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The optical laser has grown to a $10 billion global technology market since it was invented in 1960, and has led to Nobel prizes for Art Ashkin for developing optical tweezing and Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland for work with pulsed lasers. Now a Rochester Institute of Technology researcher has teamed up with experts at the University of Rochester to create a different kind of laser—a laser for sound, using the optical tweezer technique invented by Ashkin.

In the newest issue of Nature Photonics, the researchers propose and demonstrate a phonon laser using an optically levitated nanoparticle. A phonon is a quantum of energy associated with a sound wave and optical tweezers test the limits of quantum effects in isolation and eliminates physical disturbances from the surrounding environment. The researchers studied the mechanical vibrations of the nanoparticle, which is levitated against gravity by the force of radiation at the focus of an optical laser beam.

“Measuring the position of the nanoparticle by detecting the light it scatters, and feeding that information back into the tweezer beam allows us to create a laser-like situation,” said Mishkat Bhattacharya, associate professor of physics at RIT and a theoretical quantum optics researcher. “The mechanical vibrations become intense and fall into perfect sync, just like the electromagnetic waves emerging from an optical laser.”

Continue reading “New phonon laser could lead to breakthroughs in sensing and information processing” »

Dangerous airborne viruses are rendered harmless on-the-fly when exposed to energetic, charged fragments of air molecules, University of Michigan researchers have shown.

They hope to one day harness this capability to replace a century-old device: the surgical mask.

Continue reading “Cold plasma can kill 99.9% of airborne viruses, study shows” »

Humanity could be on the verge of an unprecedented merging of human biology with advanced technology, fusing our thoughts and knowledge directly with the cloud in real-time – and this incredible turning point may be just decades away, scientists say.

In a new research paper exploring what they call the ‘human brain/cloud interface’, scientists explain the technological underpinnings of what such a future system might be, and also address the barriers we’ll need to address before this sci-fi dream becomes reality.

At its core, the brain/cloud interface (B/CI) is likely to be made possible by imminent advances in the field of nanorobotics, proposes the team led by senior author and nanotechnology researcher Robert Freitas Jr from the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in California.

Continue reading “We Are Closer Than Ever to Merging Human Brains With The Cloud” »

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have discovered that gene mutations that once helped humans survive may increase the possibility for diseases, including cancer.

The findings were recently the cover story in the journal Genome Research.

The team of researchers from BGU’s National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev (NIBN) set out to look for mutations in the genome of the mitochondria, a part of every cell responsible for energy production that is passed exclusively from mothers to their children. The mitochondria are essential to every cell’s survival and our ability to perform the functions of living.

The cells inside a tumour change and evolve just like animals in the wild. Understanding how this works could help us stop cancer in its tracks.

It’s big news, set to shock, amaze, and entertain the world.

But unfortunately, it’s got nothing to do with extraterrestrial stoners melding with Earth’s plants.

However, since you’re now reading, you’ll almost certainly be interested in this research that looked into the clicking and sharing behaviors of social media users reading content (or not) and then sharing it on social media.

Continue reading “Marijuana Contains ‘Alien DNA’ From Outside Of Our Solar System, NASA Confirms” »

A mere 17–20 meters across, the Chelyabinsk meteor caused extensive ground damage and numerous injuries when it exploded on impact with Earth’s atmosphere in February 2013.

To prevent another such impact, Amy Mainzer and colleagues use a simple yet ingenious way to spot these tiny near-Earth objects (NEOs) as they hurtle toward the planet. She is the principal investigator of NASA’s asteroid hunting mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and will outline the work of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office this week at the American Physical Society April Meeting in Denver—including her team’s NEO recognition method and how it will aid the efforts to prevent future Earth impacts.

“If we find an object only a few days from impact, it greatly limits our choices, so in our search efforts we’ve focused on finding NEOs when they are further away from Earth, providing the maximum amount of time and opening up a wider range of mitigation possibilities,” Mainzer said.

Continue reading “How to defend the Earth from asteroids” »

Top-rated reviews on popular items are dominated by unknown brands, consumer group Which? finds.

News-Medical speaks to David Dambman from Biosero about the emerging importance of automation in scientific research and how a centralized scheduling software is an essential first step for any laboratory looking to automate their workflow.

Why has automation become so critical to advancing scientific research?

There are many reasons why automation is useful in scientific research. First and foremost, automation is about being able to walk away from your experiments and spend time analyzing your results, rather than carrying out mundane tasks such as transferring liquids from one plate to another.

Continue reading “Automation in Scientific Research – Step 1: Invest in Scheduling Software” »