ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Seeing the forest and the trees: Panoramic, very-high-resolution, time-lapse photography for plant and ecosystem research
• Elementary magnets coming in double-packs
• Seeing light in a new light: Scientists create never-before-seen form of matter
• Engineers build computer using carbon nanotube technology
• 'Jekyll and Hyde' star morphs from radio to X-ray pulsar and back again
• Improved smartphone microscope brings single-virus detection to remote locations
• Tiny antennas let long light waves see in infrared
• Chemical synthesis: A simple technique for highly functionalized compounds
• With carbon nanotubes, a path to flexible, low-cost sensors: Potential applications range from air-quality monitors to electronic skin
• Wormlike hematite photoanode breaks the world-record for solar hydrogen production efficiency
• Turning plastic bags into high-tech materials
• Tiny camera records details of scene without losing sight of the big picture
• China's synthetic gas plants would be greenhouse giants
• Fundamental physicists discover surprise new use for super-chilled neutrons to measure the movement of viruses
• New multifunctional topological insulator material with combined superconductivity
• The cool glow of star formation: First light of powerful new camera

Seeing the forest and the trees: Panoramic, very-high-resolution, time-lapse photography for plant and ecosystem research Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:21 PM PDT A new technique uses the GigaPan EPIC Pro, a robotic camera system, to create time-lapse sequences of panoramas that allow the viewer to zoom in at an incredible level of detail, e.g., from a landscape view to that of an individual plant. This system greatly improves the utility of time-lapse photography by capturing interactions between the environment and plant populations in a single sequence.

Elementary magnets coming in double-packs Posted: 25 Sep 2013 12:21 PM PDT Simulating solid state properties with precisely controlled quantum systems is an important goal. Now scientists have come one step closer – to be precise, to the understanding of processes in ferromagnetic solid state crystals in which elementary excitations, so-called magnons, can emerge.

Seeing light in a new light: Scientists create never-before-seen form of matter Posted: 25 Sep 2013 10:23 AM PDT Scientists have managed to coax photons into binding together to form molecules -- a state of matter that, until recently, had been purely theoretical.

Engineers build computer using carbon nanotube technology Posted: 25 Sep 2013 10:23 AM PDT Silicon chips could soon hit physical limits preventing them from getting smaller and faster. Carbon nanotube technology has been seen as a potential successor. But so far no one's been able to put all the pieces together. Stanford's CNT computer is therefore an important proof of principle. And while this is a bare-bones device, the processes used to create the world's first CNT computer are designed to scale.

'Jekyll and Hyde' star morphs from radio to X-ray pulsar and back again Posted: 25 Sep 2013 10:22 AM PDT Astronomers have uncovered the strange case of a neutron star with the peculiar ability to transform from a radio pulsar into an X-ray pulsar and back again. This star's capricious behavior appears to be fueled by a nearby companion star and may give new insights into the birth of millisecond pulsars.

Improved smartphone microscope brings single-virus detection to remote locations Posted: 25 Sep 2013 10:06 AM PDT Scientists are reporting an advance in smartphone-based imaging that could help physicians in far-flung and resource-limited locations monitor how well treatments for infections are working by detecting, for the first time, individual viruses. Their study on the light-weight device converts the phone into a powerful mini-microscope.

Tiny antennas let long light waves see in infrared Posted: 25 Sep 2013 10:06 AM PDT Researchers have developed arrays of tiny nano-antennas that can enable sensing of molecules that resonate in the infrared spectrum. The semiconductor antenna arrays allow long-wavelength light to strongly interact with nano-scale substances, so the arrays could enhance the detection of small volumes of materials.

Chemical synthesis: A simple technique for highly functionalized compounds Posted: 25 Sep 2013 08:22 AM PDT Researchers have demonstrated a technique that allows direct functionalization of alkenes without the need for metallic reagents, photolysis or extreme reaction conditions.

With carbon nanotubes, a path to flexible, low-cost sensors: Potential applications range from air-quality monitors to electronic skin Posted: 25 Sep 2013 07:28 AM PDT Researchers are showing the way toward low-cost, industrial-scale manufacturing of a new family of electronic devices. A leading example is a gas sensor that could be integrated into food packaging to gauge freshness, or into compact wireless air-quality monitors. Flexible pressure and temperature sensors could be built into electronic skin. All these devices can be made with carbon nanotubes, sprayed like ink onto flexible plastic sheets or other substrates.

Wormlike hematite photoanode breaks the world-record for solar hydrogen production efficiency Posted: 25 Sep 2013 07:28 AM PDT Scientists have developed a "wormlike" hematite photoanode that can convert sunlight and water to clean hydrogen energy with a record-breaking high efficiency of 5.3 percent.

Turning plastic bags into high-tech materials Posted: 25 Sep 2013 07:26 AM PDT Researchers have developed a process for turning waste plastic bags into a high-tech nanomaterial. The innovative nanotechnology uses non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags to make 'carbon nanotube membranes' -- highly sophisticated and expensive materials with a variety of potential advanced applications including filtration, sensing, energy storage and a range of biomedical innovations.

Tiny camera records details of scene without losing sight of the big picture Posted: 25 Sep 2013 06:22 AM PDT To capture all the details of a scene, you might take many photos at close range. To get the whole scene at once, you could use a wide-angle or fisheye lens; but without an large lens you would be sacrificing the fine resolution that would help you catch that partial footprint you might otherwise have missed. Now a new type of miniature camera system promises to give users a big picture view without sacrificing high-resolution.

China's synthetic gas plants would be greenhouse giants Posted: 25 Sep 2013 06:22 AM PDT Coal-powered synthetic natural gas plants being planned in China would produce seven times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional natural gas plants, and use up to 100 times the water as shale gas production, according to a new study.

Fundamental physicists discover surprise new use for super-chilled neutrons to measure the movement of viruses Posted: 25 Sep 2013 06:21 AM PDT First evidence that ultra-cold neutrons interact with moving nano-sized particles provides a new tool for chemists, biologists and engineers.    Billiard-ball collisions may also explain inaccuracies in 60-year-old experiments to measure the lifetime of the neutron and explain the origin of matter in the universe.

New multifunctional topological insulator material with combined superconductivity Posted: 25 Sep 2013 06:21 AM PDT Most materials show one function, for example, a material can be a metal, a semiconductor, or an insulator. Metals such as copper are used as conducting wires with only low resistance and energy loss. Superconductors are metals which can conduct current even without any resistance, although only far below room temperature. Semiconductors, the foundation of current computer technology, show only low conduction of current, while insulators show no conductivity at all. Physicists have recently been excited about a new exotic type of materials, so-called topological insulators. A topological insulator is insulating inside the bulk like a normal insulator, while on the surface it shows conductivity like a metal. When a topological insulator is interfaced with a superconductor, a mysterious particle called Majorana fermion emerges, which can be used to fabricate a quantum computer that can run much more quickly than any current computer.

The cool glow of star formation: First light of powerful new camera Posted: 25 Sep 2013 06:17 AM PDT A new instrument called ArTeMiS has been successfully installed on APEX — the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment. APEX is a 12-meter diameter telescope located high in the Atacama Desert, which operates at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths — between infrared light and radio waves in the electromagnetic spectrum — providing a valuable tool for astronomers to peer further into the Universe. The new camera has already delivered a spectacularly detailed view of the Cat's Paw Nebula.

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