Science Daily March 11, 2019 Applying huge doses of solar geoengineering to offset all warming from rising atmospheric C02 levels could worsen the climate problem — particularly rainfall patterns — in certain regions. However, through modeling, a team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University Georgia Institute of Technology) found that if solar geoengineering (SG) is used to cut global temperature increases in half, no IPCC-defined region is made worse off in any of the major climate impact indicators. Climate models suggest that geoengineering could enable surprisingly uniform benefits. The model indicates that SG moderates changes in […]
Device that ‘shakes’ light a breakthrough In photonics
Nanowerk March 12, 2019 The nonlinear optical effects which used for manipulating photon frequency are weak and require a very strong laser, which creates “noise”. To better control light particles researchers at Yale University have created a device that consists of a series of waveguides. Light and microwave sent through the device wends its way through alternating suspended and clamped waveguides on a single chip. This creates a positive and negative effect, corresponding to the microwave. The light spirals in each of the waveguides to prolong the interaction and maximize efficiency. The deeper the modulation, the better you can control […]
Designing next-generation optical antennas
Phys.org March 13, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (University of Notre Dame, UT Austin) designed and built optical antennas on an Epsilon-Near-Zero Material (ENZ) material to demonstrate a multimode, nearly monochromatic antenna. They are currently working to incorporate the optical antennas into semiconductor devices in order to improve the interaction between light and semiconductor materials. The technique has potential applications in sensing, imaging, infrared optoelectronics, and thermal emission control…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Critical materials: Researchers eye huge supply of rare-earth elements from mining waste
Science Daily March 14, 2019 Large amounts of REEs (Rare-Earth Elements) exist in phosphogypsum (PG), a waste product from producing phosphoric acid, used in the production of fertilizers and other products, from phosphate rock. To extract REEs from PG waste a team of researchers in the US (Rutgers University, Idaho National Laboratory, industry, UC Davis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) doped synthetic phosphogypsum with six rare-earth elements — yttrium, cerium, neodymium, samarium, europium and ytterbium. They found that a mixture of chemicals produced by the bacterium Gluconobacter oxydans was efficient in recovering REEs by bioleaching. Bioleaching is less harmful to the […]
Army looks to put ground-penetrating radar on drones
Defense Systems March 20, 2019 Ground-penetrating radar devices have not yet been mounted on small unmanned systems primarily because of size, weight and power constraints. The Army wants the radar-on-a-chip technology to deliver a digital map that shows the shapes, sizes and features of objects in the environment and collect data on inert unexploded ordinance (UXO), synthetic tracer material and flora and fauna using radar on a chip operating between 100MHz and 5GHz attached to an unmanned system. The objects of interest may be buried, unburied or partially buried in a 20-square-meter area. The success of the program would alleviate […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of March 15, 2019
01. Triton is the world’s most murderous malware, and it’s spreading 02. Unlocking the untapped potential of light in optical communications 03. An AI for generating fake news could also help detect it 04. Future Communication Satellite 05. ‘Meta-mirror’ reflects sound waves in any direction 06. Researchers develop ‘acoustic metamaterial’ that cancels sound 07. Combs of light for molecules 08. Your body is your internet — and now it can’t be hacked 09. Listening to quantum radio 10. Efficiency boost for robot submarines And others… Autonomous drones can help search and rescue after disasters Capturing bacteria that eat and breathe […]
Your body is your internet — and now it can’t be hacked
Science Daily March 12, 2019 Radiative communication using electro-magnetic fields amongst the wearable and implantable devices act as the backbone for information exchange around a human body enabling applications in the fields of connected healthcare, virtual reality etc. As EM signals propagate in all directions, they allow an eavesdropper to intercept the information. Researchers at Purdue University have developed a method called Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication (EQS-HBC) for localizing signals within the body using low-frequency carrier-less transmission, thereby making it extremely difficult for a nearby eavesdropper to intercept critical private data. Detailed experiment reveals that the quasi-static leakage due to […]
Unlocking the untapped potential of light in optical communications
Phys.org March 8, 2019 The optical vortex carries the orbital angular momentum of light and can be used to multiplex signals by assigning each signal to a light wave of different momentum. Researchers in Japan designed and fabricated an orbital angular momentum multiplexing/demultiplexing module that could take five independent signals as input. Using a combination of two tiny circuit structures, called a star coupler and an optical-vortex generator, each of the five signals is “encoded” with a unique optical angular momentum. The output signal consists of a combination of the five signals, and the receiver circuit carries out the multiplexing […]
Triton is the world’s most murderous malware, and it’s spreading
MIT technology Review March 5, 2019 Triton malware came to light in 2017 when hackers took over the safety instrumented systems of a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia. Fortunately, a flaw in the code gave the hackers away before they could do any harm. The malware has not been deconstructed and the hacking group’s identity has not been established with certainty. The hackers behind Triton had tested elements of the code used during the intrusion to make it harder for antivirus programs to detect. Researchers are still digging into the malware’s origins. Experts are urging companies to revisit all their […]
Researchers develop ‘acoustic metamaterial’ that cancels sound
Phys.org March 7, 2019 Based on the premise that metamaterial needs to be shaped in such a way that it sends incoming sounds back to where they came from, researchers at Boston University calculated the dimensions and specifications that the metamaterial would need to have in order to interfere with the transmitted sound waves. Using the calculation they created a structure made of plastic that could silence sound from a loudspeaker. In tests they found that 94 percent of the sound emanating from the loudspeaker was imperceptible to the human ear. The shape of acoustic-silencing metamaterials is also completely customizable. […]