Hasta La Gadget!

Not going to front: we’ve a soft spot in our heart for focused beams of light. We’ve seen ’em rid the world of its space junk and set the pace of human hearts, and now, they’re taking a leading role in aural advancement. As improbable as it sounds, a research team from the University of Utah led by Richard Rabbitt has found that lasers may be able to give deaf people the ability to hear. Using a low-power infrared diode — similar to those in laser-pointers tormenting cats the world over — Professor Rabbitt found that exposing oyster toadfish hair cells (analogous to the cells found in humans’ inner ears) to infrared light caused them to release neurotransmitters and activate adjacent neurons. This could lead to laser-based ear implants able to stimulate focused areas of cells with thousands of sound wavelengths, as opposed to today’s electrode implants whose electrical current spreads through human tissue and limits the deliverable sonic range. Smaller, more efficient power supplies and light sources are needed before optical hearing aids become a reality, but if these newfangled lasers ever get their act together, we should be able to hear version two (and three) coming down the pike.

Lasers let deaf ears pick up what the sonic world is putting down originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Small is beautiful, but only when you can see it. Specifically, we’re talking about nanostructures — including cellular organelles and nanoelectronic circuits — around the order of 100nm. The problem is with a microscope, visible light only takes us down to a resolution of 200nm at best, and it’s not always ideal to use conventional methods to boost the resolution — you’d either have to dope the subject with fluorescent dye or use highly delicate equipment. Thankfully, the University of Twente has come up with a new type of lens that would solve this problem: in a nutshell, a nanoparticle is placed on one side of the gallium phosphide lens, while the other side — disorderedly etched with acid — takes in a precisely modulated laser beam and scatters it into a focal point of your choice. Sure, this sounds bizarre and ironic, but apparently the modulation is controlled in such a way that the scattered beam focuses much tighter than an ordinary beam would using an ordinary lens. Have a look at the comparison shots of some gold nanoparticles after the break — that’s some sweet 97nm resolution right there for ya.

Continue reading University of Twente’s new lens reveals the sub-100nm level with visible light

University of Twente’s new lens reveals the sub-100nm level with visible light originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 23:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Space junk is a growing problem — 200,000 pieces and counting — and as the amount of earth’s orbital debris increases, so does the chance some satellite will be involved in a cosmic collision. As this would cause much gnashing of teeth and woe for the affected terrestrial parties, some researchers from NASA’s Ames Research Center have pitched the idea of removing said junk with a laser — once again proving that everything’s better with lasers. The idea is to use a 5kW ray, like the one we’ve got at the Starfire Optical Range, to slow our galactic garbage enough to burn it up in earth’s atmosphere. Current estimates say such a laser could eliminate ten pieces of junk a day, promising us a future of neat and tidy skies.

In lasers we trust: NASA researches 5kW galactic trash disposal system originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 01:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The future’s here, someone tell Starfleet. Scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai have developed a plan to make a tractor beam that is capable of moving molecules using only light. The device hasn’t been produced, but an NYU scientist is convinced that it can work. The physicist, David Grier, built the first ever working tractor beam last year, based on a similar design.

According to this article on ScienceNews, the theoretical machine developed by the Chinese scientists would focus a beam of light on an object, creating electromagnetic fields on it. The light scattered by these fields would push the object towards the beam, instead of away from it like in a traditional laser. Physicist Jun Chen at Fudan University said that this type of beam would work as a way to draw in particles using only light.

Grier’s beam, demonstrated in a paper published about a year ago, showed how light could be used to pull objects instead of push them in a lab. He wasn’t exactly using it to rearrange his furniture though; the device moved a 1.5 micrometer sphere about 8 micrometers. With that in mind, Grier said a similar type of beam could be used to pull a person, but it would have to carry about a terrawatt of power. Definitely not a safe amount of energy, as he was quoted saying “it would be a short trip.” Yikes.

Just knowing that something like this exist brings us that much closer to feeling like we’re living in a sci-fi movie. We may not have flying cars, but tractor beams? No problem.

[via ScienceNews]

We all know that light can’t exactly pass through solid objects — unless of course, you’re using a laser or something. Yes, X-rays allow us to look into suitcases at the airport and broken bones in our bodies, but there’s a new kid on the block that claims to have done the impossible in a novel fashion. Jochen Aulbach and his colleagues of the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics out in Amsterdam have developed a technology that allows scrambled light to remain focused as it passes through ultra-thin layers of paint. You see, when light is sent through opaque material, it becomes muddled and lost in the space-time continuum. Aulbach and his crew used a spatial light modulator, or SMT, to control a 64-femtosecond long laser pulse that’s passed through a thin layer of paint. The SMT emits pulses that last long enough for only a machine to see and the data is sent to a computer for calibration. NewScientist claims that with this technology, it might be possible to hone in on cancerous cells and blast them to oblivion without damaging the healthy tissue surrounding them.

Scientists figure out how to see through walls, sort of originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 07:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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