According to the report, over 80% of the SMEs that received an award during 1995-97 had never taken part in an EU project before, and some 8000 companies had never been involved in any sort of public research project. And the number of SMEs involved in 4th Framework was 231% higher than in its predecessor. […]
HALCA was launched by Japanese astronomers in 1997 to detect radio signals at wavelengths that that are difficult to detect from the ground. In addition to conducting their own observations, the HALCA team have co-ordinated a series of observations with ground-based telescopes to produce enhanced images of quasars. These immensely energetic and distant objects are […]
Unlike other instruments, the invention does not require any sharp blades or cumbersome power sources (such as those needed for ultrasound devices) in the operating theatre. Instead, a small paddle rotates at high speed, converting the tissue into a liquid form that can be removed by a small vacuum pump attached to the instrument. By […]
Previous experiments found it difficult to measure plasma spectra because the high temperatures inside the plasma caused the spectral lines to blur. The Weizmann team solved the problem by adding oxygen ions to the plasma: these ions are less disturbed by the heat and density inside the plasma and produce clear spectral lines. Maron’s team […]
It has been know for sometime that nature follows chaotic patterns that seem to allow organisms to respond to rapid changes in their environment. Sinha and Ditto have taken these equations further to form the basis of crude computer instructions. They defined a one-dimensional lattice of logistic maps in the form f(x) = ax(1-x), where […]
Luckily, SOHO drifted back into sunlight long enough to recharge its solar cells for communications with Earth, and in the past month the fuel has been heated from -100 C to 10 C. Engineers had to be careful not to rupture the tanks while heating the fuel. The tanks have survived so far and the […]
Many of the optical and magnetic techniques used to trap and cool atoms do not work with molecules because they have complex internal energy levels. Instead Doyle and his colleagues chilled the molecules by cooling the walls of a container filled with a mixture of helium atoms and calcium monohydride molecules. The molecules were cooled […]
Brief History of Time : From the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen Hawking The author explores the outer reaches of our knowledge of astrophysics and the nature of time and the universe, and reviews the great theories of the cosmos, from Galileo and Newton to Einstein and Poincare. BUY THE BOOK: Amazon (US) […]
Researchers are building new transistors that actively exploit the quantum properties of electrons
Read article: Single-electron transistors
Laser technology has come a long way since the 1960s. The very earliest lasers, such as ruby and helium-neon devices, were formidable contraptions. They relied on dilute active media with discrete energy levels such as gases or dopant ions scattered in a solid, external pumping mechanisms such as bulky coiled flashlamps or auxiliary gases excited […]
