What’s your favorite science fiction use of nanotechnology? Are you a fan of the Terminator, or the Borg from Star Trek, that imitate humans or assimilate them? Or are you fascinated by the replicators in Stargate:SG1, which can self-assemble, self-replicate and take the form of anything from space ships and buildings, to machinery, to [...]
Groundbreaking new technology could allow 100-times-faster internet by harnessing twisted light beams to carry more data and process it faster. Broadband fiber-optics carry information on pulses of light, at the speed of light, through optical fibers. But the way the light is encoded at one end and processed at the other affects data speeds. [...]
Hacker attacks on everything from social media accounts to government files could be largely prevented by the advent of quantum communication, which would use particles of light called "photons" to secure information rather than a crackable code. The problem is that quantum communication is currently limited by how much information single photons can help [...]
Personal electronic devices -- smartphones, computers, TVs, tablets, screens of all kinds -- are a significant and growing source of the world's electronic waste. Many of these products use nanomaterials, but little is known about how these modern materials and their tiny particles interact with the environment and living things. Now a research team [...]
As artificial intelligence has become increasingly sophisticated, it has inspired renewed efforts to develop computers whose physical architecture mimics the human brain. One approach, called reservoir computing, allows hardware devices to achieve the higher-dimension calculations required by emerging artificial intelligence. One new device highlights the potential of extremely small mechanical systems to achieve these [...]
Nanodiamonds - the tiny crystalline carbon - have fascinating chemical and surface properties and hold promising applications in quantum computing, optoelectronics, and medicine. These materials measure hundreds of thousands of times smaller than a single grain of sand. In order to counterfeit these nanoscopic gemstones, organic explosive molecules are exposed to intense detonations in [...]
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Members of an independent NASA safety panel said they were worried that the Oct. 11 Soyuz launch failure could make safety concerns with the agency's commercial crew program even worse. The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), in a previously scheduled meeting at the Johnson Space Center Oct. 11 only hours [...]
Canadian astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield (Ret.) on Friday said that human travel to space will happen sooner than we think, adding that the first destination will likely be a return trip to the moon. "Sooner thank you think," Hadfield, the first Canadian to walk in space, told Hill.TV's Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball on [...]
Antibody-based imaging of a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer is undergoing clinical trials worldwide, but the path from trial to application is being hampered by a major obstacle: safety. Concerns stem from inefficient tumor targeting, which can result in accumulation in the bone marrow, liver and kidneys of the radioactive material necessary for [...]
Following the discovery of graphene in 2003, there has been considerable interest in other types of 2D materials. However, splitting a bulk crystal material into 2D flakes for use in electronics has proven hard to achieve on a commercial scale. Now, scientists in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT have formulated a method [...]
