HackingTheUniverse

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Printing batteries, on paper or plastic or other substrates, has moved out of the lab and into commercial application. Processes that are more like spray painting or printing are replacing the older and more costly vacuum deposition process. This also increases the production speed. Printable Battery Benefits – [powerpaper.com] The key advantages of Power Paper’s [...]

“Invisibility” cloaking devices already exist in the lab, but only with such restrictive conditions that they are not very useful. Restrictions in the range of effective optical frequencies and the size and structure of the cloaking materials leave a large gap between laboratory performance and a functional cloaking device. A new flexible form of metamaterial [...]

Nanotechnology must develop new tools that operate at a level where little manipulation by humans has ever been possible. Self assembly shows that complex structures can be created from simple rules and actions. By combining these two disciplines, it is becoming possible to build the tools that nanotechnology needs to move forward. World first to [...]

The ability of a shape memory material to return to its original shape after being deformed was first observed in 1932 in an alloy of Gold and Cadmium (AuCd). Since then, many more shape memory materials have been developed, including metallic alloys and plastic polymers. Self-healing autonomous material comes to life – [physorg.com] Now, in [...]

Conventional antennas were typically based on some fraction of the wavelength that they were designed to receive. This meant the size of the antenna often varied with the frequency range they used. Fractal antennas reduce the overall size of the antenna because the length of the receiving contact is distributed over a fractal pattern that [...]

In electronics, electrical signals are pushed along wires, or small conductive traces that act like wires. The speed of these signals depend upon the ability of the conductor material to relay electromagnetic waves. While this speed is quite fast, it is often slow compared to the speed of light. For example: in a vacuum an [...]

Nanogenerators will be needed to power the new generation of tiny devices that nanotechnology is producing. Just as the self-winding wristwatch collects kinetic energy and uses it to drive the spring in the watch, it is possible to collect small amounts of energy in a variety of ways: motion and vibration, thermal differences, sonic waves [...]

Flexible, stretchable electronic components that can implanted in a human body will help usher in the brave new world of cyborg enhancement. Using this technology for cosmetics is probably inevitable, but there are also many other uses, such as; bio-medical sensors, body network electronics and a variety of other nano-skin applications. Flexible LEDs for implanting [...]

Water nanofilters made from ceramic foam honeycombs have shown promise, but new research by a team at Stanford University uses cotton that has been dipped in carbon nanotubes, coated with silver and then electrified. New high-speed, low-cost water purifying nanofilter developed – [gizmag.com] As their name suggests, most existing water purifying filters clean the water [...]

Two research teams working independently (one from Stanford and one from UC Berkeley) have created prototypes of artificial human skin that are extremely sensitive. Both techniques use a thin rubber surface with an electronic substrate that can measure changes in electrical properties that result from pressure. The Stanford team used a dielectric thin film and [...]