Quantum hackers have performed the first ‘invisible’ attack on two commercial quantum cryptographic systems. By using lasers on the systems — which use quantum states of light to encrypt information for transmission — they have fully cracked their encryption keys, yet left no trace of the hack.
Technology developed to prolong the lives of robotic probes on the moon and Mars is being tested for a new use on Earth: keeping solar panels dust-free.
A new media marketing world increasingly dominated by mobile technologies, “shopping bots,” recommendation systems and peer-to-peer networks has spawned a radical new online marketplace, challenging the old behaviors of buyers and sellers, according to a new report in the Journal of Service Research.
The old straight line that governed customer relationship management has been replaced by a zig-zagging pathway that more closely resembles a game of pinball – with risks and rewards waiting for companies that wade into the online marketplace, according to an international team of researchers in the journal’s latest edition.
Two recent studies have introduced “green” approaches to nanobiotechology by forgoing the use of artificial compounds.
The work demonstrates the synthesis of nanosize biological particles with the potential to fight cancer and other illnesses.
This summer, as he has for the past five years, Zhe-Yu “Jeff” Ou, Ph.D., a faculty member of the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, traveled to China, where he is leading the establishment of a network of quantum information laboratories. Quantum information science, which uses photons — units of light — to carry and process information, may someday produce the successor to today’s ubiquitous silicon-based computer.
A professor of physics in the School of Science and an internationally respected researcher in experimental quantum optics, Dr. Ou is establishing the quantum information labs throughout China with the support of the Chinese government. He also is continuing his own research in these labs, which are outfitted with the most advanced equipment available.
Quite a story developing in Chile: the 33 miners who are trapped 700 meters underground will have to wait about four months before they are rescued. That’s obviously not going to be easy on the men who have been trapped for over 18 days already. Keeping it together psychologically, physically and socially for that extent of time will undoubtedly prove challenging.
Nike has filed a patent for a self-lacing shoe that resembles the sneakers from “Back to the Future 2” so closely, one has to wonder whether a hover-board and flux capacitor could be far behind.
A robotic hand attached to a small helicopter can successfully and autonomously grip objects while the helicopter is hovering, as demonstrated by a group at Yale University led by Aaron Dollar, one of this year’s TR35s.
The helicopter hand, dubbed the Yale Aerial Manipulator, could be used in spots that are difficult for ground robots to get to, such as high or roughly terrained places. It could also be used to pick up bombs or packages, or even as a form of delivery, moving packages in urban environments where trucks would have a hard time, suggests Paul Pounds, first author of the work.
What if winning the Army’s contest to design a new armored fighting vehicle was as simple as uploading your CAD files and other specifications to the U.S. Military, which would then have the capability to build your proposed vehicle - and all the other competing designs - in a generic fabrication facility?
Rare but devastating, eye cancer can strike anyone at any time and treating it often requires radiation that leaves half of all patients partially blind.
But a new technique developed by Scott Oliver, MD, assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, may change all that.
Oliver has discovered that silicone oil applied inside the eye can block up to 55 percent of harmful radiation, enough to prevent blindness in most patients.
I’m finding myself a bit disturbed these days about how fashionable it has become to hate Ray Kurzweil — because it’s not all about Ray.
It wasn’t too long ago, with the publication of The Age of Spiritual Machines, that he was the cause célèbre of our time. I’m somewhat at a loss to explain what has happened in the public’s mind since then; his ideas certainly haven’t changed all that much. Perhaps it’s a collective impatience with his timelines; the fact that it isn’t 2049 yet has led to disillusionment. Or maybe it’s because people are afraid of buying into a set of predictions that may never come true—a kind of protection against disappointment or looking foolish.
A consortium of scientists on Friday published the first genome for wheat, an achievement that should benefit food security challenged by Earth’s surging population, climate change and an emerging plant pest.
British researchers said they had unraveled 95 percent of the genetic code for a benchmark variety of wheat known as Chinese Spring line 42.
Using powerful lasers, Hui Zhao, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, and graduate student Lalani Werake have discovered a new way to recognize currents of spinning electrons within a semiconductor.
The integration of single-spin magnetoelectronics into standard silicon technology may soon be possible, if experiments confirm a new theoretical prediction by physicists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The researchers predict that a family of well-known silicon surfaces, stabilized by small amounts of gold atoms, is intrinsically magnetic despite having no magnetic elements. None of these surfaces has yet been investigated experimentally for magnetism, but the new predictions are already supported indirectly by existing data. The complete findings of the study are published in the August 24, 2010, issue of the journal Nature Communications.
Silicon provides a unique entry point for combining magnetoelectronics based on single spins with standard electronics technology. If a single-spin device can be built on a silicon wafer, input and output electronics can be directly integrated with the magnetic part of the device. This has been an obstacle for current spintronics approaches. For example, spin injection from a metal into silicon is very inefficient unless the metal/semiconductor interface is carefully optimized.
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada have developed floor tiles that can simulate the look, sound and feel of snow, grass or pebbles underfoot. Such a tool could perhaps be used for augmented reality applications, tele-presence, training, rehabilitation or even as virtual foot controllers.
