Quantum computers are still years away, but a trio of theorists has already figured out at least one talent they may have. According to the theorists, including one from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), physicists might one day use quantum computers to study the inner workings of the universe in ways that are far beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputers.
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A team of Case Western Reserve University engineers has designed and fabricated integrated amplifier circuits that operate under extreme temperatures – up to 600 degrees Celsius - a feat that was previously impossible.
The silicon carbide amplifiers have applications in both aerospace and energy industries. The devices can take the heat of collecting data inside of nuclear reactors and rocket engines, for example.
RICHLAND, Wash. -- Individual homes and entire neighborhoods could be powered with a new, small-scale solid oxide fuel cell system that achieves up to 57 percent efficiency, significantly higher than the 30 to 50 percent efficiencies previously reported for other solid oxide fuel cell systems of its size, according to a study published in this month's issue of Journal of Power Sources.
WASHINGTON, May 31, 2012 — The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series explains that meeting current biofuel production targets with existing technology would require devoting almost 80 percent of current farmland in the U.S.
Thursday, May 31, 2012 - Traveling the western U.S. state of Nevada in the 1860s, a young American writer named Mark Twain heard a "world of talk" about the beauty of Lake Tahoe and so set out one August day to see the lake perched high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Determined to make the 11-mile journey on foot, Twain and his companions became briefly discouraged after toiling up one mountain and then another to no avail. But they trudged on until "at last the Lake burst upon us," Twain wrote in his 1872 book, Roughing It.
A laboratory test used to detect disease and perform biological research could be made more than 3 million times more sensitive, according to researchers who combined standard biological tools with a breakthrough in nanotechnology.
The increased performance could greatly improve the early detection of cancer, Alzheimer's disease and other disorders by allowing doctors to detect far lower concentrations of telltale markers than was previously practical.
Superconductivity, in which electric current flows without resistance, promises huge energy savings – from low-voltage electric grids with no transmission losses, superefficient motors and generators, and myriad other schemes. But such everyday applications still lie in the future, because conventional superconductivity in metals can't do the job.
Scientists have used a novel X-ray technique to peer into the internal structure of a common biomolecule. The study, published in the journal Science, demonstrates the immense potential of new tools called free-electron lasers to obtain high-resolution structural insight into macromolecules.
"Not only that, but the structure we observed matches the known structure of lysozyme and shows no significant sign of radiation damage, despite the fact that the pulses completely destroy the sample. This is the first high-resolution demonstration of the 'diffraction-before-destruction' technique on biological samples, where we're able to measure a sample before the powerful pulses of the LCLS damage it," he added.
In 2004, a trio of researchers at Columbia University began an online experiment in social-media marketing, creating nine versions of a music-download site that presented the same group of unknown songs in different ways. The goal of the experiment was to gauge the effect of early peer recommendations on the songs' success; the researchers found that different songs became hits on the different sites and that the variation was unpredictable.
The University of Nottingham will be the base for the world's first Liquid Phase Photoelectron Spectroscopy (LiPPS) machine, a high performance tool that will increase the UK's competitiveness in a range of high-value industrial sectors including semiconductors, aerospace, pharmaceuticals and automotives.
Athens, Ga. – The assignment to write a court's majority opinion is one of the major tools for shaping judicial and, consequently, public policy. Researchers at the University of Georgia, along with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, recently examined factors that might influence such an assignment. Based on data from all 50 states, the study reveals that judges' race, gender and other status-based characteristics influence the majority opinion assignment in many state supreme courts.
Language is so much more than a string of words. To understand what someone means, you need context.
Consider the phrase, "Man on first." It doesn't make much sense unless you're at a baseball game. Or imagine a sign outside a children's boutique that reads, "Baby sale - One week only!" You easily infer from the situation that the store isn't selling babies but advertising bargains on gear for them.
ALBANY, Calif.—A recent report analyzing a range of published studies on the impact of bark beetles on trees in the U.S. and Canada provides a more complete picture of the effect of this destructive insect on wildfires.
Researchers in the computer science department at the University of Calgary have developed a new font for numbers that represent their relative value. Unlike the usual numeric typefaces, the amount of ink—or dark pixels—used for each digit in FatFonts is proportional to its quantitative value.
Miguel Nacenta, formerly a post doc (now an assistant professor at University of St Andrews in Scotland), came up with the idea and worked with Sheelagh Carpendale, a computer science professor and Uta Hinrichs, a PhD student specializing in Computational Media Design.