Hasta La Gadget!

No one keeps carbon nanotubes down — especially not these guys. The always popular allotropes have been enlisted by researchers at Rice University to create a composite material that gets stronger under pressure. When combined with polydimethylsiloxane, a rubbery polymer, the tubes form a nanocomposite that exhibits self-strengthening properties also exhibited in bones. During testing, the team found the material increased in stiffness by 12 percent after 3.5 million compressions. Apparently, the crew is stumped on why it reacts this way, but is no less eager to see it working in the real world — discussion is already underway to use the stuff as artificial cartilage. And here we thought aerogel was cool. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Self-strengthening polymer nanocomposite works best under pressure

Self-strengthening polymer nanocomposite works best under pressure originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 06:13:00 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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The race for ever-tinier computer chips is on, and barring physical limitations, doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon — but with chips, as with humans, the smaller they get, the more fragile they become. A team of researchers called CRISP (Cutting edge Reconfigurable ICs for Stream Processing) is working to create a self-repairing multi-core processor that would allow on-chip components to keep on shrinking, while combating concerns over accelerated degradation. Basically, the team’s conceptualized a chip that allows for 100 percent functionality, even with faulty components. With multiple cores sharing tasks, and a run-time resource manager doling out those tasks, the chip can continue to degrade without ever compromising its intended functions — a process CRISP calls graceful degradation. Once one core fails, the on-chip manager assigns its task to another core, continuing on in this fashion for the complete lifetime of the chip. Of course the technology is still in its infancy, but if CRISP’s chips comes to fruition, we could see virtually indestructible processors that make 14nm look bulky by comparison.

Researchers tout self-repairing multi-core processors originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been hearing about the potential flash killer for years, and now a team of University of Illinois engineers is claiming that its new phase-change technology could make the PRAM of our dreams look quaint by comparison. Like so many groundbreaking discoveries of late, carbon nanotubes are at the heart of the this new mode of memory, which uses 100x less power than its phase-change predecessors. So, how does it work? Basically, the team replaced metal wires with carbon nanotubes to pump electricity through phase-change bits, reducing the size of the conductor and the amount of energy consumed. Still too much technobabble? How ’bout this — they’re using tiny tubes to give your cellphone juice for days. Get it? Good.

[Thanks, Jeff]

New phase-change memory gets boost from carbon nanotubes, puts PRAM claims to shame originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This as-of-yet-unnamed mini computer was fashioned as an implantable eye pressure monitor for glaucoma patients, but its creators envision a future where we’re all crawling with the little buggers. Taking up just over one cubic millimeter of space, the thing stuffs a pressure sensor, memory, thin-film battery, solar cell, wireless radio, and low-power microprocessor all into one very small translucent container. The processor behind this little guy uses an “extreme” sleep mode to keep it napping at 15-minute intervals and sucking up 5.3 nanowatts while awake, and its battery runs off 10 hours of indoor light or one and a half hours of sun beams. Using the sensor to measure eye pressure and the radio to communicate with an external reader, the system will continuously track the progress of glaucoma, without those pesky contacts. Of course, the mad scientists behind it look forward to a day when the tiny device will do much more, with each of us toting hundreds of the computer implants all over our bodies — looks like a bright future for cyborgdom.

Researchers debut one-cubic-millimeter computer, want to stick it in your eye originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Feb 2011 17:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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