Chronos is one of the many Smalltalk-related blogs syndicated on Planet Smalltalk
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Discussion of the Essence# programming language, and related issues and technologies.

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2009-12-23

Scientists create world's first molecular transistor

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.
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2009-12-22

Digital Quantum Battery Could Boost Energy Density Tenfold

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.
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2009-12-17

Caltech scientists film photons with electrons

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.
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Proposed Spacetime Structure Could Provide Hints for Quantum Gravity Theory

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.
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2009-12-09

New techniques make carbon-based integrated circuits more practical

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.
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Entropy alone creates complex crystals from simple shapes, study shows

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.
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Toshiba develops essential technology for spintronics-based MOS field-effect transistor

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.
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2009-12-04

Researchers develop cheap, easy 'kitchen chemistry' to perform formerly complex synthesis

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.
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