Science Daily April 25, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (Arizona State University, University of New Mexico) reports significant progress in optimizing systems that mimic the first stage of photosynthesis. In previous the team demonstrated the utility of DNA to serve as a programmable template for aggregating dyes. To build upon these findings, they will use the photonic principles that underlie natural light harvesting complexes to construct programmable structures based on DNA self-assembly, which provides the flexible platform necessary for the design and development of complex molecular photonic systems. Using DNA architectures as a template, the researchers were able […]
Squishy robots can drop from a helicopter and land safely
Berkeley News April 24, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (UC Berkeley, industry, NASA) started designing these “tensegrity” robots — which combine the forces of tension and compression to create stable structures in hopes of creating a robot that could safely fall from space to explore Saturn’s moon, Titan. The new soccer-ball-shaped robots, created by engineers at UC Berkeley and Squishy Robotics, have the remarkable ability to fall from a height of more than 600 feet and be no worse for wear. Built of a network of rods linked by contracting cables, they can also shapeshift in order […]
Russia is So Weak That Missile Boats for Ukraine Would Stop Them
Next Big Future April 26, 2019 Ukraine is expanding its economic and technology connections with China and China’s interests and involvement could also prevent military escalation. China is making Ukraine part of the Belt and Road plan. They have trade of about $8 billion now. According to RAND’s analysis of actions that the US could take to stress Russia, the trends are for declining Russian Power. Poland, Ukraine and Baltic States seem like they will do better economically and all are increasing their military capability. Russia has an aging and shrinking population with less rural population and a net level […]
Researchers transmit data via a semiconductor laser, opening the door to ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi
Phys.org April 25, 2019 Previously the team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, Texas A&M, MIT Lincoln Laboratory) discovered that an infrared frequency comb in a quantum cascade laser could be used to generate terahertz frequencies, quantum cascade laser frequency combs could also act as integrated transmitters or receivers to efficiently encode information. Now they created a dipole antenna on the electrode of the device, modulated the frequency comb to encode information on the microwave radiation created by the beating light of the comb. Using the antenna, the microwaves containing the encoded information are radiated out from the device. […]
NIST publishes final green paper on ‘Unleashing American Innovation’
Fedscoop April 24, 2019 The document, “Unleashing American Innovation” details options for enhancing how federally funded inventions move from the laboratory to the marketplace. The options include streamlining federal regulations, encouraging public-private partnerships, engaging with private-sector investors, building a more entrepreneurial workforce and more. The paper does not prescribe policy, but it does offer suggestions for how future policy might be crafted. According to the paper the government invests about $150 billion annually across 300 federal laboratories as well as U.S. universities and private sector R&D institutions. The Lab-to-Market CAP goal aims to get more of the innovations created out […]
New technique uses power anomalies to ID malware in embedded systems
Eurekalert April 25, 2019 Micro-Architectural attacks have recently come to prominence since they break all existing software-isolation based security by hammering memory rows to gain root privileges or by abusing speculative execution and shared hardware to leak secret data. Researchers at North Carolina State University use anomalies in an embedded system’s power trace to detect evasive micro-architectural attacks. To this end, they introduced power-mimicking micro-architectural attacks to study their evasiveness. They showed that rowhammer attacks cannot evade detection while covert channel and speculation-driven attacks can evade detection. The detector can be embedded into programmable batteries. They have shown that power-anomalies […]
New robust device may scale up quantum tech, researchers say
Phys.org April 24, 2019 A theory developed only two years ago proposed a way to make qubits more resilient through combining a semiconductor, indium arsenide, with a superconductor, aluminum, into a planar device. An international team of researchers (Denmark, USA – University of Chicago, Purdue University, Israel) has provided experimental support to the theory in a device that could also aid the scaling of qubits. These experiments provide evidence that aluminum and indium arsenide, when brought together to form a device called a Josephson junction, can support Majorana zero modes, which scientists have predicted possess topological protection against decoherence. The […]
New holographic technique opens the way for quantum computation
Eurekalert May 3, 2019 An international team of researchers (Switzerland, UK, Spain) shows that holograms of local electromagnetic fields can be obtained with combined attosecond/nanometer resolution in an ultrafast transmission electron microscope. Unlike conventional holography, where signal and reference are spatially separated and then recombined to interfere, our method relies on electromagnetic fields to split an electron wave function in a quantum coherent superposition of different energy states. In the image plane, spatial modulation of the electron energy distribution reflects the phase relation between reference and signal fields. Beyond imaging applications, this approach allows implementing quantum measurements in parallel, providing […]
The military wants to build barracks autonomously
Fedscoop April 26, 2019 The Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is looking for companies to help build the barracks of the future. They want tech that works with minimal operator input, can be deployed in about an hour and is able to operate in a range of different conditions. Beyond these few directives, the solicitation doesn’t offer much specification on what it is looking for. Interested companies have until May 7 to respond to the Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO)…read more.
Ice-proof coating for big structures relies on a ‘beautiful demonstration of mechanics’
Phys.org April 25, 2019 The problem with the strategy to lower adhesion strength strategy is that the larger the sheet of ice, the more force is required. Researchers at the University of Michigan developed new coating which lowers the interfacial toughness (LIT). Surfaces with low LIT encourage cracks to form between ice and the surface. And unlike breaking an ice sheet’s surface adhesion, which requires tearing the entire sheet free, a crack only breaks the surface free along its leading edge. Once that crack starts, it can quickly spread across the entire iced surface, regardless of its size. Mathematically they […]