Lifeboat Foundation

Plasmonics, the study of how electrons behave in a metal under an electromagnetic field, requires the use of specialty coherent light sources as a basic tool. Optical interferometry can potentially become more important in biomedicine if only the technology could be made more compact, practical, and proven useful.

Toward that end researchers at Brown University have developed a way of using plasmonics techniques without using a coherent light source at all. This allows optical interferometry at the nanoscale and should lead to new types of biomedical sensors that can do rapid wide spectrum analysis for a variety of markers.

Here’s more details about the technology from Brown University:

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At Vanderbilt University scientists are building an artificial kidney that they envision will one day will be a standard of care over dialysis. The device consists of a silicon nanotechnology filter chip and embedded living kidney cells that would work together to mimic the functionality of a healthy kidney. The end result is expected to be about the size of a natural kidney, small enough to be implantable and powered by the body’s own blood flow.

The filter component has tiny pores that can be individually shaped to perform a specific task. These filters would sit in a series, each one performing a different filtration step. Between the filter slices there would be living kidney cells that perform tasks that the man made components are not very good at, including reabsorption of nutrients and getting rid of accumulated waste.

Here’s video with Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Dr. William Fissell, the lead scientist on the research:

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(Phys.org)—Researchers have designed and implemented an algorithm that solves computing problems using a strategy inspired by the way that an amoeba branches out to obtain resources. The new algorithm, called AmoebaSAT, can solve the satisfiability (SAT) problem—a difficult optimization problem with many practical applications—using orders of magnitude fewer steps than the number of steps required by one of the fastest conventional algorithms.

The researchers predict that the amoeba-inspired computing system may offer several benefits, such as high efficiency, miniaturization, and low energy consumption, that could lead to a new computing paradigm for nanoscale high-speed problem solving.

Led by Masashi Aono, Associate Principal Investigator at the Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and at PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, the researchers have published a paper on the amoeba-inspired system in a recent issue of Nanotechnology.

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One of my favorites for 2016 — smart contact lenses.

Researchers at RMIT University and the University of Adelaide have joined forces to create a stretchable nano-scale device to manipulate light.

RMIT University.

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Creating Qubit from a CMOS transitor.

Scientists make a qubit at the sharp edges within a silicon nanowire transistor.

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Scientists at the University of Southampton have made a major step forward in the development of digital data storage that is capable of surviving for billions of years.

Using nanostructured glass, scientists from the University’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) have developed the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional (5D) digital data by femtosecond laser writing.

The storage allows unprecedented properties including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1,000°C and virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature (13.8 billion years at 190°C ) opening a new era of eternal data archiving.

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Research, innovation, discovery, and evolution that causes amazing science and technology disruptions is a beautiful thing. And, we each have our own story and passion in why and what drives us.

And, occasionally in our drive to make change or disruption happen; reality grounds us back on what is important and why we do what we love. In my own case is to finally see things like cancer eradicated.

A finger prick test for cancer may soon be possible as research have developed a new technology to detect disease biomarkers in the form of nucleic acids, the building blocks of all living organisms.

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This is wonderful program for students wanting to learn robotics. I do believe for real AI/ traditional Robotics (not referring to nanobots or microbots) to truly accelerate in capabilities; it will require technology like Quantum.

Two young engineering students are making robotics more accessible to enthusiasts across the country

A spartan apartment at a nondescript housing society in Pashan is filled with robots of all shapes and sizes. Among the curious looking machines are two robotic hands that mimic the movement of a human body and a large quadcopter that looks as if it’s ready to fly. This is the working space of College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP) alumni Amol Gulhane and Pratik Pravin Deshmukh — the 20-something founders of Robolab, a venture that’s making robotics accessible to the masses by building robotics labs across the country.

Continue reading “Betting on the bots” »

Liquid metal.

Abstract: Graphene is going to change the world — or so we’ve been told.

Since its discovery a decade ago, scientists and tech gurus have hailed graphene as the wonder material that could replace silicon in electronics, increase the efficiency of batteries, the durability and conductivity of touch screens and pave the way for cheap thermal electric energy, among many other things.

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