Hasta La Gadget!

Light. What is it? What isn’t it? Such are the questions left to the experts at Caltech, which have just concocted a new device that can focus light to a point just a few nanometers wide. That kind of precision has never been done at scale, and the university is hoping that the invention could help “pave the way for the next-generation of communication, computing, and even imaging technology.”

In lay terms, it could allow increased bandwidth for fiber optics, and since it’s built on-chip, integration with existing doodads shouldn’t be too much of a hassle. Previous on-chip nanofocusing devices were only able to focus light into a narrow line, making them inefficient, whereas Caltech’s contraption can be focused in three dimensions, producing a point a few nanometers across, and using half of the light that’s sent through. Hyuck Choo seems to think that it can be put to use in short order in the medical field, but it remains to be seen if we’ll see this in the next wave of Google Fiber rollouts. But hey, a lowly DSL user can hope, right?

Filed under: Science, Alt

Comments

Source: Caltech

Australia’s Department of Agriculture has announced that its researchers have made a breakthrough that will send shockwaves across beach resorts and tiki-themed restaurants around the world. Through careful breeding they’ve managed to produce a sweet pineapple that also tastes like coconut, reducing future Pina Colada recipes to just two ingredients. More »

UK researchers are ready to see if life can exist in one of the harshest environments on the planet: Lake Ellsworth in the Antarctic, 3 km (2 miles) below a glacier. They’ll try to drill through the ice by December 12th using a high pressure sterile water jet heated to 90 degrees Celsius (194 Fahrenheit) and sterilize the patch of lake with intense ultraviolet light before attempting to retrieve a sample. If any organisms can be found, they’ll have evolved in isolation for at least 100,000 years, according to team, and probably even much longer. That could help scientists understand more about how life evolves on this planet, and possibly elsewhere — like iced-over oceans on Europa, Jupiter’s moon, or other harsh planetary environments. It’ll be the deepest borehole ever made with hot water, and the team will have a mere 24 hours to sterilize the lake entry and collect samples before it refreezes. When asked which part of the tricky experiment worried him the most, lead scientist Chris Hill replied, “everything.” For a video tour of the drill site, head below the break.

Continue reading Researchers to bore through 3km of Antarctic ice, seek organisms isolated for 100K years

Filed under: Science, Alt

Comments

Source: The Guardian

Researchers at Utah State University in Logan, UT have figured out a way to bring inductive charging to public transportation with an electric bus that’s capable of recharging itself at each bus stop. Charging plates under the the pavement at each stop charge up the battery inside the bus, and while the plates and the bus have to be lined up somewhat in order to charge, they don’t need to be perfectly lined up every time in order to juice up.

A prototype of the bus, called the Aggie Bus (named after the school’s nickname) is already on the road being tested as we speak. The folks behind the project plain to have a commercial vehicle on the market soon, but no specific timeline was given. The bus uses the same wireless charging principle as an electric toothbrush or a wireless smartphone charger. The only difference is that it’s optimized for a vehicle.

Induction charging, in this specific instance, allows for smaller batteries on the electric bus, which frees up room for more interior space, as well as reduces downtime and allows for lower battery costs. Utah State University will be the first college campus in the US to debut such a bus sometime in 2013.

Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of wireless charging used in vehicles. Last month, Qualcomm kicked off a new wireless charging trial called “Halo” that’s all about testing different ways to bring inductive charging to everyday driving. Unlike current electric vehicles, which have to sit overnight to recharge, Qualcomm’s initiative plans to have the highway itself be the charging pad. Of course, we won’t see this kind of technology for a few more years, and it’ll still be in the slow rollout phase by then.

Utah State University unveils public transit bus with inductive charging is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy has big plans. They want batteries that are five times more powerful than what we’ve got today, and they want them to be five times cheaper. All that in just five years. It’s a tall order, but they’ve got a plan: recreate the Manhattan Project. More »