ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• NASA X-ray concept inspired from a roll of Scotch® tape
• Photovoltaics from any semiconductor: Opens door to more widespread solar energy devices
• First robot that mimics the water striders' jumping abilities
• Entropy can lead to order, paving the route to nanostructures
• World's smallest semiconductor laser created
• Brightest stars don't live alone: Most stellar heavyweights come in interacting pairs, VLT finds
• Engineers are designing, building mechanical ray
• Measurement advance could speed innovation in solar devices
• Eye-writing technology: Writing in cursive with your eyes only
• Picture worth a thousand numbers: New data visualization tool helps find the 'unknown unknowns'
• Orientation of far-off multiplanet system has orientation very similar to our own solar system
• Switching the state of matter may provide a novel building block for ultra low power devices
• A pulsar with a tremendous hiccup: Young and energetic neutron star has unusually irregular rotation

NASA X-ray concept inspired from a roll of Scotch® tape Posted: 26 Jul 2012 03:03 PM PDT The inspiration behind a NASA scientist's quest to build a highly specialized X-ray mirror using a never-before-tried technique comes from an unusual source: a roll of Scotch® tape.

Photovoltaics from any semiconductor: Opens door to more widespread solar energy devices Posted: 26 Jul 2012 03:03 PM PDT Researchers have developed a technology that enables low-cost, high efficiency solar cells to be made from virtually any semiconductor material. This opens the door to the use of plentiful, relatively inexpensive semiconductors previously considered unsuitable for photovoltaics.

First robot that mimics the water striders' jumping abilities Posted: 26 Jul 2012 12:39 PM PDT The first bio-inspired microrobot capable of not just walking on water like the water strider -- but continuously jumping up and down like a real water strider -- now is a reality. Scientists have developed the agile microrobot which could use its jumping ability to avoid obstacles on reconnaissance or other missions.

Entropy can lead to order, paving the route to nanostructures Posted: 26 Jul 2012 11:22 AM PDT Researchers trying to herd tiny particles into useful ordered formations have found an unlikely ally: Entropy, a tendency generally described as "disorder."

World's smallest semiconductor laser created Posted: 26 Jul 2012 11:21 AM PDT Physicists have developed the world's smallest semiconductor laser, a breakthrough for emerging photonic technology with applications from computing to medicine.

Brightest stars don't live alone: Most stellar heavyweights come in interacting pairs, VLT finds Posted: 26 Jul 2012 11:21 AM PDT A study using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope has shown that most very bright high-mass stars do not live alone. Almost three quarters of them are found to have a close companion star, far more than previously thought. Surprisingly most of these pairs are experiencing disruptive interactions, and about one third are even expected to ultimately merge to form a single star.

Engineers are designing, building mechanical ray Posted: 26 Jul 2012 11:20 AM PDT Batoid rays, such as stingrays and manta rays, are among nature's most elegant swimmers. They are fast, highly maneuverable, graceful, energy-efficient, can cruise, bird-like, for long distances in the deep, open ocean, and rest on the sea bottom. Researchers are trying to emulate the seemingly effortless but powerful swimming motions of rays by engineering their own ray-like machine modeled on nature. They are designing an "autonomous underwater vehicle" that someday may surpass what nature has provided as a model. The vehicle has potential commercial and military applications, and could be used for undersea exploration and scientific research.

Measurement advance could speed innovation in solar devices Posted: 26 Jul 2012 10:52 AM PDT A novel measurement system can accurately and quickly measures the energy output of solar power devices. Combining two different techniques and suitable for use in both the lab and the production line, their device could be a boon to manufacturers working on better, more competitive solar energy systems.

Eye-writing technology: Writing in cursive with your eyes only Posted: 26 Jul 2012 09:21 AM PDT New technology might allow people who have almost completely lost the ability to move their arms or legs to communicate freely, by using their eyes to write in cursive. The eye-writing technology tricks the neuromuscular machinery into doing something that is usually impossible: to voluntarily produce smooth eye movements in arbitrary directions.

Picture worth a thousand numbers: New data visualization tool helps find the 'unknown unknowns' Posted: 26 Jul 2012 08:27 AM PDT Scientists have developed a software tool that enables users to perform in-depth analysis of modeling and simulation data, then visualize the results on-screen. The new data analysis and visualization tool offers improved ease of use compared to similar tools, the researchers say.

Orientation of far-off multiplanet system has orientation very similar to our own solar system Posted: 26 Jul 2012 08:13 AM PDT Our solar system exhibits a remarkably orderly configuration: The eight planets orbit the sun much like runners on a track, circling in their respective lanes and always keeping within the same sprawling plane. In contrast, most exoplanets discovered in recent years -- particularly the giants known as "hot Jupiters" -- inhabit far more eccentric orbits. Now researchers have detected the first exoplanetary system, 10,000 light years away, with regularly aligned orbits similar to those in our solar system. At the center of this faraway system is Kepler-30, a star as bright and massive as the sun.

Switching the state of matter may provide a novel building block for ultra low power devices Posted: 26 Jul 2012 07:17 AM PDT Sixty years after the transistor began a technological revolution that transformed nearly every aspect of our daily lives, a new transistor brings innovations that may help to do so again. The device uses the electrostatic accumulation of electrical charge on the surface of a strongly-correlated material to trigger bulk switching of electronic state. Functional at room temperature and triggered by a potential of only 1 V, the switching mechanism provides a novel building block for ultra low power devices, non-volatile memory and optical switches based on a new device concept.

A pulsar with a tremendous hiccup: Young and energetic neutron star has unusually irregular rotation Posted: 26 Jul 2012 07:17 AM PDT Pulsars are superlative cosmic beacons. These compact neutron stars rotate about their axes many times per second, emitting radio waves and gamma radiation into space.  Using ingenious data analysis methods, researchers dug a very special gamma-ray pulsar out of data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The pulsar J1838-0537 is radio-quiet, very young, and, during the observation period, experienced the strongest rotation glitch ever observed for a gamma-ray-only pulsar.

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