Troy, N.Y. – No matter which way you look at it, the notion of harvesting energy from the sun to power our homes and businesses is more absorbing than ever.
Tech
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Of all the conceivable problems that could lead to a miscount Election Day, there's one possibility that voters can do something about – avoid making election machine-related errors, says a University of Maryland researcher who led a comprehensive study of voter problems using touch screen and paper-based machines.
(Boston) ¬- Researchers at Boston University working with collaborators in Germany, France and Korea have developed a nanoscale torsion resonator that measures miniscule amounts of twisting or torque in a metallic nanowire. This device, the size of a speck of dust, might enable measurements of the untwisting of DNA and have applications in spintronics, fundamental physics, chemistry and biology.
Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in The Netherlands have managed to crack the so-called McEliece encryption system. This system is a candidate for the security of Internet traffic in the age of the quantum computer - the predicted superpowerful computer of the future.
LONDON -- Leaders of several African science academies are meeting next week at the Royal Society, the national science academy of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, to discuss how the independent, expert advice of science academies can be applied to policy and development issues in Africa. The gathering is the fourth annual conference of the African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI), a multiyear effort administered by the U.S. National Academies to strengthen the capacity of African academies to deliver such advice.
UC San Diego computer scientists have built a software program that can perform key duplication without having the key. Instead, the computer scientists only need a photograph of the key.
A novel technique* under development at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) uses a relatively inexpensive optical microscope to quickly and cheaply analyze nanoscale dimensions with nanoscale measurement sensitivity. Termed “Through-focus Scanning Optical Microscope” (TSOM) imaging, the technique has potential applications in nanomanufacturing, semiconductor process control and biotechnology.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 – Scientists at Clemson University for the first time have been able to make a practical optical fiber with a silicon core, according to a new paper published in the current issue of the Optical Society's open-access journal, Optics Express. Led by Professor John Ballato and including fiber pioneer Roger Stolen, the team of scientists was able to create this new fiber by employing the same commercial methods that are used to develop all-glass fibers, making silicon fibers viable alternatives to glass fibers for selected specialty applications.
If you want to make sure your computer or server is not tricked into undertaking malicious or undesirable behavior, it's not enough to keep bad code out of the system.
Two graduate students from UC San Diego's computer science department—Erik Buchanan and Ryan Roemer—have just published work showing that the process of building bad programs from good code using "return-oriented programming" can be automated and that this vulnerability applies to RISC computer architectures and not just the x86 architecture (which includes the vast majority of personal computers).
Professor Pang Xiao-Feng and Deng Bo studied the properties of water, and their changes under the action of a magnetic field were gathered by the spectrum techniques of infrared, Raman, visible, ultraviolet and X-ray lights, which may give an insight into molecular and atomic structures of water. It was found that some properties of water were changed, and a lot of new and strange phenomena were discovered after magnetization.
A wish could come true for paraplegics who play the piano and are paralyzed from the hips down: the Heidelberg researcher Dr.-Ing. Rüdiger Rupp has developed a method with which a pianist can operate the right pedal of a concert grand wirelessly – a first in the world. A paraplegic pianist can thus overcome the handicap of being able to play the piano using only his arms and hands. Dr. Rupp, director of the research department at the spinal cord injury unit of the Orthopedic Clinic of Heidelberg University Hospital (Director: Prof. Dr.
World class UK research is helping to build the fastest car in the world thanks to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The BLOODHOUND SSC Project, led by Richard Noble OBE, is aiming to set a new world land speed record of a thousand miles per hour by 2011.
The challenge at the heart of the project is to create a car capable of 1,000mph - a car 30% faster than any car that has gone before.
UNSW's ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence has again asserted its leadership in solar cell technology by reporting the first silicon solar cell to achieve the milestone of 25 per cent effiency.
The UNSW ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence already held the world record of 24.7 per cent for silicon solar cell efficiency. Now a revision of the international standard by which solar cells are measured, has delivered the significant 25 per cent record to the team led by Professors Martin Green and Stuart Wenham and widened their lead on the rest of the world.
An international team of scientists has performed the ultimate miniaturisation of computer memory: storing information inside the nucleus of an atom. This breakthrough is a key step in bringing to life a quantum computer - a device based on the fundamental theory of quantum mechanics which could crack problems unsolvable by current technology.