PodSpec » Technology

Messing with our planet

cs — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:21:40 +0000

IN 1975 scientists expert in a new and potentially world-changing technology, genetic engineering, gathered at Asilomar, on the Monterey peninsula in California, to ponder the ethics and safety of the course they were embarking on. The year before, they had imposed on themselves a voluntary moratorium on experiments which involved the transfer of genes from [...]

Coming up empty

cs — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:37:06 +0000

THE renewable-fuel standard released in February by America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) paints an ambitious picture of biofuels’ future. It wants the amount of the stuff used as transport fuel to climb from 13 billion gallons (49 billion litres) in 2010 to 36 billion gallons in 2022, requiring by far the largest part of that [...]

Single Molecule Transistor

cs — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:59:05 +0000

MANHASSET, NY — Researchers from Yale University and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea have successfully created a transistor made from a single molecule. The researchers showed that a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts could behave just like a silicon transistor.

They were able to manipulate the molecule’s different energy [...]

Rubber from Dandelions

cs — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:58:51 +0000

The tyres of the future may be made from dandelions. OTHER than being an ingredient of the more recherché sorts of salad, herbal tea or wine, dandelions are pretty useless plants. Or, at least, they were. But one species, a Russian variety called Taraxacum kok-saghyz (TKS), may yet make the big time. It produces molecules [...]

Native Flu Fighting Proteins

cs — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:07:42 +0000

A team led by Harvard researchers has discovered a family of naturally occurring proteins in human cells that protect against influenza and other illnesses—a finding that may lead to methods to speed up vaccine production and to new flu prevention drugs for humans.

Shedding greater light on the human body’s first-line defense against the flu virus, [...]

Wireless Electricity

cs — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:27:24 +0000

Marin Soljacic couldn’t sleep. The problem was his wife’s Nokia cell phone. The tyrannical device beeped on the bedside table when it needed to be plugged in. It could not be disabled.

Instead of taking a hammer to the phone, Soljacic marveled at the fact that this device, and billions of others like it, was sitting [...]

News vs Newspaper

cs — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:09:53 +0000

How a new communications technology disrupted America’s newspaper industry — in 1845. CHANGE is in the air. A new communications technology threatens a dramatic upheaval in America’s newspaper industry, overturning the status quo and disrupting the business model that has served the industry for years. This “great revolution”, warns one editor, will mean that some [...]

Foundations of Economic Analysis

cs — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:41:29 +0000

Paul A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in economics and the foremost academic economist of the 20th century, died Sunday at his home in Belmont, Mass. He was 94.

His death was announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which Mr. Samuelson helped build into one of the world’s great centers of graduate education in [...]

Birds and Aviation Fuel Efficiency

cs — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:10:28 +0000

Copying Birds may save aircraft fuel.

Source: The Economist. Photo: Corbis

BOTH Boeing and Airbus have trumpeted the efficiency of their newest aircraft, the 787 and A350 respectively. Their clever designs and lightweight composites certainly make a difference. But a group of researchers at Stanford University, led by Ilan Kroo, has suggested that airlines could take a [...]

Diatoms

cs — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:54:16 +0000

PORTLAND, Ore. — Diatoms–single-celled phytoplankton (algae)–are one of the most plentiful life forms on Earth, accounting for 20 percent of the carbon dioxide removed from the environment each year. The mechanism they use–encasing themselves in patterned silicon dioxide shells as they fall to the bottom of oceans and lakes worldwide–removes as much carbon dioxide from [...]

Car fuel from water

cs — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:50:48 +0000

PORTLAND, Ore. — The hydrogen economy is getting a shot in the arm from a start-up that says its nanoparticle coatings could make hydrogen easy to produce at home from distilled water, and ultimately bring the cost of hydrogen fuel cells in line with that of fossil fuels. QuantumSphere Inc. says it has perfected the [...]

Molecular Machines

cs — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:46:28 +0000

A tiny chemical “brain” which could one day act as a remote control for swarms of nano-machines has been invented. The molecular device – just two billionths of a metre across – was able to control eight of the microscopic machines simultaneously in a test. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists [...]

Bismuth Antimony Telluride

cs — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:41:43 +0000

PORTLAND, Ore. — Thermoelectric coolers and power generators were handed a 40-percent boost in performance recently by a nanotechnological reconstruction of a classic bulk material. The technique is suitable for mass production, according to its inventors at Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

This makes it of use in both industrial and consumer [...]

Road Coloring Problem

cs — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:38:08 +0000

After 38 years, Israeli solves math code. A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard. Avraham Trahtman, a mathematician who also toiled as a laborer after moving [...]

Nanodots

cs — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:54:16 +0000

Nanodots could yield denser memories, ceramic engine

PORTLAND, Ore. — Researchers at North Carolina State University said they were able to read and write bits at room temperature using magnetic nanodots that delivered 1 terabit of memory per centimeter2.The ferromagnetic film on which the nanodots were based could lead to ultra-dense memory chips that store bits [...]

FinFETs

cs — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:35:13 +0000

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. — Gaze into the electron microscope display in Frances Ross’s laboratory here and it is possible to persuade yourself that Dr. Ross, a 21st-century materials scientist, is actually a farmer in some Lilliputian silicon world.

Dr. Ross, an I.B.M. researcher, is growing [...]

Doomsday Seed Vault

cs — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:06:37 +0000

UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited Wednesday a vault carved into the Arctic permafrost, filled with samples of the world’s most important seeds in case food crops are wiped out by a catastrophe.

“The world faces many daunting challenges today, one of the greatest of which is how to feed a growing population in the context of [...]

Telescope turning 400

cs — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:47:31 +0000

Celebrating 400th anniversary of Galileo’s Telescope.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14213985

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

Bhuvan challenging Google Earth

cs — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:20:56 +0000

Google Earth’s got some competition now — from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which today unveiled its beta version of Bhuvan (meaning earth in Sanskrit).

A web-based tool like Google Earth, Bhuvan promises to give better 3-D satellite imagery of India than is currently being offered by the US-based software giant plus a host [...]

iPhone Teardown

admin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:11:23 +0000

Whenever a new gadget hits the streets, it’s a race to see who will be the first to reduce to its constituent pieces. With the launch of the iPhone 3G S we’ve got a pair of different companies doing their darndest to disassemble the latest iteration of Apple’s iconic device. Frankly, I’d be happy to [...]