The measures, outlined in a new report compiled by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) with an international team of experts, target short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs)—black carbon which is a major component of soot, methane and tropospheric ozone.
The report, funded by the Government of Sweden, estimates that around half of the black carbon and methane emission reductions can be achieved through measures that result in cost savings over the lifetime of the investment.
This is because some of the measures—such as recovering rather than emitting natural gas during oil production—allow the methane to be harvested as a clean source of fuel.
Cutting black carbon emissions by, for example, replacing inefficient cookstoves and traditional brick kilns with more efficient ones, also cuts fuel costs for households and kiln operators.
The emissions gap by 2020 which, as a result of improved modeling from last year's assessment, is now estimated, under the most optimistic scenarios, to be 6 GtCO2e rather than 5 Gt of GtCO2e. The report also outlines far more pessimistic scenarios, if the commitments and pledges of developed countries, including levels of financing amounting to $100 billion a year by 2020, and the intentions of developing ones are not fully realized-the gap then, by 2020, could be 11 GtCO2e. Under business-as-usual conditions, it could even be 12 GtCO2e.
The report cites aviation and shipping as a special but important case, as currently these 'international emissions' fall outside the Kyoto Protocol-the emission reduction treaty.
Together they account for around five per cent of C02 emissions and could account for up to 2.5 Gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) annually, by 2020.
Giving antenatal corticosteroids in extremely preterm infants like Lexi — those born between 22 and 25 weeks gestation and weighing less than 2 pounds — is associated with significant reductions in death and long-term complications such as neurodevelopmental impairments, including cerebral palsy, poor motor skills and lower intelligence, according to research by Wally Carlo, M.D., director of the UAB Division of Neonatology, published in the Dec. 7, 2011, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Cameco Corp. (CCO), the world’s largest uranium producer, said some investors underestimate the potential for supply shortfalls to spur higher prices for the nuclear fuel. Disruptions in mine production, the difficulty faced by development companies in raising funds for new mining projects, and the end of a Russian deal to supply uranium from scrapped atomic warheads may help create a supply deficit, Chief Executive Officer Tim Gitzel said in an interview.
Cameco, which is based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in August cut its full-year global uranium demand estimate to 175 million pounds (79,400 metric tons) from 180 million pounds.
Not Even Wrong - This morning’s rumors are a 3.5 sigma 126 GeV excess at ATLAS in the ATLAS-only combination, and 2.5 sigma at 124 GeV for CMS. Heuer’s message to all CERN personnel says the December 13 announcements will be “significant progress in the search for the Higgs boson, but not enough to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the Higgs.” Presumably they’re waiting for 5 sigma before claiming conclusive proof.
The approach could enable engineers to build faster, more compact and efficient integrated circuits and lighter laptops that generate less heat than today's. The transistors contain tiny nanowires made not of silicon, like conventional transistors, but from a material called indium-gallium-arsenide.
The device was created using a so-called "top-down" method, which is akin to industrial processes to precisely etch and position components in transistors. Because the approach is compatible with conventional manufacturing processes, it is promising for adoption by industry, said Peide "Peter" Ye, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue.
The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.
This diagram compares our own solar system to Kepler-22, a star system containing the first "habitable zone" planet discovered by NASA's Kepler mission. Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
Instead of a new treaty among the 27 members of the European Union, a French official suggested a more likely outcome will be an accord by the 17 nations that use the euro. And a German official said reaching a deal might take until Christmas.
Nature - Observational work conducted over the past few decades indicates that all massive galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centres. Although the luminosities and brightness fluctuations of quasars in the early Universe suggest that some were powered by black holes with masses greater than 10 billion solar masses the remnants of these objects have not been found in the nearby Universe. The giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 hosts the hitherto most massive known black hole, which has a mass of 6.3 billion solar masses. Here we report that NGC 3842, the brightest galaxy in a cluster at a distance from Earth of 98 megaparsecs, has a central black hole with a mass of 9.7 billion solar masses, and that a black hole of comparable or greater mass is present in NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in the Coma cluster (at a distance of 103 megaparsecs). These two black holes are significantly more massive than predicted by linearly extrapolating the widely used correlations between black-hole mass and the stellar velocity dispersion or bulge luminosity of the host galaxy. Although these correlations remain useful for predicting black-hole masses in less massive elliptical galaxies, our measurements suggest that different evolutionary processes influence the growth of the largest galaxies and their black holes.
China will increase generation capacity by 2 billion kilowatts (kW) (2000 GW) during that period, with as much as 300 million kW (300 GW) coming from nuclear power, said Shi Lishan, deputy director of the National Energy Administration's new-energy and renewable energy department.
China will spend about 800 billion yuan ($125 billion) annually in the next 10 to 20 years.
Research and development into making equipment for nuclear generation, the high costs of nuclear plants will decrease to between 15,000 and 20,000 yuan a kW.
UPDATE - MIT Technology Review - Terrapower says that it is just having discussions with China. It's also talking to other countries, as well as with two research centers in India. "We are sharing information on the [traveling wave reactor] with a variety of research, supply and manufacturing organizations, but there are no deals to speak to at this time," John Gilleland, TerraPower's C.E.O. said in a statement today.
The idea is to be very low cost, very safe and generate very little waste," said the billionaire during a talk at China's Ministry of Science and Technology.
Gates has largely funded a Washington state-based company, TerraPower, that is developing a Generation IV nuclear reactor that can run on depleted uranium.
The general manager of state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation, Sun Qin, was quoted in Chinese media last week saying Gates was working with it to research and develop a reactor.
"TerraPower is having very good discussions with CNNC and various people in the Chinese government," said Gates, cautioning that they were at an early stage.
Gates says perhaps as much as a billion dollars will be put into research and development over the next five years.
Sculpted from a special kind of molecule called a "bottle-brush molecule," the traps consist of tiny, organic tubes whose interior walls carry a negative charge. This feature enables the tubes to selectively encapsulate only positively charged particles.
An illustrated cross-section of a nanotube UB chemists created. The green structures are negatively charged carboxylic acid groups, which help trap positively charged particles.
A methodology grounded in physics and engineering can answer a limited yet illuminating range of questions about the potential of physical technology. This line of inquiry leads to a crucial question: What can physics tell us about the potential of advanced nanotechnologies? Well-established physical principles show that this potential embraces productive nanotechnologies that have the potential to transform the material basis of civilization. This prospect calls for re-evaluating both research opportunities and broader choices with consequences for the human future.
Eric demonstrated the power of atomically precise manufacturing, using the fabrication processes of ribosomes as an example. We are only beginning to be able to manufacture at this level, but, he argued,but, a physics-based analysis shows that the possibilities offered by nanomanufacturing could be immense: desktop computers with 1 billion processors or materials 100 times stronger than steel.
“There are resource limitations,” Gregory Jaczko said today at a meeting with reporters at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. It may take a bit longer to get through the license renewal reviews, he said.
Reactor owners such as Entergy Corp. (ETR) of New Orleans are seeking operating-license extensions for some of the 104 U.S. commercial nuclear generating units. Entergy’s Indian Point plant, about 24 miles (39 kilometers) north of New York City, has two units with licenses expiring in 2013 and 2015.
Jaczko didn’t say that licenses are in danger of expiring as the commission reviews their applications. The agency has renewal applications pending for 14 reactors, according to the NRC website
“We have built an initial prototype, putting from two to six serial transistors in place, and shown that basic binary logic operations were possible, which proves that we can make a larger chip,” explains LANES director Andras Kis, who recently published two articles on the subject in the scientific journal ACS Nano.
Three atoms thick
“The main advantage of MoS2 is that it allows us to reduce the size of transistors, and thus to further miniaturize them,” explains Kis. It has not been possible up to this point to make layers of silicon less than two nanometers thick, because of the risk of initiating a chemical reaction that would oxidize the surface and compromise its electronic properties. Molybdenite, on the other hand, can be worked in layers only three atoms thick, making it possible to build chips that are at least three times smaller. At this scale, the material is still very stable and conduction is easy to control.
A method includes amplifying an energy release from a dispersion of nanoparticles containing a concentration of hydrogen/deuterium nuclei, the nanoparticles suspended in a dielectric medium in a presence of hydrogen/deuterium gas, wherein an energy input is provided by high voltage pulses between two electrodes embedded in the dispersion of nanoparticles.
Amplifying an energy release from a dispersion of nanoparticles containing a concentration of hydrogen/deuterium nuclei, the nanoparticles suspended in a dielectric medium in a presence of hydrogen/deuterium gas, wherein an energy input is provided by high voltage pulses between two electrodes embedded in the dispersion of nanoparticles.
The medium for amplification of energy is hydrated/deuterated nanoparticles are of a dimension between 3-20 nanometers (nm) and suspended in macroscopic particles of a dielectric composition.
High voltage pulses used are between 150-15,000 volts.
Amplification effects for countable nanoparticles in the 3 to 12 nanometer range can also be seen with larger beads as shown above. The effect is similar to putting energy into a hose or rope to get a section of it to move with more energy like for a jump rope.
The International Electron Devices Meeting is an annual conference in which the world's foremost device researchers describe a variety of conventional and unconventional transistor paradigms. The semiconductor industry is starting to mass produce 22 nanometer transistors, and should begin volume production of 14 nanometer microchips by 2014. The 2011 IEDM focused both on continuing CMOS scaling down to 5 nm gate lengths as well as a host of potential post-CMOS technologies. Researchers from Purdue, MIT, and Berkeley presented a paper on Ultimate Device Scaling and concluded that:
"Despite Multiple Leakage Paths, non-planar devices with a multi-gate architecture and an extremely narrow cross-section can be expected to still work as good switches, even with a 5 nm gate length, provided that they exhibit a large enough band gap and transport effective mass and that their gate contact can modulate the electrostatic potential of the source and drain extensions to effectively increase the gate length."
Below 10 nm, however, the viability of CMOS technology is unclear, and a variety of substitutes are being examined. In particular, graphene has emerged as the candidate with the highest likelihood of displacing silicon CMOS. Switching speeds as high as 155 GHz have been reported, and 200 mm wafers have been fabricated. However, the lack of a bandgap for graphene means that graphene is currently unsuitable for digital applications. Researchers are also making progress on using carbon nanotube transistors, and are implanting them on silicon wafers. Stanford researchers reported their progress making digital circuits, claiming that "the building blocks required for an elementary computing system have been demonstrated using CNFETs." These researchers noted that CNFETs at the 11nm node should outperform their silicon counterparts in speed and power consumption. Papers were also given on high mobility "gate all around" nanowire devices, which have been experimentally demonstrated and which could prove to be the optimal device for ultimately miniaturized logic switches. Researchers have even fabricated Indium gallium arsenide nanowires with wraparound gates. Although the era of planar silicon CMOS devices may soon be ending, a plethora of options exist to continue Moore's law for at least the next decade.
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The team made carbon nanotube thin-film transistors with high mobility and a high on–off ratio, completely based on ink-jet printing. They demonstrated the first fully printed single-pixel OLED control circuits, and their fully printed thin-film circuits showed significant performance advantages over traditional organic-based printed electronics.
"This is the first practical demonstration of carbon nanotube–based printed circuits for display backplane applications," said Kos Galatsis, an associate adjunct professor of materials science at UCLA Engineering and a co-founder of Aneeve. "We have demonstrated carbon nanotubes' viable candidacy as a competing technology alongside amorphous silicon and metal-oxide semiconductor solution as a low-cost and scalable backplane option."
This distinct process utilizes an ink-jet printing method that eliminates the need for expensive vacuum equipment and lends itself to scalable manufacturing and roll-to-roll printing. The team solved many material integration problems, developed new cleaning processes and created new methods for negotiating nano-based ink solutions.
For active-matrix OLED applications, the printed carbon nanotube transistors will be fully integrated with OLED arrays, the researchers said. The encapsulation technology developed for OLEDs will also keep the carbon nanotube transistors well protected, as the organics in OLEDs are very sensitive to oxygen and moisture.
The hallmark of superconductivity is a sudden resistance drop to zero ohms and strong diamagnetism (the Meissner effect) near the same temperature. In numerous tests a small amount of the compound (Tl5Pb2)Ba2Mg2Cu9O17+ consistently produced sharp resistive transitions near 28.5 Celsius (see above graphics), and diamagnetic transitions also near 28.5C (below). The transitions were unambiguous, repeatable, and at ambient pressure, making this the first observation of true room-temperature superconductivity in a copper-oxide. Unfortunately, like the 18C superconductor discovered in March 2011, these transitions occurred in a noisy environment, suggesting the volume fraction is very low. As such, any plans for immediate commercialization will have to wait for a refining method to be developed.
The 2011 International Electron Device Meeting is held annually to describe the state of the art in transistors and switching circuits. This year's Washington meeting is exploring a variety of options for continuing Moore's law for as long as is feasible. The keynote speaker, Intel Senior Fellow Mark Bohr, noted that traditional scaling ran out of steam in the early 2000s, and that the semiconductor has had to repeatedly come up with innovations in order to keep semiconductor scaling viable. At the 90nm node, Intel introduced Strained silicon, and 45 nm microchips featured high-k metal gates. The 22 nm generation, which is now in volume production at Intel, is made using tri-gate transistors. Intel is particularly proud of the tri-gate advance because tri-gate transistors require less doping, leading to better performance, reduced leakage, and less transistor variation. Intel is confident that these tri-gate transistors, which can be used in everything from mobile devices to supercomputers, will give it a competitive advantage over competitors using conventional planar transistor technology,.
These innovations have served to substantially reduce leakage, and have allowed Intel to envision producing .7 volt microchips. For the 14 nm generation and beyond, Intel is examining a number of approaches, including III-V compounds such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide. These compounds have significantly greater mobility than silicon, but could increase manufacturing costs. Other options that Intel is exploring include "wraparound" nanowire devices, tunneling FETs, 3-d chip stacking, and graphene FETs. Graphene transistors have extremely high switching speeds, but have no bandgap. Unless ways are found to give graphene a bandgap, graphene will not be suitable for digital devices. Whatever options are introduced, Bohr made it clear that Intel is now more focused on switching efficiency and power per watt than raw switching speed. In 1996, Intel CEO Andy Grove made a prediction that in 2011 microprocessors would operate at 10 GHz. Given the industry preoccupation with leakage/power issues, such a microprocessor may never see the light of day.
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A breakaway group from TSI (The Seastead Institute) is working on a simpler and cheaper idea called Blueseed. The idea is to convert a cruise liner into an offshore “incubator” for small, high-tech start-ups and position it just outside American territorial waters off California. The attraction for the start-ups is that they would be able to hire foreign engineers and scientists without the hassle of getting work visas for them.
Dario Mutabdzija of Blueseed says chartering and adapting a cruise ship should cost $15m-50m, depending on its size, and the combined rent for a tenant’s living quarters and office space might be around $2,000 a month, comparable with costs in Silicon Valley.
In 2013 they plan to harvest lettuce, herbs and tomatoes, as well as raising different species of fish from the roof of a former malt factory in Berlin's Schöneberg district. Once their unorthodox farm is established, they expect to produce tons of vegetables and fish each month.
Key to their plans are a row of massive vats near the top of the rambling factory. Formerly used to dry barley, they want to repurpose the containers as a fish farm.
In a particular kind of electromagnetic space called a Rindler space, the Casimir effect is huge. The essential idea here is that the space can be designed to allow only certain wavelengths to operate. If the electromagnetic properties of the Rindler space are matched to the ambient temperature, then these kinds of thermal waves can be made to dominate the Casimir energy.
That makes the Casimir energy huge. Zhao and Miao calculate that in a lab at 300K (room temperature), the Casimir energy would be some 100 billion times bigger than the free space value. That's a significant difference that ought to make these effects accessible in an entirely new way to a much broader audience.
Zhao and Miao also say that this kind of material ought to be relatively straightforward to build, layer by layer.
A group led by Jerome Orosz of San Diego State University used data from optical and ultraviolet telescopes to determine the orbital velocity of the blue star around its black hole companion. From this, and knowing the distance, the astronomers found the star to be 19 times the mass of the sun and the black hole to be 15 times the mass of the sun.
Having measured both the mass and the radius, the scientists determined the black hole to be rapidly spinning and thus complete the physical description of Cygnus X-1, 47 years after its discovery with an X-ray detector onboard a rocket, and 39 years after it was determined to be a candidate for this mysterious thing called a "black hole."
The scientific papers don't make a big deal out of the value of the radius, or physical size, of the black hole. Though it is typical for a black hole, it is still a bit mind-blowing that almost 15 times the mass of the sun can be compacted into something 44 kilometers, or 27 miles, across. That's just the size of an asteroid
Schematic of the black hole and its accretion disk, from Gou et al. The ISCO is the innermost stable circular orbit and goes up to the edge of the gray ellipse that represents the edge of a Kerr black hole. "kT" refers to the energy of the X-ray photons emitted from either the disk or surrounding stellar material.
For nuclear project loan guarantees, the government requires that the utility pay a large sum of cash, up front, to the government. This cash payment (the “credit subsidy fee”) is essentially an insurance premium, which compensates the government for the risk of loan default. It is somewhat analogous to mortgage insurance that some homeowners pay. The amount of the cash payment is determined, on a project-specific basis, by the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The required amount can vary significantly for different projects, based on various market factors like whether they are in a merchant or regulated market, if they have a long term power purchase agreement, etc.
Kinect for Xbox 360 revolutionized controller-free entertainment by letting you use your body and voice to play your favorite games and entertainment, turning you into the controller. The power of Kinect combined with the intelligence of Bing search is turning your voice into the ultimate remote control. With Bing on Xbox, you can use your voice to effortlessly find the games, movies, TV shows and music you want and discover the best offerings on Xbox LIVE, by simply saying what you’re searching for. You say it, Xbox finds it. Beginning tomorrow and over the coming weeks, Bing on Xbox voice search will initially be available in English in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. for Zune video, Xbox LIVE Marketplace and select content partners. For those who do not have a Kinect for Xbox 360, text search will be available in Xbox LIVE markets.
They made a series of movie related videos using 'Immersive Imaging' which takes 3D projection mapping as its starting point, but gives the viewer a supercharged experience with the help of the PlayStation Move controller.
In the past, projection mapping worked only from a single, static view point, and thus was very limited. By attaching the PlayStation Move to the camera, we can track projections to screens in real time, enhancing the effect of spatial deformation and false perspective on the projections and allowing viewers to look round (virtual) corners, bend walls, create a hole in the wall, or remove the walls altogether to reveal vast expanses of virtual worlds.
Similar proteins demonstrate different charge transport characteristics offering a route to biological electronic devices.
Long-range electron transfer in proteins is an important biological process, driving functions such as cellular respiration. If the charge transport properties of these biological materials can be fully understood and controlled, opportunities open up for cheap, flexible, biocompatible electronics. Yuichi Tokita and colleagues from Sony and Nagoya University in Japan have now revealed the electronic properties of two structurally similar proteins that take part in charge transport in cellular membranes.
Tian and his team used a computational approach to predict the properties of the carbon-based materials that could be made if arrays of carbon nanotubes could be bonded side-by-side to form a three-dimensional polymer structure (see image). Their calculations suggest that such materials should be quite possible to make, and that they would have provide some important improvements to the nanotubes’ properties.
Of the eight structures predicted by the simulations, seven would be ‘superhard’ materials. Individual nanotubes are very stiff and strong in the axial direction, but weak in the radial direction — a factor that limits their application as structural materials. However, the superhard 3D carbon nanotube polymers are strong in both directions. “Most of the nanotube polymers combine this superhardness with good ductility, which gives them the capability of resisting large strains without fracturing,” says Tian. “They could be more resilient than diamond.”
Eight fascinating sp2- and sp3-hybridized carbon allotropes have been uncovered using a newly developed ab initio particle-swarm optimization methodology for crystal structure prediction. These crystalline allotropes can be viewed respectively as three-dimensional (3D) polymers of (4,0), (5,0), (7,0), (8,0), (9,0), (3,3), (4,4), and (6,6) carbon nanotubes, termed 3D-(n, 0) or 3D-(n, n) carbons. The ground-state energy calculations show that the carbons all have lower energies than C60 fullerene, and some are energetically more stable than the van der Waals packing configurations of their nanotube parents. Owing to their unique configurations, they have distinctive electronic properties, high Young’s moduli, high tensile strength, ultrahigh hardness, good ductility, and low density, and may be potentially applied to a variety of needs.
Directed self-assembly (DSA) of block copolymers (BCPs), either by selective wetting of surface chemical prepatterns or by graphoepitaxial alignment with surface topography, has ushered in a new era for high-resolution nanopatterning. These pioneering approaches, while effective, require expensive and time-consuming lithographic patterning of each substrate to direct the assembly. To overcome this shortcoming, nanoimprint molds—attainable via low-cost optical lithography—were investigated for their potential to be reusable and efficiently template the assembly of block copolymers (BCPs) while under complete confinement. Nanoimprint directed self-assembly conveniently avoids repetitive and expensive chemical or topographical prepatterning of substrates. To demonstrate this technique for high-resolution nanofabrication, we aligned sub-10 nm resolution nanopatterns using a cylinder-forming, organic–inorganic hybrid block copolymer, polystyrene-block-polydimethylsiloxane (PS-b-PDMS). Nanopatterns derived from oxidized PDMS microdomains were successfully transferred into the underlying substrate using plasma etching. In the development phase of this procedure, we investigated the role of mold treatments and pattern geometries as DSA of BCPs are driven by interfacial chemistry and physics. In the optimized route, silicon molds treated with PDMS surface brushes promoted rapid BCP alignment and reliable mold release while appropriate mold geometries provided a single layer of cylinders and negligible residual layers as required for pattern transfer. Molds thus produced were reusable to the same efficacy between nanoimprints. We also demonstrated that shear flow during the nanoimprint process enhanced the alignment of the BCP near open edges, which may be engineered in future schemes to control the BCP microdomain alignment kinetics during DSA.
Prototypes developed for first time in real-world manufacturing environments are critical step towards transferring research into commercial devices.
IBM researchers are detailing the first Racetrack memory device integrated with CMOS technology on 200mm wafers, culminating seven years of physics research.
The researchers demonstrated both read and write functionality on an array of 256 in-plane, magnetized horizontal racetracks. This development lays the foundation for further improving Racetrack memory’s density and reliability using perpendicular magnetized racetracks and three-dimensional architectures.
This breakthrough could lead to a new type of data-centric computing that allows massive amounts of stored information to be accessed in less than a billionth of a second.
The work is important because the cost and complexity of manufacturing fundamentally new computer components can often derail their development. Racetrack memory could someday supersede flash in terms of density and cost.
Racetrack memory could end up competing with memristors for future computer memory technology dominance.
Memory milestone: These nanowires are part of a prototype chip for a novel form of data storage that could fit more information into a smaller space than today’s technology.
IBM
Graphene
This first-ever CMOS-compatible graphene device can advance wireless communications, and enable new, high frequency devices, which can operate under adverse temperature and radiation conditions in areas such as security and medical applications.
The graphene integrated circuit, a frequency multiplier, is operational up to 5 GHz and stable up to 200 degrees Celcius. While detailed thermal stability still needs to be evaluated, these results are promising for graphene circuits to be used in high temperature environments.
New architecture flips the current graphene transistor structure on its head. Instead of trying to deposit gate dielectric on an inert graphene surface, the researchers developed a novel embedded gate structure that enables high device yield on a 200mm wafer.
Carbon Nanotubes
IBM researchers today demonstrated the first transistor with sub-10 nm channel lengths, outperforming the best competing silicon-based devices at these length scales.
While already being considered in varied applications ranging from solar cells to displays, it is expected that computers with in the next decade will use transistors with a channel length below 10 nm, a length scale at which conventional silicon technology will have extreme difficulty performing even with new advanced device architectures. The scaled carbon nanotube devices below 10nm gate length are a significant breakthrough for future applications in computing technology.
While often associated with improving switching speed (on-state), this breakthrough demonstrates for the first time that carbon nanotubes can provide excellent off-state behavior in extremely scaled devices-- better than what some theoretical estimates of tunneling current suggested.
HMC will enable a new generation of performance in applications ranging from large-scale networking and high-performance computing, to industrial automation and, eventually, consumer products.
"This is a milestone in the industry move to 3D semiconductor manufacturing," said Subu Iyer, IBM Fellow. "The manufacturing process we are rolling out will have applications beyond memory, enabling other industry segments as well. In the next few years, 3D chip technology will make its way into consumer products, and we can expect to see drastic improvements in battery life and functionality of devices."
"HMC is a game changer, finally giving architects a flexible memory solution that scales bandwidth while addressing power efficiency," said Robert Feurle, Vice President of DRAM Marketing for Micron. "Through collaboration with IBM, Micron will provide the industry's most capable memory offering."
The breakthrough is significant enough for Micron to license IBM's wafer-baking techniques and to commission Big Blue to manufacture some of the necessary logic circuits in an HMC memory module.
L Jay Guo's group grew sparse forests of vertical carbon nanotubes on the surface of various three-dimensional objects, including a silicon wafer patterned with the shape of a tiny tank. The nanotubes make the objects appear completely flat and black, and they disappear against a black background. The nanotube-coated objects neither reflect nor scatter light
Teams from Russia's Sakha Republic's mammoth museum and Japan's Kinki University will launch fully-fledged joint research next year aiming to recreate the giant mammal, Japan's Kyodo News reported from Yakutsk, Russia.
By replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth's marrow cells, embryos with mammoth DNA can be produced, Kyodo said, citing the researchers.
The scientists will then plant the embryos into elephant wombs for delivery as the two species are close relative
Published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, the new analysis by the Global Carbon Project shows fossil fuel emissions increased by 5.9 per cent in 2010 and by 49 per cent since 1990 – the reference year for the Kyoto protocol.
On average, fossil fuel emissions have risen by 3.1 per cent each year between 2000 and 2010 – three times the rate of increase during the 1990s. They are projected to continue to increase by 3.1 per cent in 2011. Total emissions - which combine fossil fuel combustion, cement production, deforestation and other land use emissions - reached 10 billion tonnes of carbon1 in 2010 for the first time (To convert emissions to billion tonnes of CO2, multiply the value by 3.67.) . Half of the emissions remained in the atmosphere, where CO2 concentration reached 389.6 parts per million. The remaining emissions were taken up by the ocean and land reservoirs, in approximately equal proportions.
Here we report a novel single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) based bimorph electromechanical actuator, which consists of unique as-grown SWNT films as double electrode layers separated by a chitosan electrolyte layer consisting of an ionic liquid. By taking advantage of the special hierarchical structure and the outstanding electrical and mechanical properties of the SWNT film electrodes, our actuators show orders-of-magnitude improvements in many aspects compared to previous ionic electroactive polymer (i-EAP) actuators, including superfast response (19 ms), quite wide available frequency range (dozens to hundreds of Hz), incredible large stress generating rate (1080 MPa/s), and ultrahigh mechanical output power density (244 W/kg). These remarkable achievements together with their facile fabrication, low driving voltage, flexibility, and long durability enable the SWNT-based actuators many applications such as artificial muscles for biomimetic flying insects or robots and flexible deployable reflectors.
Active self-assembly processes exploit an energy source to accelerate the movement of building blocks and intermediate structures and modify their interactions. A model system is the assembly of biotinylated microtubules partially coated with streptavidin into linear bundles as they glide on a surface coated with kinesin motor proteins. By tuning the assembly conditions, microtubule bundles with near millimeter length are created, demonstrating that active self-assembly is beneficial if components are too large for diffusive self-assembly but too small for robotic assembly.
Gentle manipulation of micrometer-sized dielectric objects with optical forces has found many applications in both life and physical sciences. To further extend optical trapping toward the true nanometer scale, we present an original approach combining self-induced back action (SIBA) trapping with the latest advances in nanoscale plasmon engineering. The designed resonant trap, formed by a rectangular plasmonic nanopore, is successfully tested on 22 nm polystyrene beads, showing both single- and double-bead trapping events. The mechanism responsible for the higher stability of the double-bead trapping is discussed, in light of the statistical analysis of the experimental data and numerical calculations. Furthermore, we propose a figure of merit that we use to quantify the achieved trapping efficiency and compare it to prior optical nanotweezers. Our approach may open new routes toward ultra-accurate immobilization and arrangement of nanoscale objects, such as biomolecules.
They have developed part of that dream battery, a new electrode that employs crystalline nanoparticles of a copper compound.
In laboratory tests, the electrode survived 40,000 cycles of charging and discharging, after which it could still be charged to more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity. For comparison, the average lithium ion battery can handle about 400 charge/discharge cycles before it deteriorates too much to be of practical use.
Geophysical Research Letters - Estimation of SO2 emissions using OMI retrievals
Satellite sulfur dioxide (SO2) measurements from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) satellite sensor, averaged over a period of several years, were compared with emissions inventories for major US sources. Low- and high- spatial frequency filtration was applied to OMI data to reduce the noise and bias to enhance and reveal weak SO2 signals that are otherwise not readily apparent. Averaging a large number of individual observations enables the study of SO2 spatial distributions near larger SO2 emissions sources with an effective resolution superior to that of an individual OMI observation and even to obtain rough estimates of the emissions level from those sources. It is demonstrated that individual sources (or multiple sources within 50 km) with annual SO2 emissions greater than about 70 kT y−1 produce a statistically significant signal in 3-year averaged OMI data. A correlation of 0.93 was found between OMI SO2 integrated around the source and the annual SO2 emission rate for the sources greater than 70 kT y−1. OMI SO2 data also indicate a 40% decline in SO2 values over the largest US coal power plants between 2005–2007 and 2008–2010, a value that is consistent with the reported 46% reduction in annual emissions due to the implementation of new SO2 pollution control measures over this period.
When Kinect launched in November 2010 the depth sensor was set at a 30 frames per second limit and a 320x240 resolution limit. The issue relates to the USB controller interface, which is capable of around 35MB/s, but it only uses around 15/16MB/s. This artificial limit is in place because multiple USB devices can be used at once on an Xbox 360.
Lip reading in the movie 2001. In 2012, 2013, the lip reading will be from a new Xbox and not a Hal 9000
Kinect 2 is also expected to support the tracking of pitch and volume of player voices and facial characteristics to better measure their emotions. The current Kinect unit has been updated several times to improve its camera tracking. Recently Microsoft launched its Avatar Kinect technology which allows the sensor to track mouth and eyebrow movements. There’s been a number of rumours suggesting the company is also working to build in finger tracking to the next-generation of Kinect.
1. "pared down future xbox" will be like a set-top box, and will act as a Kinect-themed gaming portal.
2. "more fully-featured machine" with optical drive, hard disk and backwards compatibility. This would be aimed at hardcore gamers and released at a higher price-point.
A double drug therapy has been shown to help 80% of mice survive a dose of radiation which would killed 95% of untreated mice within 30 days. Radiation damages rapidly dividing cells in the intestine, allowing harmful bacteria to leak into the bloodstream. Eva Guinan at Harvard Medical School found that boosting levels of a protein involved in the immune response against the bacteria - while simultaneously giving an antibiotic helped the mice to survive. The protein and antibiotic are both safe to use in people, and could be stockpiled in case of a nuclear accident. The drug combination can be given up to 24 hours after radiation exposure.
Identification of safe, effective treatments to mitigate toxicity after extensive radiation exposure has proven challenging. Only a limited number of candidate approaches have emerged, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve any agent for a mass-casualty radiation disaster. Because patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation undergo radiation treatment that produces toxicities similar to radiation-disaster exposure, we studied patients early after such treatment to identify new approaches to this problem. Patients rapidly developed endotoxemia and reduced plasma bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI), a potent endotoxin-neutralizing protein, in association with neutropenia. We hypothesized that a treatment supplying similar endotoxin-neutralizing activity might replace the BPI deficit and mitigate radiation toxicity and tested this idea in mice.
Typically noise is unwanted in experiments, and the challenge is minimising it. In the experiment of generating and detecting a „squeezed“ vacuum, the noise is the signal that reveals the existence of quantum entanglement. Even though the number of atoms in both gases (marked in red and blue) fluctuates extremely, their difference (marked in black) is very small. In order to obtain a correct analysis, a few experiments (on the left) are not sufficient. The noise has to be analysed in long series of measurements (on the right).
Unlike effects created by mechanical vibration and piezo solutions, Senseg is silent. Moreover, with Senseg application developers have precise control of the location and type of effect users experience. What’s more, Senseg technology scales from touch pads, smart phones and tablets to the largest touch screens without increasing manufacturing complexity.
The nutrient-sensing TO R (target of rapamycin) pathway is involved in cellular and organismal aging. Rapamycin, an inhibitor of TO R, extends lifespan in yeast, fruit flies and genetically heterogeneous mice. Here, we demonstrate that lifelong administration of rapamycin extends lifespan in female 129/Sv mice characterized by normal mean lifespan of 2 y. Importantly, rapamycin was administrated intermittently (2 weeks per month) starting from the age of 2 mo. Rapamycin inhibited age-related weight gain, decreased aging rate, increased lifespan (especially in the last survivors) and delayed spontaneous cancer. 22.9% of rapamycin-treated mice survived the age of death of the last mouse in control group. Thus we demonstrated for the first time in normal inbred mice that lifespan can be extended by rapamycin. This opens an avenue to develop optimal doses and schedules of rapamycin as an anti-aging modality.
The demonstration, called “Flight Assembled Architecture“, will take place at the FRAC Centre in Orléans, France. Fifty quadcopters will take to the air simultaneously and work together to position all of the 1,500 prefabricated foam blocks. When it is completed the tower will stand 6 meters tall (19.7 feet) and 3.5 meters wide (11.5 feet). That’s a significant chunk of the 10 x 10 x 10 meter airspace that the 50 quadcopters get to work in. Custom built electronics and onboard sensors enable the precise control needed to dance together so dangerously close. The robots can be pre-programmed for flight paths that might include arcs and spirals, and a fleet management program takes over when the vehicles fly too close to avoid collisions. The program also automates take-offs and landings. A state-of-the-art motion capture system will track the robots simultaneously at a rate of 370 frames per second with millimeter accuracy. The tracking computer will send flight commands wirelessly from a control room nearby.
The Memjet reference color office printer honored by Popular Science means incredibly fast color productivity, cost efficiency, and high impact documents for less money. The magazine describes how Memjet printers crank out photo-quality pages in a record-setting one page per second, four times the rate of the average laser model and much more quickly than your standard inkjet: "The 8.77-inch fixed print head covers the width of a letter-size sheet of paper. As the paper passes underneath, 70,400 nozzles—17 times as many as in an inkjet—deposit 774 million dots of ink per second."
Memjet-powered office printers print high-quality color at incredibly fast speeds of 60 pages per minute (the fastest desktop printer speed in the world), while consuming considerably less energy than competing technologies of inkjet and laser. Around the world, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) use Memjet technologies to power printers and printing solutions far beyond what traditional markets have come to know and expect. In addition to the office market, Memjet provides technologies and components to OEMs and partners in the labels, wide format and photo markets.
The h9e peptide formed two novel hydrogels in Ca2+ solution and acidic pH conditions—h9e Ca2+ hydrogel and h9e acidic hydrogel. The shear-thinning, rapid-strength-recovering h9e Ca2+ hydrogel proved to have potential for drug delivery and tissue-engineering applications and was tested on mice as an injectable adjuvant for H1N1 swine influenza virus killed vaccine. The study showed it was biologically safe, improved immune response on killed H1N1 virus antigen by approximately 70%, and induced a similar H1N1-specific IgG1 antibody response compared with an oil-based commercial adjuvant.
Insulation panels that are both thin and effective are expensive. At present these high-end products are built into energy-saving refrigerators. Innovative components and production techniques are now set to sink the costs – so that private home-builders can also benefit from the new technology.
In Germany, the rising cost of heating has sparked a renovation boom. In order to lower energy costs, more and more homeowners are investing in insulation facades. But the typical insulation layers on the market have one drawback: they add bulk. The 20-centimeter-thick outer skin changes the building’s visual appearance and can result in significant follow-up costs – with a need to fit new, deeper window sills and sometimes even roof extensions. Fraunhofer researchers are now developing films for a material that will insulate homes without much additional structural alteration: vacuum isolation panels, VIPs for short. The panels are only two centimeters thick and yet perform just as well as a classic 15-centimeter-thick insulation layer made from polyurethane foam. The inner workings of the VIPs are made mostly from pyrogenic silica. A high-tech film holds the material together and makes it air-tight.
Arxiv - Optoelectronic Reservoir Computing (39 pages) A new approach is much faster than prior attempts at this style of computing but it is not known if it will become faster than regular electronic computing techniques.
Reservoir computing is a recently introduced, highly efficient bio-inspired approach for processing time dependent data. The basic scheme of reservoir computing consists of a non linear recurrent dynamical system coupled to a single input layer and a single output layer. Within these constraints many implementations are possible. Here we report an opto-electronic implementation of reservoir computing based on a recently proposed architecture consisting of a single non linear node and a delay line. Our implementation is sufficiently fast for real time information processing. We illustrate its performance on tasks of practical importance such as nonlinear channel equalization and speech recognition, and obtain results comparable to state of the art digital implementations
Here the reservoir consists of a reasonably large number of nodes that are connected together at random. Each node is some kind of non-linear feedback loop. The input, or inputs, are fed into random nodes in the reservoir and the output, or outputs, taken from other randomly chosen nodes. The system is then trained to produce the desired computation by weighting the outputs in a certain way. For example, the input might consist of a waves of certain shapes and the output would be an indication that specific shapes had been recognised.
It is similar to neural networks. However, the important difference is that the reservoir works essentially like a black box. Only the output signals are weighted during training, making this process much simpler than with a neural network, which are notoriously difficult to fine tune.
Cain falls to 8% in the latest polling. Cain will make some announcement on the weekend. I predict he will pull out of the race. The Rasmussen polling seems to indicate almost all of the dwindling Cain support will go Gingrich.
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