Engineering – Page 9

Engineering, Inventions, new technology, Science & Technology News

Researchers combine lasers and terahertz waves in camera that sees ‘unseen’ detail

March 3, 2020

The time-resolved nonlinear ghost imaging camera uses a nonlinear crystal to convert standard laser light to terahertz patterns, allowing the reconstruction of complex samples using a single terahertz pixel.

A team of physicists at the University of Sussex has successfully developed the first nonlinear camera capable of capturing high-resolution images of the interior of solid objects using terahertz (THz) radiation.

Led by Professor Marco Peccianti of the Emergent Photonics (EPic) Lab, Luana Olivieri, Dr. Juan S. Totero Gongora and a team of research students built a new type of THz camera capable of detecting THz electromagnetic waves with unprecedented accuracy.

Images produced using THz radiation are called ‘hyperspectral’ because the image consists of pixels, each one containing the electromagnetic signature of the object in that point.

Continue reading… “Researchers combine lasers and terahertz waves in camera that sees ‘unseen’ detail”

Biotech, Energy, Engineering, Farming, Science & Technology News

5 incredible synthetic biology holy grails that could change the world

March 3, 2020

Investors are still waiting for next-generation biotech to deliver on its enormous promise and potential, but just one of these Holy Grails would make the wait worth it.

Biotechnology has come a long way since 1978, when Herbert Boyer successfully demonstrated that human insulin could be produced from bacteria engineered with recombinant DNA. The breakthrough technology pushed a little-known company called Genentech into the spotlight and forever changed the world. Genentech was acquired by Roche for $46.8 billion in 2009. The American bioeconomy — biotech crops, biochemicals, and biologic drugs — generated an estimated $324 billion of gross domestic product in 2012. And millions of people worldwide today rely on insulin and other biologic drugs daily.

You could argue that recombinant DNA was the first Holy Grail technology delivered by the field. Several more have followed. In fact, we’ve recently been treated to the development and ongoing commercialization of the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR — a true game-changer for the biotech ecosystem. Headache-inducing legal entanglements aside, CRISPR promises to help synthetic biology deliver on its enormous potential and could even be an integral tool needed to produce several other world-changing Holy Grails. Some are closer to reality than investors may think.

Continue reading… “5 incredible synthetic biology holy grails that could change the world”

Energy, Engineering, new technology, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

One of the World’s Tiniest Nuclear Plants Is Coming to Idaho

February 27, 2020

The demonstration represents a new-generation of micro-reactors.

An innovative nuclear plant that runs on lower waste fuel hopes to be online by 2022-2025.

The plant’s creator, Oklo, joins startups around the world working to innovate safer, smaller nuclear power plants.

But experts suggest that Oklo’s timeline is unrealistic with years of nuclear approval process ahead.

An experimental nuclear reactor in Idaho could be the first of its kind in the United States: a commercial reactor providing power using fuel that reduces nuclear waste. The small power plant could power about 1,000 homes and can run almost autonomously for 20 years.

Continue reading… “One of the World’s Tiniest Nuclear Plants Is Coming to Idaho”

Engineering, new technology, quantum computing, Science & Technology News

Writing a quantum algorithm? Avoid using a quantum computer

February 27, 2020

A Zapata researcher works on one of the company’s quantum computing algorithms.

Startups are helping companies write software for quantum computers. It isn’t easy.

Zapata Computing, a 30-person startup in Boston, creates software for quantum computers. But when a customer has a problem it would like to solve, one of Zapata’s first steps is to figure out how much it can avoid using a quantum machine.

That’s because quantum computing is, like the tiny particles that underlie the technology, in a paradoxical state: It has arrived, but it isn’t quite here. Quantum algorithms theoretically will be used for such transformative purposes as cracking encryption, simulating chemical reactions, and optimizing financial transactions. But the quantum machines that Google, IBM and other companies have so far put online for people to use aren’t up to the task. Their limited number of quantum bits, or qubits, are unstable: They can’t encode a lot of data yet.

Continue reading… “Writing a quantum algorithm? Avoid using a quantum computer”

Aviation, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Wearables

A jetpack company just reached a major milestone in our quest to fly like Iron Man

February 25, 2020

Watch this man fly in a jet-powered suit

(CNN)We may be closer to seeing a real-life Iron Man suit than you think.

The team at Jetman Dubai built a jet-powered wingsuit and say they just reached a major milestone with it — a pilot took off from the ground and then transitioned into a high-altitude flight.

The achievement occurred last Friday, when Jetman pilot Vince Reffett took off from a standing start on the runway at Skydive Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and then flew up to nearly 6,000 feet in altitude. He demonstrated the ability to hover, stop, turn and maneuver.

Continue reading… “A jetpack company just reached a major milestone in our quest to fly like Iron Man”

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

Engineers just built an impressively stable quantum silicon chip from artificial atoms

February 19, 2020

Newly created artificial atoms on a silicon chip could become the new basis for quantum computing.

Engineers in Australia have found a way to make these artificial atoms more stable, which in turn could produce more consistent quantum bits, or qubits – the basic units of information in a quantum system.

The research builds on previous work by the team, wherein they produced the very first qubits on a silicon chip, which could process information with over 99 percent accuracy. Now, they have found a way to minimise the error rate caused by imperfections in the silicon.

“What really excites us about our latest research is that artificial atoms with a higher number of electrons turn out to be much more robust qubits than previously thought possible, meaning they can be reliably used for calculations in quantum computers,” said quantum engineer Andrew Dzurak of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia.

“This is significant because qubits based on just one electron can be very unreliable.”

Continue reading… “Engineers just built an impressively stable quantum silicon chip from artificial atoms”

Energy, Engineering, new technology, Science & Technology News

Graphene amplifier unlocks hidden frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum

February 18, 2020

Light in the THz frequencies hits the ‘sandwich’ and is reflected with additional energy. Credit: Loughborough University

Researchers have created a unique device which will unlock the elusive terahertz wavelengths and make revolutionary new technologies possible.

Terahertz waves (THz) sit between microwaves and infrared in the light frequency spectrum, but due to their low energy, scientists have been unable to harness their potential. The conundrum is known in scientific circles as the “terahertz gap.”

Being able to detect and amplify THz waves (T-rays) would open up a new era of medical, communications, satellite, cosmological and other technologies. One major application would be as a safe, non-destructive alternative to X-rays. However, until now, the wavelengths, which range between 3mm and 30μm, have proved impossible to use due to relatively weak signals from all existing sources.

A team of physicists has created a new type of optical transistor—a working THz amplifier—using graphene and a high-temperature superconductor. The physics behind the simple amplifier relies on the properties of graphene, which is transparent and is not sensitive to light and whose electrons have no mass. It is made up of two layers of graphene and a superconductor that trap the graphene massless electrons between them like a sandwich.

Continue reading… “Graphene amplifier unlocks hidden frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum”

Energy, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy

Lasers etch a ‘perfect’ solar energy absorber

February 18, 2020

Using femto-second lasers to etch metallic structures, University of Rochester Institute of Optics professor Chunlei Guo and his team have developed a technique that can be used to collect sunlight to heat etched metal surfaces, which can then power an electrical generator for solar power. Credit: J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester

The University of Rochester research lab that recently used lasers to create unsinkable metallic structures has now demonstrated how the same technology could be used to create highly efficient solar power generators.

In a paper in Light: Science & Applications, the lab of Chunlei Guo, professor of optics also affiliated with Physics and the Material Sciences Program, describes using powerful femto-second laser pulses to etch metal surfaces with nanoscale structures that selectively absorb light only at the solar wavelengths, but not elsewhere.

Continue reading… “Lasers etch a ‘perfect’ solar energy absorber”

3D Printer, Biotech, Engineering, new technology, Science & Technology News

3D Printing humans: A quick review of 3D Bioprinters

February 14, 2020

It was only a matter of time before the iconic scene from 1997’s The Fifth Element became a reality. In the film Milla Jovovich’s character, Leeloo, is entirely rebuilt using her dead hand as a template. The resurrection is performed by a surgical robot that collects slices of heterogeneous tissue, generated from a yellow bio-ink, and places them rapidly in sequence, followed by the addition of softer tissues via long red fibres.

Continue reading… “3D Printing humans: A quick review of 3D Bioprinters”

3D Printer, Engineering, new technology, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

3D printing gets bigger, faster and stronger

February 11, 2020

HARP in action as it vertically and continuously prints a large 3D object.

Research advances are changing the image of a once-niche technology.

A resin printer from Chad Mirkin’s lab at Northwestern University in Illinois can create structures as large as a person in hours (image sequence sped up). Credit: Northwestern University

As a metal platform rises from a vat of liquid resin, it pulls an intricate white shape from the liquid — like a waxy creature emerging from a lagoon. This machine is the world’s fastest resin-based 3D printer and it can create a plastic structure as large as a person in a few hours, says Chad Mirkin, a chemist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The machine, which Mirkin and his colleagues reported last October1, is one of a slew of research advances in 3D printing that are broadening the prospects of a technology once viewed as useful mainly for making small, low-quality prototype parts. Not only is 3D printing becoming faster and producing larger products, but scientists are coming up with innovative ways to print and are creating stronger materials, sometimes mixing multiple materials in the same product.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Energy, Engineering, Science & Technology News

New quantum switch turns metals into insulators

February 10, 2020

Artist’s impression of the dissolving of the electronic ‘traffic jam.’ The red atoms are different in their quantum nature and allow transport of electrons in their surroundings.

Most modern electronic devices rely on tiny, finely-tuned electrical currents to process and store information. These currents dictate how fast our computers run, how regularly our pacemakers tick and how securely our money is stored in the bank.

In a study published in Nature Physics, researchers at the University of British Columbia have demonstrated an entirely new way to precisely control such electrical currents by leveraging the interaction between an electron’s spin (which is the quantum magnetic field it inherently carries) and its orbital rotation around the nucleus.

“We have found a new way to switch the electrical conduction in materials from on to off,” said lead author Berend Zwartsenberg, a Ph.D. student at UBC’s Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (SBQMI). “Not only does this exciting result extend our understanding of how electrical conduction works, it will help us further explore known properties such as conductivity, magnetism and superconductivity, and discover new ones that could be important for quantum computing, data storage and energy applications.”

Continue reading… “New quantum switch turns metals into insulators”

Engineering, Science & Technology News, Space, Space Flight

Spin launch’s ginormous centrifuge plans to slingshot rockets into space

February 7, 2020

One of the greatest obstacles in launching spacecraft off our planet is the tremendous volume and cost of fuel required to achieve escape velocity and break out of Earth’s gravity well into the vacuum of outer space.

Aerospace firms have offered a number of novel solutions to this dilemma, but we’re still stuck with the good old-fashioned method of firing up a rocket engine and blasting ourselves off our spinning rock in a thunderous display.

Hoping to build a better mousetrap, California startup firm SpinLaunch is taking a kinetic energy approach and has lofty plans to construct a football field-sized, vacuum-sealed centrifuge that will accelerate a 25-foot-long rocket to over 5,000 miles per hour, then release it to slingshot into the heavens before its booster engine fires to attain a proper orbital attitude.

Continue reading… “Spin launch’s ginormous centrifuge plans to slingshot rockets into space”