Tech | Page 1773 | Science Codex

Biometrics could ease complexity of online transactions

A system that allows biometric data to be used to create a secret key for data encryption has been developed by researchers in South Africa. They describe details of the new technology in the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics.

If a user, such as web customer say, wishes to send a message or other data to another user, an online shop, over an unsecured network, the message must be encrypted to avoid interception of sensitive information such as passwords and credit card information.

New and improved graphane could replace silicon in computer chips

Ever since graphene was discovered in 2004, this one-atom thick, super strong, carbon-based electrical conductor has been billed as a "wonder material" that some physicists think could one day replace silicon in computer chips.

But graphene, which consists of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, has a major drawback when it comes to applications in electronics – it conducts electricity almost too well, making it hard to create graphene-based transistors that are suitable for integrated circuits.

7-foot high "SUDS" cleans hospital equipment

Johns Hopkins experts in applied physics, computer engineering, infectious diseases, emergency medicine, microbiology, pathology and surgery have unveiled a 7-foot-tall, $10,000 shower-cubicle-shaped device that automatically sanitizes in 30 minutes all sorts of hard-to-clean equipment in the highly trafficked hospital emergency department. The novel device can sanitize and disinfect equipment of all shapes and sizes, from intravenous line poles and blood pressure cuffs, to pulse oximeter wires and electrocardiogram (EKG) wires, to computer keyboards and cellphones.

Membrane breaks through performance barrier

Engineers have developed a new method for creating high-performance membranes from crystal sieves called zeolites. The method could increase the energy efficiency of chemical separations up to 50 times over conventional methods and enable higher production rates.

The ability to separate and purify specific molecules in a chemical mixture is essential to chemical manufacturing. Many industrial separations rely on distillation, a process that is easy to design and implement but consumes a lot of energy.

Suspected breakdown of Planck's law finally proven

A well-established physical law describes the transfer of heat between two objects, but some physicists have long predicted that the law should break down when the objects are very close together. Scientists had never been able to confirm, or measure, this breakdown in practice. However, MIT researchers have now achieved this feat, and determined that the heat transfer can be 1,000 times greater than the law predicts.

Laser image aimed at achieving 85 percent reduction in costs

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – An innovative laser imaging technique, developed with funding from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), could cut more than 7,700 man hours from the manufacturing cycle of the VIRGINA-Class Submarine (VCS).

Per submarine, the savings could reach $500K per hull, translating in a projected savings of $15.5M over a 31-hull construction program.

A police woman fights quantum hacking and cracking

The first desktop computers changed the way we managed data forever. Three decades after their introduction, we rely on them to manage our time, social life and finances ― and to keep this information safe from prying eyes and online predators.

Sun exposure may trigger certain autoimmune diseases in women

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight may be associated with the development of certain autoimmune diseases, particularly in women, according to a study by researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Model predicts evolution of Mediterranean landscape following fires

An international research team has developed a mathematical and cartographical model that make it possible to view how Mediterranean landscapes evolve in the aftermath of forest fires. In order to carry out this research study, published recently in the journal Environmental Modelling & Software, the authors studied a Special Protection Area for Birds to the south west of Madrid.

Robot's have three new written rules

"When you think about it, our cultural view of robots has always been anti-people, pro-robot," explained David Woods, professor of integrated systems engineering at Ohio State University. "The philosophy has been, 'sure, people make mistakes, but robots will be better -- a perfect version of ourselves.' We wanted to write three new laws to get people thinking about the human-robot relationship in more realistic, grounded ways."

In the current issue of journal IEEE Intelligent Systems, two engineers propose alternative laws to rewrite our future with robots.

Map and satellite hybrid technology developed for AF

Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) and Geosemble Technologies are improving Air Force situational awareness with software that presents vast amounts of map data in a more manageable format

Using funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Dr. Craig Knoblock and his team developed a computerized method for aligning maps with satellite imagery. The result combined the visual appeal of photographs with the attribution information found on maps.

New nanotubes promise large scale production

In a paper published this month in Nano Research, Rice University chemist Bob Hauge's team describes a method for making "odako," bundles of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT). Named for the traditional Japanese kites they resemble, they may lead to the production of meter-long strands of nanotubes, no wider than a piece of DNA.

NYU physicists show way to count sweets in a jar -- from inside the jar

How many sweets fit into a jar? This question depends on the shapes and sizes of the sweets, the size of the jar, and how it is filled. Surprisingly, this ancient question remains unanswered because of the complex geometry of sweet-packing. Moreover, as any contestant knows, guessing the number of sweets in the jar is difficult because the sweets located at the center of the jar are hidden from view and can't be counted. Researchers at New York University have now determined how sweets pack from inside the jar, making it easier to more accurately count them.

Caltech researchers link tiny sea creatures to large-scale ocean mixing

PASADENA, Calif.—Using a combination of theoretical modeling, energy calculations, and field observations, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have for the first time described a mechanism that explains how some of the ocean's tiniest swimming animals can have a huge impact on large-scale ocean mixing.

Their findings are being published in the July 30 issue of the journal Nature.

Low prevalence of HPV infection may be tied to poor prognosis for blacks with head and neck cancer

Researchers at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer have found that head and neck cancer patients who test positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV) have much better survival rates than patients who don't have the virus, according to a new study in the journal Cancer Prevention Research. The researchers also discovered that blacks in the study had a very low rate of HPV infection, and consequently worse survival, which may explain why African-American patients traditionally have had a poor prognosis for head and neck cancer.