Science Daily March 5, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (Washington State University, Montana State University) developed a battery-operated potentiostat that is capable of controlling the potential of a working electrode and can be deployed and operated remotely, allowing the enrichment of electrochemically active microorganisms on electrodes in their native environment. The device was tested in four alkaline hot springs with a temperature ranging from 45 οC to 91 οC and a relatively constant pH of 8.5–8.7. Analysis showed a change in microbial community structure after 32 days of polarization. The impact of polarization was most substantial on […]
Autonomous drones can help search and rescue after disasters
Phys.org March 5, 2019 Researchers at the University of Dayton has developed an artificial neural network system that can run in a computer onboard a drone. First the system processes the images to improve their clarity. The system can identify people in various positions from different viewing angles and in varying lighting conditions, compute three-dimensional models of people, detect an object without seeing the whole object. The system has a strategy to focus the search area to the most significant regions in the scene to obtain information about the shape, structure and texture of objects and flags it the location […]
An AI for generating fake news could also help detect it
MIT Technology Review March 12, 2019 To detect fake news researchers at MIT and Harvard based their experiments on the hypothesis that language models produce sentences by predicting the next word in a sequence of text. So, if they can easily predict most of the words in a given passage, it’s likely it was written by one of their own. They tested this idea by building an interactive tool based on OpenAI’s GPT-2 and fed it both machine and human generated text. The tool generally correctly identified the machine generated and human generated texts. When it was fed text generated […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of March 8, 2019
01. New shapes of laser beam ‘sneak’ through opaque media 02. Physicists train the oscillatory neural network to recognize images 03. Concept of the laser can be reversed 04. Data transfer by controlled noise 05. Light pulses provide a new route to enhance superconductivity 06. Magnonic devices can replace electronics without much noise 07. Researchers create a ‘universal entangler’ for new quantum tech 08. One device, many frequencies: Researchers create a unique, tiny resonator 09. A New Layer of Medical Preparedness to Combat Emerging Infectious Disease 10. Toward Nanoparticle “Night-Vision Goggles” And others… Assembly in the air: Using sound to […]
Tracking firefighters in burning buildings
Science Daily March 1, 2019 An international team of researchers (Canada, USA – UCLA, Czech Republic, Sweden) has developed a fire-retardant and self-extinguishing triboelectric nanogenerator (FRTENG), which can be utilized as a motion sensor and/or power generator in occupations such as oil drilling, firefighting or working in extreme temperature environments with flammable and combustible materials. The device takes advantage of the excellent thermal properties of carbon derived from resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogel. The FRTENG is not flammable, shows exceptional charge transfer characteristics, leading to a potential difference up to 80 V and a current density up to 25 µA/m2. When integrated into firefighter’s shoes, the […]
Toward Nanoparticle “Night-Vision Goggles”
Optics and Photonics March 1, 2019 Researchers in China developed ocular injectable photoreceptor-binding upconversion nanoparticles (pbUCNPs). These nanoparticles anchored on retinal photoreceptors serve as miniature NIR light transducers to create NIR light image vision with negligible side effects. In tests they demonstrated that mice with these nanoantennae could not only perceive NIR light, but also see NIR light patterns. According to the researchers the research could be a potential alternative to night-vision goggles, the treatment could help repair certain vision problems and eye diseases…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Special Operations Command is calling all creative technology futurists
Fed Scoop February 28, 2019 SOCOM wants three to five pages long essay on a topic detailing the evolution of an existing technology or talk about how a yet-to-be-created one will rock the world, but the essay should be full of original ideas. Essays will be evaluated based on the novelty, impact and feasibility of the technology described. Once the responses have been ranked, the top five to 10 writers will be invited to join an “Innovation Foundry” design thinking event at the Capital Factory in Austin where they will work with SOF Operators to develop potential technological concepts to […]
Researchers create a ‘universal entangler’ for new quantum tech
Phys.org February 27, 2019 Using an entangling mechanism called an exponential-SWAP gate researchers at Yale University demonstrated the new technology by deterministically entangling encoded states in any chosen configuration or codes, each housed in two otherwise isolated, 3-D superconducting microwave cavities. The results provide a valuable building block for universal quantum computation using bosonic modes…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Physicists train the oscillatory neural network to recognize images
Phys.org March 22, 2019 An oscillatory neural network is a complex interlacing of interacting elements that can receive and transmit oscillations of a certain frequency. Based on coupled oscillator networks implemented on vanadium dioxide structures, researchers in Russia have developed a synchronization registration method with high sensitivity and selectivity. They trained the network to synchronize only for a specific input image. In the study, the input images were transmitted to the network by changing the supply currents which changed the oscillation frequencies of oscillators. As a result, the network reacted to each received image with specific dynamics. According to the […]
Organic electronics: Scientists develop a high-performance unipolar n-type thin-film transistor
Science Daily March 1, 2019 Researchers in Japan used a series of new poly(benzothiadiazole-naphthalenediimide) derivatives and fine-tuned the material’s backbone conformation introducing vinylene bridges capable of forming hydrogen bonds with neighboring fluorine and oxygen atoms. Overall, the resultant material had an improved molecular packaging order and greater strength, which contributed to the increased electron mobility. The material achieved an electron mobility of 7.16 cm2 V-1 s-1, representing more than a 40 percent increase over previous comparable results.The researchers will also aim to improve the air stability of n-channel transistors — a crucial issue for realizing practical applications that would include […]