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Discussion of the Essence# programming language, and related issues and technologies. |
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From PhysOrg.com:
A group of scientists has succeeded in creating the first transistor made from a single molecule. The team, which includes researchers from Yale University and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, published their findings in the December 24 issue of the journal Nature.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Physicists theorize that quantum phenomena could provide a major boost to batteries, with the potential to increase energy density up to 10 times that of lithium ion batteries. According to a new proposal, billions of nanoscale capacitors could take advantage of quantum effects to overcome electric arcing, an electrical breakdown phenomenon which limits the amount of charge that conventional capacitors can store.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Techniques recently invented by researchers at the California Institute of Technology -- which allow the real-time, real-space visualization of fleeting changes in the structure of nanoscale matter -- have been used to image the evanescent electrical fields produced by the interaction of electrons and photons, and to track changes in atomic-scale structures.Full artricle
From PhysOrg.com:
Spacetime, which consists of three dimensions of space and one time dimension, is such a large, abstract concept that scientists have a very difficult time understanding and defining it. Moreover, different theories offer different, contradictory insights on spacetime’s structure. While general relativity describes spacetime as a continuous manifold, quantum field theories require spacetime to be made of discrete points. Unifying these two theories into one theory of quantum gravity is currently one of the biggest unsolved problems in physics.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Stanford engineers have built what they believe is a chip with the most advanced computing and storage elements made of carbon nanotubes to date by devising a way to root out the stubborn complication of nanotubes that cause short circuits.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
In a study that elevates the role of entropy in creating order, research led by the University of Michigan shows that certain pyramid shapes can spontaneously organize into complex quasicrystals.Full aticle
From PhysOrg.com:
Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has developed MOSFET cell based on spin transport electronics, or spintronics, an advanced semiconductor technology that makes use of the spin and magnetic moment inherent in electrons. Toshiba has fabricated a spintronics cell and verified its stable performance for the first time, and will present full details of the cell and its technologies on December 7 (EST), at the International Electronics Devices Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
A team at The Scripps Research Institute has made major strides in solving a problem that has been plaguing chemists for many years: how best to break carbon-hydrogen bonds and then to create new bonds to join molecules together. This problem is of great interest to the pharmaceutical industry, which currently relies on a method to accomplish this feat that is relatively inefficient and sometimes difficult to perform.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
A group in The Netherlands has achieved a first: injection of spin-polarized electrons in silicon at room temperature. This has previously been observed only at extremely low temperatures, and the achievement brings spintronic devices using silicon as a semiconductor a step closer.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
A new generation of ultrasmall transistors and more powerful computer chips using tiny structures called semiconducting nanowires are closer to reality after a key discovery by researchers at IBM, Purdue University and the University of California at Los Angeles.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
In everything from computer processor chips to car engines to electric powerplants, the need to get rid of excess heat creates a major source of inefficiency. But new research points the way to a technology that might make it possible to harvest much of that wasted heat and turn it into usable electricity.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated the first "universal" programmable quantum information processor able to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics -- the rules governing the submicroscopic world -- using two quantum bits (qubits) of information. The processor could be a module in a future quantum computer, which theoretically could solve some important problems that are intractable today.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
In work that someday may lead to the development of novel types of nanoscale electronic devices, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology has combined DNA's talent for self-assembly with the remarkable electronic properties of carbon nanotubes, thereby suggesting a solution to the long-standing problem of organizing carbon nanotubes into nanoscale electronic circuits.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
In a recently published paper, Aram Harrow at the University of Bristol and colleagues from MIT in the United States have discovered a quantum algorithm that solves large problems much faster than conventional computers can.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
A researcher at Iowa State University has discovered how a group of proteins from plant pathogenic bacteria interact with DNA in the plant cell, opening up the possibility for what the scientist calls a "cascade of advances."Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Whether it's magnetic nanoparticles (mNPs) giving an army of 'therapeutically armed' white blood cells direction to invade a deadly tumour's territory, or the use of mNPs to target specific nerve channels and induce nerve-led behaviour (such as the life-dependant thumping of our hearts), mNPs have come a long way in the past decade.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Computers of the future could be operating not on electrons, but on tiny waves traveling through an electron "fluid," if a new proposal is successful. The new circuit design, recently introduced by Dr. Héctor J. De Los Santos, CTO of NanoMEMS Research, LLC, in Irvine, California, may be a promising candidate to replace CMOS-based circuits, and ultimately continue the circuit density growth described by Moore's Law.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
A theoretical physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology has developed a method for calculating the motions and forces of thousands of atoms simultaneously over a wider range of time scales than previously possible. The method overcomes a longstanding timing gap in modeling nanometer-scale materials and many other physical, chemical and biological systems at atomic and molecular levels.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Cornell researchers have developed an ingenious method to time-compress optical signals. The process could enable optical communication systems to carry many more bits per second or could also be used to generate short bursts of light with complex waveforms needed to control chemistry and physics experiments where changes are induced by light.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Rice University scientists today unveiled a method for the industrial-scale processing of pure carbon-nanotube fibers that could lead to revolutionary advances in materials science, power distribution and nanoelectronics. The result of a nine-year program, the method builds upon tried-and-true processes that chemical firms have used for decades to produce plastics. The research is available online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Until now, scientists have attempted to develop spin transistors by incorporating local ferromagnets into device architectures. This results in significant design complexities, especially in view of the rising demand for smaller and smaller transistors," says Philippe Debray, research professor in the Department of Physics in the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences. "A far better and practical way to manipulate the orientation of an electron's spin would be by using purely electrical means, like the switching on and off of an electrical voltage. This will be spintronics without ferromagnetism or all-electric spintronics, the holy grail of semiconductor spintronics."Full article
http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/
What I didn’t appreciate, until I finally unzipped and untarred a copy of ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata2009o.tar.gz, is the historical scholarship scribbled in the margins of this remarkable database, or document, or hybrid of the two.
From PhysOrg.com:
A team of engineers from the University of Pennsylvania has transformed simple nanowires into reconfigurable materials and circuits, demonstrating a novel, self-assembling method for chemically creating nanoscale structures that are not possible to grow or obtain otherwise.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
A team of Harvard chemists led by X. Sunney Xie has developed a new microscopic technique for seeing, in color, molecules with undetectable fluorescence. The room-temperature technique allows researchers to identify previously unseen molecules in living organisms and offers broad applications in biomedical imaging and research.Full article
From Science:
A tiny ladderlike beam of silicon converts light into vibrations and vice versa with extremely high efficiency, physicists report. That may seem like an esoteric result, but the finding could open the way to new physics and someday serve as a key element in optical microcircuits akin to the electronic microcircuits in computer chips.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
If the promise of nanotechnology is to be fulfilled, nanoparticles will have to be able to make something of themselves. An important advance towards this goal has been achieved by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who have found a simple and yet powerfully robust way to induce nanoparticles to assemble themselves into complex arrays.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Very little mechanical energy would be needed to power the new nanogenerator because even a small amount of displacement has a larger effect on nanoscale materials than regular materials — a theory Wang intends to prove in his lab.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have created in the laboratory a class of carbenes, highly reactive molecules, used to make catalysts - substances that facilitate chemical reactions. Until now, chemists believed these carbenes, called "abnormal N-heterocyclic carbenes" or aNHCs, were impossible to make.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
"If you open up almost any electronic gadget, you will see various elements that operating using electric circuitries," Nader Engheta tells PhysOrg.com. "Many of them have different functionalities, such as inductors, capacitors, resistors, transistors, and so forth. These well-known elements have been around for decades. But what if you could bring these concepts to the nanoscale, and what if they could operate with light instead of electricity?"Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
A team of European researchers has demonstrated some of the first commercially viable plasmonic devices, paving the way for a new era of high-speed communications and computing in which electronic and optical signals can be handled simultaneously.Full article
From Science NOW:
In the past 5 years, no material has excited more interest from condensed matter physicists than graphene, a sheet of carbon only one atom thick. Electrons zing through the stuff in an unusual way, and they flow so easily that graphene could someday replace silicon and other semiconductors as the material of choice for microchips. Now, a team of physicists has taken a key step in fulfilling graphene's promise as a hotbed of exotic physics by showing that the electrons within it can team up to behave like particles with a fraction of the electron's charge.Full article
From The Jerusalem Post:
A new kind of portable electrochemical battery that can produce thousands of hours of power - and soon replace the expensive regular or rechargeable batteries in hearing aids and sensors and eventually in cellphones, laptop computers and even electric cars - has been developed at Haifa's Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Kris Gevaert from VIB/Ghent University (Belgium) and colleagues from the universities of Freiburg and Bochum have achieved a breakthrough in protein research. Using yeast, they have succeeded in making virtually the complete inventory of all the proteins in the mitochondria, the energy producers found in every cell. Their research findings are being published in Cell.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Although the human genome sequence faithfully lists (almost) every single DNA base of the roughly 3 billion bases that make up a human genome, it doesn't tell biologists much about how its function is regulated. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute provide the first detailed map of the human epigenome, the layer of genetic control beyond the regulation inherent in the sequence of the genes themselves.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
"Thanks to the Human Genome Project, biology and medicine today may be at a point similar to where physics was after the advent of the telescope," said Orly Alter, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the university. "The rapidly growing number of large-scale DNA microarray data sets hold the key to the discovery of cellular mechanisms, just as the astronomical tables compiled by Galileo and Tycho after the invention of the telescope enabled accurate predictions of planetary motions and, later, the discovery of universal gravitation. And just as Kepler and Newton made these predictions and discoveries by using mathematical frameworks to describe trends in astronomical data, so future discovery and control in biology and medicine will come from the mathematical modeling of large-scale molecular biological data."Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
The project's results raise the prospect of building single molecule diodes - the smallest devices one can ever build. "I think it's exciting because we are able to look at a single molecule and play with it, " Tao says. "We can apply a voltage, a mechanical force, or optical field, measure current and see the response. As quantum physics controls the behaviors of single molecules, this capability allows us to study properties distinct from those of conventional devices."Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
In recent years, quantum computers have lost some of their luster. In the 1990s, it seemed that they might be able to solve a class of difficult but common problems — the so-called NP-complete problems — exponentially faster than classical computers. Now, it seems that they probably can't. In fact, until this week, the only common calculation where quantum computation promised exponential gains was the factoring of large numbers, which isn't that useful outside cryptography.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Japanese researchers working with R. Kitaura and H. Shinohara have now developed a new method that is simple and delivers stable nanowires: They deposit metal atoms inside of carbon nanotubes. As the scientists report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, this forms metal wires of individual atoms lined up side-by-side that are so well protected by their sheath that they have long-term stability.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Until now, no one has produced experimental evidence that chaos occurs in the quantum world, the world of photons, atoms, molecules and their building blocks.Full article
...
Now, however, Jessen and his group in UA's College of Optical Sciences have performed a series of experiments that show just how classical chaos spills over into the quantum world.
From PhysOrg.com:
For the first time, physicists have demonstrated the quantum entanglement of three light beams, all of different wavelengths. Entanglement of two light beams of different wavelengths has already been demonstrated, but the researchers explain that going beyond two beams is important since three beams can serve as connections at the nodes of a quantum network.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
An international team of astronomers have found an unexpected link between mysterious 'dark matter' and the visible stars and gas in galaxies that could revolutionise our current understanding of gravity.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
European researchers have created a CMOS (semiconductor) camera capable of filming individual photons one million times a second. The breakthrough will impact on all the most advanced areas of science and makes Europe the world leader in the technology.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Your fingers start to burn after picking up a hot plate. Should you drop the plate or save your meal? New research suggests that it is your consciousness that resolves these dilemmas by serving as the brain's Wi-Fi network, mediating competing requests from different parts of the body. Published today in the journal Emotion, the study also explains why we are consciously aware of some conflicting urges but not others.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
For the first time, physicists have experimentally demonstrated a four-qubit bound-entangled state - a peculiar form of entanglement that cannot be distilled (optimized) by the usual means. However, the scientists have found a novel method for distilling the entanglement by working with two qubits at a time. As the researchers explain, the special properties of bound entanglement could make it a useful quantum resource for new multiparty communication and secret sharing schemes, and the results could also contribute to a deeper understanding of the foundations of quantum mechanics.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Scientists in the United Kingdom are reporting an advance toward overcoming one of the key challenges in nanotechnology: Getting molecules to move quickly in a desired direction without help from outside forces. Their achievement has broad implications, the scientists say, raising the possibility of coaxing cells to move and grow in specific directions to treat diseases.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Flasks, beakers, and hot plates may soon be a thing of the past in medicinal chemistry labs. Instead of handling a few experiments on a benchtop, scientists may simply pop a microchip into a computer and instantly run thousands of chemical reactions, with results -- literally shrinking the lab down to the size of a thumbnail.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
New research by MIT scientists suggests that carbon nanotubes -- tube-shaped molecules of pure carbon -- could be formed into tiny springs capable of storing as much energy, pound for pound, as state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, and potentially more durably and reliably.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Researchers at the state-run Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) said the new transistor uses not only the on-off state of electric current but also electrons' spinning directions -- clockwise and counter-clockwise -- to handle information. It consumes less energy than existing semiconductors and opens the way for no-booting computers.Full article
From Science News:
In many ways, black holes are science’s answer to science fiction. As strange as anything from a novelist’s imagination, black holes warp the fabric of spacetime and imprison light and matter in a gravitational death grip. Their bizarre properties make black holes ideal candidates for fictional villainy. But now black holes are up for a different role: heroes helping physicists assess the real-world existence of another science fiction favorite — hidden extra dimensions of space.Full article
From The Daily Galaxy:
Remember a little thing called the space-time continuum? Well what if the time part of the equation was literally running out? New evidence is suggesting that time is slowly disappearing from our universe, and will one day vanish completely. This radical new theory may explain a cosmological mystery that has baffled scientists for years.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
How do we discover new things? For scientists, observation and measurement are the main ways to extract information from Nature. Based on observations, scientists build models that, in turn, are used to make predictions about the future or the past. To the extent that the predictions are successful, scientists conclude that their models capture Nature’s organization. However, Nature does not reveal secrets easily - there is no way for observers to learn everything about a process, so some information always remains hidden from view; other kinds of information are present, but difficult to extract. In a recent study, researchers have investigated how to measure the degree of hidden information in a process (its “crypticity”) and, along the way, solved several puzzles involved in extracting, storing, and communicating information.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
While researchers have already demonstrated the building blocks for few-bit quantum computers, scaling these systems up to large quantum computers remains a challenge. One of the biggest problems is developing physical systems that can reliably store thousands of qubits, and enabling bits and pairs to be addressed individually for gate operations.Full article
From Scientific Computing:
Researchers from Portugal and Indonesia describe an approach to decision making based on computational logic that might one day give machines a sense of morality. Science fiction authors often use the concept of "evil" machines that attempt to take control of their world and to dominate humanity. Skynet in the "Terminator" stories and Arthur C Clarke's Hal from "2001: A Space Odyssey" are two of the most often cited examples.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
A primitive quantum computer that uses single particles of light (photons) whizzing through a silicon chip has performed its first mathematical calculation. This is the first time a calculation has been performed on a photonic chip and it is major step forward in the quest to realise a super-powerful quantum computer.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
In this work the researchers, for the first time, attest that monopoles exist as emergent states of matter, i.e. they emerge from special arrangements of dipoles and are completely different from the constituents of the material. However, alongside this fundamental knowledge, Jonathan Morris explains the further meaning of the results: „We are writing about new, fundamental properties of matter. These properties are generally valid for materials with the same topology, that is for magnetic moments on the pyrochlore lattice. For the development of new technologies this can have big implications. Above all it signifies the first time fractionalisation in three dimensions is observed."Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
The achievement helps enable the development of such innovations as nanolasers that can probe, manipulate and characterize DNA molecules; optics-based telecommunications many times faster than current technology; and optical computing in which light replaces electronic circuitry with a corresponding leap in speed and processing power.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Entropy can decrease, according to a new proposal - but the process would destroy any evidence of its existence, and erase any memory an observer might have of it. It sounds like the plot to a weird sci-fi movie, but the idea has recently been suggested by theoretical physicist Lorenzo Maccone, currently a visiting scientist at MIT, in an attempt to solve a longstanding paradox in physics.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
The sandwich recipe recently concocted by scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology may prove tasty for computer chip designers, who have long had an appetite for molecule-sized electronic components - but no clear way to satisfy it until now.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
...a study led by a scientific team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) [demonstrates] that mice placed on a 12-week low carbohydrate/high-protein diet showed a significant increase in atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque in the heart's arteries and a leading cause of heart attack and stroke. The findings also showed that the diet led to an impaired ability to form new blood vessels in tissues deprived of blood flow, as might occur during a heart attack.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have for the first time captured elusive nanoscale movements of ribosomes at work, shedding light on how these cellular factories take in genetic instructions and amino acids to churn out proteins.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
"This provides a completely new approach to microelectronics, if you can use spin instead of charge to process information and use photons to manipulate that process," Gamelin said. "It opens the door to materials that store information and perform logic functions at the same time without the need for super cooling."Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Since the early days of quantum mechanics, scientists have been trying to understand the many strange implications of the theory: superpositions, wave-particle duality, and the observer’s role in measurements, to name a few. Now, a new proposed law of physics that describes the geometry of physical reality on the cosmological scale might help answer some of these questions. Plus, the new law could give some clues about the role of gravity in quantum physics, possibly pointing the way to a unified theory of physics.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Nanochemists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Nano-Science Center, Department of Chemistry at University of Copenhagen have developed nanoscale electric contacts out of organic and inorganic nanowires. In the contact they have crossed the wires like Mikado sticks and coupled several contacts together in an electric circuit. In this way they have produced prototype computer electronics on the nanoscale.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Researchers have created the tiniest laser since its invention nearly 50 years ago...Full article
Nanophotonics may usher in a host of radical advances, including powerful "hyperlenses" resulting in sensors and microscopes 10 times more powerful than today's and able to see objects as small as DNA; computers and consumer electronics that use light instead of electronic signals to process information; and more efficient solar collectors.
From PhysOrg.com:
A novel technique allows researchers to efficiently and precisely modify or introduce genes into the genomes of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, according to Whitehead scientists. The method uses proteins called zinc finger nucleases and is described in the August 13 issue of Nature Biotechnology...this method could open a new phase in human genetics.Full article
From Chemical and Engineering News:
Sunlight can readily liberate hydrogen from water as a result of a novel solid catalyst that mediates that reaction with unprecedented efficiency, according to researchers in China who developed the catalyst. The study advances the decades-old search for an inexpensive way to produce hydrogen, a versatile fuel, from water, an abundantly available resource.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have devised a versatile hybrid platform that uses lipid-coated nanowires to build prototype bionanoelectronic devices.Full article
Mingling biological components in electronic circuits could enhance biosensing and diagnostic tools, advance neural prosthetics such as cochlear implants, and could even increase the efficiency of future computers.
From PhysOrg.com:
Raising prospects for building a practical quantum computer, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated sustained, reliable information processing operations on electrically charged atoms (ions). The new work, described in the August 6 issue of Science Express, overcomes significant hurdles in scaling up ion-trapping technology from small demonstrations to larger quantum processors.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Flasks, beakers and hot plates may soon be a thing of the past in chemistry labs. Instead of handling a few experiments on a bench top, scientists may simply pop a microchip into a computer and instantly run thousands of chemical reactions, with results -- literally shrinking the lab down to the size of a thumbnail.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Biomolecular computers, made of DNA and other biological molecules, only exist today in a few specialized labs, remote from the regular computer user. Nonetheless, Tom Ran and Shai Kaplan, research students in the lab of Prof. Ehud Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute's Biological Chemistry, and Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Departments have found a way to make these microscopic computing devices 'user friendly,' even while performing complex computations and answering complicated queries.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Using a composite metamaterial to deliver a complex set of instructions to a beam of light, Boston College physicists have created a device to guide electromagnetic waves around objects such as the corner of a building or the profile of the eastern seaboard.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
The electron is a fundamental building block of nature and is indivisible in isolation, yet a new experiment has shown that electrons, if crowded into narrow wires, are seen to split apart.Full article
From Science Daily:
Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. ‘Transparent aluminium’ previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Scientists at Rice University and North Carolina State University have found a method of attaching molecules to semiconducting silicon that may help manufacturers reach beyond the current limits of Moore's Law as they make microprocessors both smaller and more powerful.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
The first known example of a liquid protein has been made by chemists at the University of Bristol opening up the possibility of a number of medical and industrial applications including high-potency pharmaceuticals and protein-based coolants and lubricants.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
Ytterbium was discovered in 1878, but until it recently became useful in atomic clocks, the soft metal rarely made the news. Now ytterbium has a new claim to scientific fame. Measurements with ytterbium-174, an isotope with 70 protons and 104 neutrons, have shown the largest effects of parity violation in an atom ever observed - a hundred times larger than the most precise measurements made so far, with the element cesium.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
Last month, researchers from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory made headlines when they revealed experimental evidence of a topological insulator: a material that could revolutionize computer processors by allowing electricity to flow without resistance. This week in Science, SLAC theorists along with an experimental group in Germany report additional details about the way these topological insulators conduct electricity. Using the topological insulator mercury telluride, the paper shows that an electric current sent through these materials goes against conventional physics knowledge and travels far away from its input points, to the outer edges of the material.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
A recent breakthrough by researchers at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute sees for the first time the creation of thin films with controllable electronic properties. This discovery could have a large impact on future applications in sensors and computing...Full article
It's commonly accepted that electrical resistance of a given material cannot be adjusted as is the case with, for example, density and color. However, Dr Meike Stöhr and her collaborators have now succeeded in developing a new method to selectively tune surface properties such as resistance.
From PhyOrg.com:
Usually when physicists talk about quantum teleportation, they're referring to the transfer of quantum states from one particle to another without a physical link. Now, physicists have investigated a slightly different form of teleportation, in which they teleport a quantum field, or an entire beam of light, from one location to another. This kind of "strong" teleportation is required for some quantum information applications, and could lead to the teleportation of quantum images.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
The giant monoliths of Easter Island are worn, but they have endured for centuries. New research suggests that a compound first discovered in the soil of the South Pacific island might help us stand the test of time, too.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
In the science fiction movie "Minority Report," set 50 years in the future, Tom Cruise's character interacts with a computer display by moving his hands in front of it.Full article
It won't take 50 years. Thanks to a promising new kind of image sensor, consumers may be interacting with computers and other devices in the same way in less than five years.
From PhysOrg.com:
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have overcome a hurdle in quantum computer development, having devised a viable way to manipulate a single "bit" in a quantum processor without disturbing the information stored in its neighbors. The approach, which makes novel use of polarized light to create "effective" magnetic fields, could bring the long-sought computers a step closer to reality.Full article
From ScienceDaily:
ETH Zurich researchers have successfully created an optical transistor from a single molecule. This has brought them one step closer to an optical computer.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
For the first time, scientists have successfully operated a quantum gate between two remote particles of matter, marking an important step toward the development of a quantum computer. In previous experiments, researchers have used photons, which are difficult to store. Using matter qubits enables the researchers to store the obtained quantum information, opening up new possibilities for the generation of remote networks of entangled qubits.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
A research team at Northwestern University has developed a tool that can precisely deliver tiny doses of drug-carrying nanomaterials to individual cells. The tool, called the nanofountain probe, functions in two different ways. In one mode, the probe acts like a fountain pen with drug-coated nanodiamonds serving as the ink, allowing researchers to create devices by “writing” with it. The second mode functions as a single-cell syringe, permitting direct injection of biomolecules or chemicals into individual cells. The research was led by Horacio Dante Espinosa, Ph.D., and Dean Ho, Ph.D., and the results appear in the journal Small.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Maxwell’s demon may be making a comeback. Physicists know that the demon, an imaginary creature that decreases the entropy of a system, cannot exist in macroscopic systems due to the energy it requires to perform its role. However, a recent study has shown that, on the nanoscale, Maxwell’s demon might be able to do its work with much less energy than previously thought due to tiny thermal fluctuations that occur in small systemsFull article
This is a big deal (from PhyOrg.com:
Scientists from A*STAR's Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), led by Professor Christian Joachim, have scored a breakthrough in nanotechnology by becoming the first in the world to invent a molecular gear of the size of 1.2nm whose rotation can be deliberately controlled. This achievement marks a radical shift in the scientific progress of molecular machines and is published in Nature Materials, one of the most prestigious journals in materials science.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
Move over, silicon—it may be time to give the Valley a new name. Physicists at the Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have confirmed the existence of a type of material that could one day provide dramatically faster, more efficient computer chips.Full article
From United Business Media's PR Newswire:
Nanoscience milestone opens up new possibilities in molecular electronicsFull article
ZURICH, June 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) scientists in collaboration with the University of Regensburg, Germany, and Utrecht University, Netherlands, for the first time demonstrated the ability to measure the charge state of individual atoms using noncontact atomic force microscopy.
From Science NOW:
Quantum mechanics and its bizarre rules explain the structure of atoms, the formation of chemical bonds, and the switching of transistors in microchips. Oddly, though, in spite of the theory's name, physicists have never made an actual machine whose motion captures the quirkiness of quantum mechanics. Now a group from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado, has taken a step in that direction by forging a mind-bending quantum connection between two mechanical widgets. Their devices don't look like electric drills or other familiar machines, however: Each is a pair of ions oscillating in an electric field, like two marbles joined by a spring.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
In trying to understand how gravity behaves on the quantum scale, physicists have developed a model that has an interesting implication: mini black holes could be everywhere, and all particles might be made of various forms of black holes.Continued
From PhysOrg.com:
A team of Australian and Korean researchers led by Geoffrey M. Spinks and Seon Jeong Kim has now developed a novel, highly porous, sponge-like material whose mechanical properties closely resemble those of biological soft tissues. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, it consists of a robust network of DNA strands and carbon nanotubes.Continued
From PhysOrg.com:
Using the same protein molecule that scientists have used for decades to copy genetic material, researchers have developed a molecular motor for propelling DNA.Full article
...
The work demonstrates the ability to precisely control the motion of billions of DNA molecules at once and, through external stimuli, confer autonomous decision-making that sets the stage for massive, but greatly miniaturized experimental systems.
From PhysOrg.com:
In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois have identified and visualized the signaling pathways in protein-RNA complexes that help set the genetic code in all organisms. The genetic code allows information stored in DNA to be translated into proteins.Full article
From Science News:
So string theory has long remained in the physics version of The Twilight Zone, disconnected from the ordinary world of sight and sound. But now the extra-dimensional math has begun to audition for Reality TV. For the first time, superstring theorists can point to a place where their formulas help other physicists understand something they can see in their experiments.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
By controlling the collective spin state of highly mobile electrons in semiconductors, researchers in the Materials Sciences Division (MSD) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have taken a major step forward in the technology of spintronics. At the same time they have discovered a new conservation law, an important advance in fundamental physics.Full article
From PhyOrg.com:
A remarkable new invention from Tel Aviv University — a network of tiny sensors as small as dewdrops called "Smart Dew" — will foil even the most determined intruder. Scattered outdoors on rocks, fence posts and doorways, or indoors on the floor of a bank, the dewdrops are a completely new and cost-effective system for safeguarding and securing wide swathes of property.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
“The concept of matter waves is at the heart of quantum mechanics,” Oliver Morsch tells PhysOrg.com. “At the beginning of the last century, scientists discovered that solid particles could exhibit properties of waves, such as interference and diffraction. Until then, it was assumed that only light behaved as a wave. But in the quantum world everything is basically a wave.”Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Scientists from Germany today reported a major advance toward opening the doors of a carbohydrate-based medicine chest for the 21st Century. Much more than just potatoes and pasta, these carbohydrates may form the basis of revolutionary new vaccines and drugs to battle malaria, HIV, and a bevy of other diseases.Full article
From PhysOrg.com:
Quantum information processing is one of the hottest areas of science and technology right now. Making quantum information processing scalable is an important part of the efforts involved with regard to practical quantum computing. “By tuning the gap of a superconducting qubit, we can allow different types of coupling for use in quantum information processing,” Hans Mooij tells PhysOrg.com.
Göran Krampe has proposed (and implemented in Squeak) a generic, extensible data interchange format for Smalltalk. His initial use is limited to code delta streams, but the format actually defines a generic, extensible architecture that could be used to represent any sort of data.
I like it. I second the motion!
Most of the listed "holidays" will actually be business days, although some will not. The US Federal Holidays (on which most US Government offices will close, along with all Federally-chartered banks) are highlighted in bold. Generally, each business decides on its own which of these days (if any) will be non-business days (and for which employees):
Thu, 01 Jan 2009: NewYearsDay
Thu, 08 Jan 2009: JacksonDay
Mon, 19 Jan 2009: MartinLutherKingDay
Tue, 20 Jan 2009: InaugurationDay
Mon, 02 Feb 2009: GroundhogDay
Thu, 12 Feb 2009: LincolnsBirthday
Sat, 14 Feb 2009: ValentinesDay
Mon, 16 Feb 2009: WashingtonsBirthday
Tue, 17 Mar 2009: StPatricksDay
Wed, 01 Apr 2009: AprilFoolsDay
Fri, 10 Apr 2009: GoodFriday
Sun, 12 Apr 2009: Easter
Wed, 22 Apr 2009: EarthDay
Wed, 22 Apr 2009: AdministrativeAssistantsDay
Fri, 24 Apr 2009: ArborDay
Sun, 10 May 2009: MothersDay
Mon, 25 May 2009: MemorialDay
Sun, 14 Jun 2009: FlagDay
Sun, 21 Jun 2009: FathersDay
Sat, 04 Jul 2009: IndependenceDay
Sun, 26 Jul 2009: ParentsDay
Mon, 07 Sep 2009: LaborDay
Sun, 13 Sep 2009: GrandParentsDay
Mon, 12 Oct 2009: ColumbusDay
Sat, 24 Oct 2009: UnitedNationsDay
Sat, 31 Oct 2009: Halloween
Wed, 11 Nov 2009: VeteransDay
Thu, 26 Nov 2009: Thanksgiving
Fri, 27 Nov 2009: DayAfterThanksgiving
Thu, 24 Dec 2009: ChristmasEve
Fri, 25 Dec 2009: Christmas
Thu, 31 Dec 2009: NewYearsEve
| list |
list := SortedCollection sortBlock: [:a :b | a value < b value].
SemanticDatePolicy unitedStates
nominalAnnualEventOccurenceDatesInYear: 2009 do:
[:semanticKey :date | list add: semanticKey->date].
Transcript cr.
list do:
[:assoc |
Transcript
cr; show: (assoc value printStringUsing: #rfc2822);
show: ':'; tab; show: assoc key]
From PhyOrg.com:
Researchers at the University of Miami and at the Universities of Tokyo and Tohoku, Japan, have been able to prove the existence of a "spin battery," a battery that is "charged" by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). The new technology is a step towards the creation of computer hard drives with no moving parts, which would be much faster, less expensive and use less energy than current ones. In the future, the new battery could be developed to power cars.Full article
The article "Is that your final answer? Study suggests method for improving individual decisions" discusses a new decision-making heuristic called "dialectical bootstrapping":
Dialectical bootstrapping is a method by which an individual mind averages its' own conflicting opinions, thus simulating the "wisdom of the crowd." In other words, dialectical bootstrapping enables different opinions to be created and combined in the same mind. For example, in this study, participants were asked to identify dates of various historical events. After they gave their initial answer, the participants were asked to think of reasons why the answer may be wrong and were then asked to come up with an alternative second (dialectical) answer.
From PhysOrg.com:
(PhysOrg.com) -- Local realism is something we live with every day, even if we don’t realize it. The principle of local realism combines two assumptions: locality and realism. Locality says that distant objects cannot directly and instantaneously influence each other (since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light). Realism says that the things we measure and sense are indeed really there apart from our measurements, and it’s not just our measurements that make them exist.
From PhysOrg.com:
A major mystery about the origins of life has been resolved. According to a study published in the journal Nature, two Université de Montréal scientists have proposed a new theory for how a universal molecular machine, the ribosome, managed to self-assemble as a critical step in the genesis of all life on Earth.
From PhysOrg.com
What do Saturn and flowers have in common? As shapes, both possess certain symmetries that are easily recognizable in the natural world. Now, at an extremely small level, researchers from Duke University and the University of Massachusetts have created a unique set of conditions in which tiny particles within a solution will consistently assemble themselves into these and other complex shapes.
From PhysOrg.com:
When you hear the word “planet,” do you automatically think of the word’s literal definition, or of other words, such as “Earth,” “space,” “Mars,” etc.? Especially when used in sentences, words tend to conjure up similar words automatically. Further, human beings’ ability to draw associations and inferences between words may explain why we’re generally able to communicate complex ideas with each other quite clearly using a limited number of words.
...
“We think it is odd that entanglement occurs at all,” he said. “As a phenomenon, it suggests that the world is not the separable and reducible place that we have always taken it to be. If entanglement is found in other types of (non-physical) systems, it will suggest that the quantum formalism is modeling non-separability per se, and this will indicate that quantum theory could provide a whole new approach to the study of complex systems, i.e. non-separable and irreducible systems.”
From Physorg.com, Chemists create two-armed nanorobotic device to maneuver world's tiniest particles:
Chemists at New York University and China's Nanjing University have developed a two-armed nanorobotic device that can manipulate molecules within a device built from DNA. The device is described in the latest issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Scientists at Stanford University have invented a new technology, dubbed "Electronic Quantum Holography," to construct the world's smallest-ever writing. As reported by Science Daily:
"How densely can you encode information on a computer chip? The assumption has been that basically the ultimate limit is when one atom represents one bit, and then there's no more room—in other words, that it's impossible to scale down below the level of atoms.
"But in this experiment we've stored some 35 bits per electron to encode each letter. And we write the letters so small that the bits that comprise them are subatomic in size. So one bit per atom is no longer the limit for information density. There's a grand new horizon below that, in the subatomic regime. Indeed, there's even more room at the bottom than we ever imagined."
From PhysOrg.com:
Single atom quantum dots created by researchers at Canada’s National Institute for Nanotechnology and the University of Alberta make possible a new level of control over individual electrons, a development that suddenly brings quantum dot-based devices within reach. Composed of a single atom of silicon and measuring less than one nanometre in diameter, these are the smallest quantum dots ever created.
If you are a mouse on the chubby side, then eating less may help you live longer.
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of physicists and engineers has demonstrated an optical device that filters two particles of light (or photons) based on the correlations between their polarisation that are only allowed in the seemingly bizarre quantum world. This so called "entanglement filter" passes the pair of photons only if they inhabit the same quantum state, without the user (or anything else) ever knowing what that state is.
From Science Daily:
In a finding straight out of science fiction, chemical and biomolecular engineers in Maryland are describing development of microscopic, chemically triggered robotic “hands” that can pick up and move small objects. They could be used in laboratory-on-a-chip applications, reconfigurable microfluidic systems, and micromanufacturing, the researchers say. A report on their so-called “microgrippers” is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
From PhysOrg.com:
...scientists have synthesized for the first time RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely.
