Technology

Light-trapping nanocubes drive inexpensive multispectral camera

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Researchers at Duke University have demonstrated photodetectors that could span an unprecedented range of light frequencies by using on-chip spectral filters created by tailored electromagnetic materials. The combination of multiple photodetectors with different frequency responses on a single chip could enable lightweight, inexpensive multispectral cameras for applications such as cancer surgery, food safety inspection and … Read more

Big plans to save the planet depend on nanoscopic materials improving energy storage

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The challenge of building an energy future that preserves and improves the planet is a massive undertaking. But it all hinges on the charged particles moving through invisibly small materials. Scientists and politicians have recognized the need for an urgent and substantial shift in the world’s mechanisms of energy production and consumption in order to … Read more

Western-led research team extends life of rechargeable batteries

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Researchers from Western University, using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, found that adding a carbon-based layer to lithium-ion rechargeable batteries extends their life up to 50 per cent. The finding, recently published in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, tackles a problem many consumers face: rechargeable batteries gradually hold … Read more

Making tiny antennas for wearable electronics

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When it comes to electronics, bigger usually isn’t better. This is especially true for a new generation of wearable communication systems that promise to connect people, machines and other objects in a wireless “internet of things.” To make the devices small and comfortable enough to wear, scientists need to miniaturize their components. Now, researchers in ACS … Read more

Ironclad climate protection

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Six percent of global CO2 emissions – 4.4. billion tonnes per year – are currently produced by the steel and aluminium industry. In an overview article for the journal Nature, Dierk Raabe, Director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung in Düsseldorf, and scientists from MIT in Cambridge Massachusetts outline how the immense CO2 footprint in metal production and … Read more

New approach needed for defining AI standards in cybersecurity, say Oxford academics

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Leading experts in cybersecurity and ethics from Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford Dr Mariarosaria Taddeo and Professor Luciano Floridi and Professor Tom McCutcheon from Defence Science and Technology Laboratories’  believe the current approach to defining standards and certification procedures for Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in cybersecurity is risky and should be replaced with an … Read more

Three-dimensional printing of multicomponent glasses using phase-separating resins

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Stereolithography, one of the most common three-dimensional printing technologies, comprises several advantages over traditional processing approaches: mass-customization, high complexity and little-to-no waste material. However, this technique has so far remained inaccessible to processing of functional glass structures. Now, researchers at ETH Zürich have developed a bioinspired approach to 3D print transparent glass structures using conventional … Read more

Free Internet access should be a basic human right

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Free internet access must be considered as a human right, as people unable to get online – particularly in developing countries – lack meaningful ways to influence the global players shaping their everyday lives, according to a new study. As political engagement increasingly takes place online, basic freedoms that many take for granted including free … Read more