Proton-Based Transistor Developed To “Talk” To Living Beings

On the left is a colored photo of the UW device overlaid on a graphic of the other components. On the right is a magnified image of the chitosan fibers. The white scale bar is 200 nanometers.

“Human devices, from light bulbs to iPods, send information using electrons. Human bodies and all other living things, on the other hand, send signals and perform work using ions or protons.

Materials scientists at the University of Washington have built a novel transistor that uses protons, creating a key piece for devices that can communicate directly with living things. The study is published online this week in the interdisciplinary journal Nature Communications.

Devices that connect with the human body’s processes are being explored for biological sensing or for prosthetics, but they typically communicate using electrons, which are negatively charged particles, rather than protons, which are positively charged hydrogen atoms, or ions, which are atoms with positive or negative charge.”

Convert Your iPhone 4 Into A SATCOM Terminal

“By connecting an iPhone 4 to the Scout Observer’s Toolkit, it’s transformed into a spectrum analyzer, power meter, multimeter and Low Noise Block Downconverter (LNB).

In English, that means the device lets you locate and verify satellite signals (including other mobile signals), measure their strength, and determine GPS location (amongst other things).

The six-pound device replaces the standard 160-pound SATCOM terminal, making it the perfect accessory for covert operations — if those are the kinds of romps you prefer on the weekend.”

Superconducting Sapphire

“Diamonds may be forever but sapphire is the name of the game when it comes to the next generation of super-efficient electrical conducting wires.

Scientists at Tel Aviv University have developed a new superconductor made of fibers spun from sapphire crystals, which can transmit about 40 times more electricity than a copper wire of comparable size.

The new wire has the potential to push the price of renewable energy down by making it more economical to transmit electricity over long distances.”

Microspiders Will Swim In Bloodstream To Deliver Drugs

“Scientists at Penn State would like to release tiny spiders into your blood — no, it’s not the premise for a new horror movie, but rather, it’s a medical breakthrough.

The spider-like machines are less than a micrometer wide (just so you know, a red blood cell is around six to ten micrometers), and are designed to travel through veins delivering drugs and a little TLC to damaged areas — not a totally new concept, per se, but even minor advancements can open up all sorts of new doors for troubled patients.

Made of half gold, half silica, these microspiders are self-propelled by a molecule called the Grubbs catalyst, which scientists can control directionally using chemicals.”

Electric Motor Created Out Of A Single Molecule

“For the first time, an electric motor has been made from a single molecule. At 1 nanometre long, that makes the organic compound the smallest electric motor ever.

Its creators plan to submit their design to Guinness World Records, but the teeny motor could also have practical applications, such as pushing fluid through narrow pipes in “lab-on-a-chip” devices.

Molecules have previously converted energy from light and chemical reactions into directed motion like rolling or flapping. Electricity has also set an oxygen molecule spinning randomly. But controlled, electrically-driven motion – necessary for a device to be classed as a motor – had not yet been observed in a single molecule.

To address this, E. Charles Sykes at Tufts University in Boston and colleagues turned to asymmetric butyl methyl sulphide, a sulphur atom with a chain of four carbons on one side and a lone carbon atom on the other. They anchored the molecule to a copper surface via the sulphur atom, producing a lopsided, horizontal “propeller” that is free to rotate about the vertical copper-sulphur bond (see diagram).”

IBM Plans To Glue Microchips Into Stacks Inside Processors

“3D hype is fast wearing out its welcome, but there’s at least one area of industry where the buzzed about term could usher in true innovation.

Announced today as a joint research project, IBM and 3M will work towards the creation of a new breed of microprocessors.

Unlike similar three-dimensional semiconductor efforts by Intel, the two newly partnered outfits plan to stack up to 100 layers of chips atop one another resulting in a microchip “brick.”

Under the agreement, IBM will contribute its expertise on packaging the new processors, while 3M will get to work developing an adhesive that can not only be applied in batches, but’ll also allow for heat transfer without crippling logic circuitry.”

Sticks of RAM May Become “Blocks of RAM”

“Invensas, a subsidiary of chip microelectronics company Tessera, has discovered a way of stacking multiple DRAM chips on top of each other.

This process, called multi-die face-down packaging, or xFD for short, massively increases memory density, reduces power consumption, and should pave the way for faster and more efficient memory chips.

Multi-die face-down packaging is exactly what it sounds like, and the Invensas press release actually describes it a “shingle-like configuration” — i.e. each of the individual dies is staggered slightly, like roofing tiles.”

A Microscope That Needs No Lenses

In reflection mode, the holographic microscope can create images of dense, opaque materials, such as water filters. (a-b) Laser light from a laser diode (“LD” in the diagrams) is projected through a pin hole (“PH”) and then split into two beams by a beam cube (labeled “BC”). One beam of light hits the sample; the other does not. The beams are then reunited to form an interference pattern, which is recorded on a CMOS image sensor. (c) This photograph shows the microscope in reflection mode, with its cover removed. (The inset shows what the microscope looks like with its cover on.) The device weighs about 200 grams and is 15 cm long, 5.5 cm high, and 5 cm wide. Credit: Ozcan BioPhotonics Group at UCLA/Biomedical Optics Express.

“To serve remote areas of the world, doctors, nurses and field workers need equipment that is portable, versatile, and relatively inexpensive.

Now researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have built a compact, light-weight, dual-mode microscope that uses holograms instead of lenses. The team describes the new device in a paper published today in the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express.

Their prototype weighs about as much as a medium-sized banana and fits in the palm of a hand. And, since it relies in part on mass-produced consumer electronics, all the materials to make it add up to between $50 and $100 USD.

It also has a two-in-one feature: a transmission mode that can be used to probe relatively large volumes of blood or water, and a reflection mode that can image denser, opaque samples. The spatial resolution for both modes is less than two micrometers—comparable to that achieved by bulkier microscopes with low- to medium-power lenses.”

A Camera You Can Barely See

Can you barely see this camera? Well, that’s because it’s right at the unaided resolution limit for the human eye.

“Thanks to a German research institute, in the very near future, we may not even see the cameras looking back at us at all.

It may not be news that camera technology is getting smaller, but it is newsworthy when an important milestone is reached.

Take the announcement from the German Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration for example.

They recently reported the development of a camera with a lens attached that is 1 x 1 x 1.5 millimeters in size, which is the size of a grain of salt.

At about a cubic millimeter in size, this camera is right at the size limit that the human eye can see unaided.

The camera not only produces decent images but it is also very cheap to manufacture…so cheap in fact that it is considered disposable.

Though researchers developed the camera in collaboration with the Portuguese company Awaiba, the makers of digital camera sensors, for use in medical endoscopes to view all the nooks and crannies inside the body, other applications in electronic devices are already foreseen.”