ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Electric 'thinking cap' controls learning speed
• Engineers design 'living materials': Hybrid materials combine bacterial cells with nonliving elements that emit light
• Unavoidable disorder used to build nanolaser
• Shifting evolution into reverse promises cheaper, greener way to make new drugs
• Study on element could change ballgame on radioactive waste
• Spintronics: Could diamonds be a computer's best friend?
• Basketball: The physics of the 3-point shot
• Box-shaped pressure vessel for liquefied natural gas

Electric 'thinking cap' controls learning speed Posted: 23 Mar 2014 02:19 PM PDT Caffeine-fueled cram sessions are routine occurrences on any college campus. But what if there was a better, safer way to learn new or difficult material more quickly? What if "thinking caps" were real? Scientists have now shown that it is possible to selectively manipulate our ability to learn through the application of a mild electrical current to the brain, and that this effect can be enhanced or depressed depending on the direction of the current.

Engineers design 'living materials': Hybrid materials combine bacterial cells with nonliving elements that emit light Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:21 PM PDT Inspired by natural materials such as bone -- a matrix of minerals and other substances, including living cells -- engineers have coaxed bacterial cells to produce biofilms that can incorporate nonliving materials, such as gold nanoparticles and quantum dots. These "living materials" combine the advantages of live cells, which respond to their environment, produce complex biological molecules, and span multiple length scales, with the benefits of nonliving materials, which add functions such as conducting electricity or emitting light.

Unavoidable disorder used to build nanolaser Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:21 PM PDT World around researchers are working to develop nano-optical chips, where light can be controlled. These could be used for future circuits based on light (photons) instead of electrons -- that is photonics instead of electronics. But it has proved to be impossible to achieve perfect photonic nanostructures. Now researchers have shown that imperfect optical chips can be used to produce 'nanolasers', which is an ultimately compact and energy-efficient light source.

Shifting evolution into reverse promises cheaper, greener way to make new drugs Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:17 PM PDT By shifting evolution into reverse, it may be possible to use "green chemistry" to make a number of costly synthetic drugs as easily and cheaply as brewing beer. Normally, both evolution and synthetic chemistry proceed from the simple to the complex. Small molecules are combined and modified to make larger and more complex molecules that perform specific functions. Bioretrosynthesis works in the opposite direction. It starts with the final, desired product and then uses natural selection to produce a series of specialized enzymes that can make the final product out of a chain of chemical reactions that begin with simple, commonly available compounds.

Study on element could change ballgame on radioactive waste Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:17 PM PDT Groundbreaking work by a team of chemists on a fringe element of the periodic table could change how the world stores radioactive waste and recycles fuel. The element is called californium -- Cf if you're looking at the Periodic Table of Elements -- and it's what researchers called "wicked stuff."

Spintronics: Could diamonds be a computer's best friend? Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:17 PM PDT For the first time, physicists have demonstrated that information can flow through a diamond wire. In the experiment, electrons did not flow through diamond as they do in traditional electronics; rather, they stayed in place and passed along a magnetic effect called "spin" to each other down the wire -- like a row of sports spectators doing "the wave." Spin could one day be used to transmit data in computer circuits -- and this new experiment revealed that diamond transmits spin better than most metals in which researchers have previously observed the effect.

Basketball: The physics of the 3-point shot Posted: 21 Mar 2014 01:46 PM PDT What makes the perfect 3-pointer? Well, there is the angle the player takes on the 3-point line and the arc of the ball, which is the path the basketball flies from the time it leaves the shooter's hand until it arrives at the basket. What makes the perfect 3-pointer? Well, there is the angle the player takes on the 3-point line and the arc of the ball, which is the path the basketball flies from the time it leaves the shooter's hand until it arrives at the basket.

Box-shaped pressure vessel for liquefied natural gas Posted: 21 Mar 2014 06:55 AM PDT A pressure vessel that is neither cylindrical nor spherical has been developed by a multinational steel-making company. The scientists have developed a box-type, large size pressure vessel for the storage and transportation of liquids such as liquefied petroleum gas, compressed natural gas, or liquefied natural gas.

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