The problem with lithium ion batteries is that the more discharge cycles you put them through, the less efficient the negative electrode becomes at holding electrons. This just won’t do in our mobile future, so researchers at Stanford University have developed a battery that actually heals itself. It’s nearly alive.
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Welcome to Time Machines, where we offer up a selection of mechanical oddities, milestone gadgets and unique inventions to test out your tech-history skills.
It bears a passing resemblance to the vinyl record, but this futuristic concept was envisioned as more than just sound on a platter. The recording method involved electron beams and lasers; the base material was a coated, transparent plastic disc; and you’d get both an eyeful and an earful from the end product. Its intended goal in the market may have initially flubbed, but its core design has been patently embedded into a variety of successful formats ever since. Take a spin past the break to find out more about this invention.
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
Apple’s new headquarters is perhaps the most hotly anticipated building in the country, and the company just released a new set of images of the spaceship-shaped building. The new renderings provide a detailed look inside the ring-shaped building. Another ambitious proposal could be coming to life: The folks behind a futuristic marine-research vessel known as the SeaOrbiter just launched a crowdfunding campaign. Construction on the knife-shaped vessel is expected to begin next spring. On the gadget front, a pair of engineering students at Duke University has discovered a new way to charge smartphones with WiFi — and they say the power-harvesting device is even more efficient than a USB charger.
It’s a big month for quantum computing. Earlier today we reported that scientists had sustained a quantum computer for 39 minutes at room temperature instead of having to cool it to near-absolute-zero first, meaning we are that much closer to Ludicrous Speed consumer computers. Now it has come to light that photons can be measured, […]
Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days.
Suddenly things just got real. A new study claims one in five sun-like stars could have a planet capable of supporting life. Hugging your loved ones while thousands of miles away is closer reality, and smog? Apparently we can vacuum that stuff up now. Yeah? This is Alt-week.
Currently, doctors use ultrasound to measure blood flow in the body. Doppler effect, just like bats! But it can’t detect flow in the small, slow-moving vessels where diseases often start. The solution? Sonic blasts that heat up a tiny drop of blood, then watch where it goes. Science!
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Scientists have just taken quantum computing a big leap closer to consumer viability. In a paper published in Science, it was shown that qubits–the atomic particles used in ludicrously fast quantum computers–can be made to retain their “superposed” state–that is, a state of both 1 and 0 or multiple 1′s and 0′s–for 39 minutes at […]
Despite recent successes in the field, creating a quantum computer is really hard. For one thing quantum bits in a super positioned state (or qubits, the basic unit of data for quantum computing) have a hard time surviving at room temperature. Typically, these superposition states last for only a few seconds, but in a recent experiment at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby , researchers were able to keep a quantum system alive for a full 39 minutes.
“These lifetimes are at least ten times longer than those measured in previous experiments,” explained Stephanie Simmons from the University of Oxford’s Department of Materials. “Having such robust, as well as long-lived, qubits could prove very helpful for anyone trying to build a quantum computer.” Even so, they aren’t particularly active ones – all of the qubits in the experiment shared the same quantum state. To perform actual calculations (and thus build a functioning quantum computer), a system would need to put multiple qubtis in different quantum states. Sound complicated? It sure is, but it’s a significant step forward to building the ultrafast computing platforms of tomorrow. Eager to learn more? Check out the official press release at the source link below.
[Image Credit: Stephanie Simmons, University of Oxford]
Source: University of Oxford
A future with lightsabers just got a little more promising, according to a scientific breakthrough by MIT and Harvard scientists. For the first time, scientists have managed to create matter out of light, something that has been theoretically possible but never before accomplished. Furthermore, this discovery flips long-accepted understanding about light and photons on its […]
Holograms are cool enough on their own
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