Engineering – Page 10

Engineering, Science & Technology News, Space, Space Flight

ESA opens oxygen plant, making air out of moondust

February 1, 2020

Oxygen and metal from lunar regolith. Credit: Beth Lomax – University of Glasgow

ESA’s technical heart has begun to produce oxygen out of simulated moondust.

A prototype oxygen plant has been set up in the Materials and Electrical Components Laboratory of the European Space Research and Technology Centre, ESTEC, based in Noordwijk in the Netherlands.

“Having our own facility allows us to focus on oxygen production, measuring it with a mass spectrometer as it is extracted from the regolith simulant,” comments Beth Lomax of the University of Glasgow, whose Ph.D. work is being supported through ESA’s Networking and Partnering Initiative, harnessing advanced academic research for space applications.

“Being able to acquire oxygen from resources found on the Moon would obviously be hugely useful for future lunar settlers, both for breathing and in the local production of rocket fuel.”

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Energy, Engineering, Environment, Science & Technology News

Rolls-Royce plans to build up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain

January 31, 2020

Artist’s concept of a Rolls-Royce SMR plantRolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce has announced that it plans to build, install, and operate up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain, with the first set to go online in nine years. In a BBC Radio 4 interview with business journalist Katie Prescott on January 24, 2020’s Today program, Paul Stein, chief technology officer for Rolls-Royce, said that the company is leading a consortium to produce factory-built modular nuclear reactors that can be delivered for assembly by ordinary lorries.

Currently, the world is undergoing a boom in nuclear power. According to the World Nuclear Association, there are 448 operating civilian reactors and another 53 under construction. However, almost all of these are being built in Eastern Europe and Asia, with China alone building more reactors than the entire Western world combined.

Part of the reason for this is political with every reactor program in Europe or North America facing implacable environmentalist opposition and part of it is the expense of building and operating large reactors in an energy economy now dominated by cheap natural gas. However, one technology trend that could reverse this stagnation is the development of small, modular nuclear reactors that could be mass-produced in factories, carted to the site by ordinary lorries, and then assembled to generate cheap carbon-free electricity.

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Engineering, Robotics, Science & Technology News, Stem cells

Scientists build “first living robots” from frog stem cells

January 29, 2020

“It’s a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.”

A team of researchers have built what they claim to be the first living robots. The “xenobots,” they say, can move, pick up objects, and even heal themselves after being cut.

The team is hoping the biological machines could one day be used to clean up microplastics in the ocean or even deliver drugs inside the human body, The Guardian reports.

To build the robots, the team used living cells from frog embryos and assembled them into primitive beings.

“These are novel living machines,” research co-lead Joshua Bongard, robotics expert at the University of Vermont, said in a statement. “They’re neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It’s a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.”

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Aviation, Engineering, New Inventions, Science & Technology News

Scientists built a robot pigeon that flaps just like the real thing, and it’s mesmerizing

January 22, 2020

Most of us see birds every day. Go look outside your nearest window and chances are you’re not going to have to wait long before you spot a feathered friend cruising by. Despite that, scientists have long struggled with replicating the flight mechanics that birds are naturally blessed with

Building a “bird robot” that flies with fixed wings is easy enough, but creating something that bends and flaps its wings like a real animal is surprisingly difficult. Now, a team of researchers has taken a huge step toward achieving that lofty goal with a new artificial avian aptly named PigeonBot.

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Engineering, Medical Breakthrough, Medicine, Robots, Science & Technology News

Scientists use stem cells from frogs to build first living robots

January 16, 2020

Researchers foresee myriad benefits for humanity, but also acknowledge ethical issues

Be warned. If the rise of the robots comes to pass, the apocalypse may be a more squelchy affair than science fiction writers have prepared us for.

Researchers in the US have created the first living machines by assembling cells from African clawed frogs into tiny robots that move around under their own steam.

One of the most successful creations has two stumpy legs that propel it along on its “chest”. Another has a hole in the middle that researchers turned into a pouch so it could shimmy around with miniature payloads.

“These are entirely new lifeforms. They have never before existed on Earth,” said Michael Levin, the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. “They are living, programmable organisms.”

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Batteries, Engineering, IBM, Science & Technology News, Solar Power

New battery tech can keep your smartphone charged for five continuous days

January 9, 2020

h can keep your smartphone charged for five continuous days

The new high-capacity lithium-sulfur batteries can pave way for cheaper electric cars and solar grids.

Researchers have developed a new solution that is capable of powering smartphones for five continuous days or electric cars to run over 1,000 km without needing to refuel.

The new battery solution does away with the traditional lithium-ion combination in modern batteries that power devices such as smartwatches, smartphones, and even pacemakers. Instead, researchers used lithium-sulfur batteries to achieve ultra-high capacity.

Researchers at Australia-based Monash University said the team could re-configure the design of sulfur cathodes using the existing materials in standard lithium-ion batteries. The reconfiguration helped researchers achieve higher stress levels without registering any drop in overall capacity or performance.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Engineering, Machine Learning, Science & Technology News

Researchers observe brain-like behavior in nanoscale device

December 30, 2019

A device like the one in the study (right), and an electron microscope image showing the device’s neuron-like arrangement of nanowires.

UCLA scientists James Gimzewski and Adam Stieg are part of an international research team that has taken a significant stride toward the goal of creating thinking machines.

Led by researchers at Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science, the team created an experimental device that exhibited characteristics analogous to certain behaviors of the brain—learning, memorization, forgetting, wakefulness and sleep. The paper, published in Scientific Reports, describes a network in a state of continuous flux.

“This is a system between order and chaos, on the edge of chaos,” said Gimzewski, a UCLA distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and a co-author of the study. “The way that the device constantly evolves and shifts mimics the human brain. It can come up with different types of behavior patterns that don’t repeat themselves.”

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Engineering, Nanotechnology, new technology, Science & Technology News

A nanotube material conducts heat in just one direction

December 19, 2019

Photograph of nanotubes being created

Asymmetric conductors could revolutionize cooling systems for computers and other devices.

Heat is something of a nuisance for electrical engineers. It reduces the reliability of electronic devices and even causes them to fail completely. That’s why computer components are liberally smeared with thermal paste and connected to heat pipes, fans, and even water cooling systems.

The goal is to channel the heat away from sensitive components so that it can dissipate into the environment. But as devices get smaller, the challenge becomes more acute—and modern transistors, for example, are measured in nanometers.

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Engineering, Internet, quantum computing, Science & Technology News

Quantum states in conventional electronics may beat end of Moore’s law

December 15, 2019

Graduate students Kevin Miao, Chris Anderson, and Alexandre Bourassa monitor quantum experiments at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering

Scientists at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have found a way to produce quantum states in ordinary, everyday electronics. By harnessing the properties of quantum mechanics without exotic materials or equipment, this raises the possibility that quantum information technologies can be created using current devices.

For decades, the computer industry has benefited from Moore’s law, which is a rule of thumb that predicts that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double about every two years. As this has held up, computers have gone from giant machines that were part of the buildings that housed them to tiny devices that can fit on a thumbnail, yet can outperform any supercomputer from previous generations.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Engineering, new technology, Science & Technology News

SLAC scientists invent a way to see attosecond electron motions with an X-ray laser

December 13, 2019

Called XLEAP, the new method will provide sharp views of electrons in chemical processes that take place in billionths of a billionth of a second and drive crucial aspects of life.

Menlo Park, Calif. — Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have invented a way to observe the movements of electrons with powerful X-ray laser bursts just 280 attoseconds, or billionths of a billionth of a second, long.

A SLAC-led team has invented a method, called XLEAP, that generates powerful low-energy X-ray laser pulses that are only 280 attoseconds, or billionths of a billionth of a second, long and that can reveal for the first time the fastest motions of electrons that drive chemistry. This illustration shows how the scientists use a series of magnets to transform an electron bunch (blue shape at left) at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source into a narrow current spike (blue shape at right), which then produces a very intense attosecond X-ray flash (yellow). (Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

The technology, called X-ray laser-enhanced attosecond pulse generation (XLEAP), is a big advance that scientists have been working toward for years, and it paves the way for breakthrough studies of how electrons speeding around molecules initiate crucial processes in biology, chemistry, materials science and more.

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Engineering, New Inventions, new technology, Science & Technology News

How the end of Moore’s Law will usher in a new era in computing

December 11, 2019

Will the next evolution of technology super power our computers?

In 1965 Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel, predicted that the number of components that could fit on a microchip would double every year for the next decade.

Moore revised his prediction in 1975 to a doubling of components every two years – a prophecy that remained true for another four decades.

The ramifications on the world of technology and, by extension, society itself of what is now known as “Moore’s Law” have proven immeasurable.

The doubling of transistors – semi-conductor devices that switch electronic signals and power – meant that technology would become exponentially more powerful, smaller and cheaper.

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Big Problems, Engineering, Environment, Science & Technology News

Why the world is running out of sand

November 25, 2019

It may be little more than grains of weathered rock, and can be found in deserts and on beaches around the world, but sand is also the world’s second most consumed natural resource.

A South African entrepreneur shot dead in September. Two Indian villagers killed in a gun battle in August. A Mexican environmental activist murdered in June.

Though separated by thousands of miles, these killings share an unlikely cause. They are some of the latest casualties in a growing wave of violence sparked by the struggle for one of the 21st Century’s most important, but least appreciated, commodities: ordinary sand.

Trivial though it may seem, sand is a critical ingredient of our lives. It is the primary raw material that modern cities are made from. The concrete used to construct shopping malls, offices, and apartment blocks, along with the asphalt we use to build roads connecting them, are largely just sand and gravel glued together. The glass in every window, windshield, and smart phone screen is made of melted-down sand. And even the silicon chips inside our phones and computers – along with virtually every other piece of electronic equipment in your home – are made from sand.

Continue reading… “Why the world is running out of sand”