ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Images capture split personality of dense suspensions
• Honeycombs of magnets could lead to new type of computer processing
• Whether grasping Easter eggs or glass bottles, this robotic hand uses tact
• Clocking an accelerating universe: First results from BOSS
• Reinventing Gyro Gearloose machine, this time, to purify scrap aluminum

Images capture split personality of dense suspensions Posted: 30 Mar 2012 01:49 PM PDT Stir lots of small particles into water, and the resulting thick mixture appears highly viscous. When this dense suspension slips through a nozzle and forms a droplet, however, its behavior momentarily reveals a decidedly non-viscous side. Physicists have recorded this surprising behavior in laboratory experiments using high-speed photography that can capture action taking place in one hundred-thousandths of a second or less.

Honeycombs of magnets could lead to new type of computer processing Posted: 30 Mar 2012 09:32 AM PDT Scientists take an important step in developing a material using nano-sized magnets that could lead to new electronic devices. Researchers have demonstrated that large arrays of nano-magnets can be used to store computable information.

Whether grasping Easter eggs or glass bottles, this robotic hand uses tact Posted: 30 Mar 2012 08:05 AM PDT It may be difficult to imagine, but pouring juice into a plastic cup can be a great challenge to a robot. While one hand holds the glass bottle firmly, the other one must gently grasp the cup. Researchers have now developed a robotic hand that can accomplish both tasks with ease and yet including the actuators is scarcely larger than a human arm. This was made possible by a novel string actuator, making use of small electric motors to twist strings. The robotic hand is thus powerful yet delicate and could one day be deployed as a helper around the house or in catastrophic scenarios.

Clocking an accelerating universe: First results from BOSS Posted: 30 Mar 2012 05:18 AM PDT First spectroscopic results from BOSS give the most detailed look yet at the time when dark energy turned on some six billion light years ago, as the expansion of the universe was slipping from the grasp of matter's mutual gravitational attraction, and expansion began to accelerate.

Reinventing Gyro Gearloose machine, this time, to purify scrap aluminum Posted: 27 Mar 2012 06:31 AM PDT In a 1996 Donald Duck comic, inventor Gyro Gearloose has invented a super-machine that sorts cheap scrap and metal poured into a tube, while out of another pipe emerge gold and shiny new coins. Now, scientists are trying to do the same thing.

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