MIT researchers discover astonishing behavior of water confined in carbon nanotubes making water freeze solid at boiling temperatures

Posted on February 25, 2017 by

It’s a well-known fact that water, at sea level, starts to boil at a temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, or 100 degrees Celsius. And scientists have long observed that when water is confined in very small spaces, its boiling and freezing points can change a bit, usually dropping by around 10 C or so. But now, a team at MIT has found a completely unexpected set of changes: Inside the tiniest of spaces — in carbon nanotubes whose inner dimensions are not much bigger than a few water molecule...

Engineers at MIT have fabricated transparent, hydrogel – gel-based robots that may one day assist in surgical operations

Posted on February 17, 2017 by

Engineers at MIT have fabricated transparent, gel-based robots that move when water is pumped in and out of them. The bots can perform a number of fast, forceful tasks, including kicking a ball underwater, and grabbing and releasing a live fish. The robots are made entirely of hydrogel — a tough, rubbery, nearly transparent material that’s composed mostly of water. Each robot is an assemblage of hollow, precisely designed hydrogel structures, connected to rubbery tubes. When the researchers p...

Stanford engineers create a low-cost battery made with urea

Posted on February 14, 2017 by

Stanford University researchers created an aluminum-ion battery that uses an electrolyte material made of urea, the main component of urine (after water). A battery made with urea, commonly found in fertilizers and mammal urine, could provide a low-cost way of storing energy produced through solar power or other forms of renewable energy for consumption during off hours. A battery developed in Stanford Professor Hongjie Dai’s lab could provide low-cost storage for solar energy. (Image credit...

Hanson Robotics has created the most expressive and engaging robot called ‘Professor Einstein’ that can teach you physics

Posted on February 12, 2017February 12, 2017 by

Hanson Robotics creates the most expressive and engaging robots that build trusted relationships with people. Hanson Robotics has enchanted and captured the imagination of the world with uncannily humanlike robots endowed with remarkable expressiveness, aesthetics, and interactivity. https://youtu.be/kXVpqWhe2hc Professor Einstein rolls his eyes, sticks out his tongue, and can give a simple explanation of the theory of relativity. With his lifelike rubbery "skin" and bushy mustache, he ...

MIT researchers have developed ingestible electronic devices that can harness stomach acid to power it and could monitor physiological conditions or deliver drugs

Posted on February 11, 2017February 11, 2017 by

Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed and demonstrated a small voltaic cell that is sustained by the acidic fluids in the stomach. The system can generate enough power to run small sensors or drug delivery devices that can reside in the gastrointestinal tract for extended periods of time. This type of power could offer a safer and lower-cost alternative to the traditional batteries now used to power such devices, the researchers say. “We need to come up with ways to...

UC San Diego Jacobs school of engineering has created nanoparticle-based device that can absorb infrared light upto 98%

Posted on February 5, 2017 by

Transparent window coatings that keep buildings and cars cool on sunny days. Devices that could more than triple solar cell efficiency. Thin, lightweight shields that block thermal detection. These are potential applications for a thin, flexible, light-absorbing material developed by engineers at the University of California San Diego. The material, called a near-perfect broadband absorber, absorbs more than 87 percent of near-infrared light (1,200 to 2,200 nanometer wavelengths), with 98 per...

Scientists at MIT have developed a new material that can temporarily protect and tighten skin, and smooth wrinkles.

Posted on February 4, 2017 by

Scientists at MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital, Living Proof, and Olivo Labs have developed a new material that can temporarily protect and tighten skin, and smooth wrinkles. With further development, it could also be used to deliver drugs to help treat skin conditions such as eczema and other types of dermatitis. The material, a silicone-based polymer that could be applied on the skin as a thin, imperceptible coating, mimics the mechanical and elastic properties of healthy, youthful skin....

Fadel Adib and his team at ‘MIT Signal Kinetics’ research group is working to build smart environments to monitor our vital signs remotely, without instrumenting our bodies.

Posted on February 1, 2017 by

Today’s health sensors (which monitor breathing, heartbeats, steps, etc.) require their users to wear them on their bodies. In contrast, our technologies can monitor human health without requiring the user to wear any device on his/her body. To do so, MIT Signal Kinetics research group captured and analyzed wireless signals reflected off the human body; then use these reflected signals to extract breathing and heartbeats without any physical contact with the human body. Team is currently explori...

iPhone app that allow you to take a picture of a page in a book and then it reads it to you

Posted on January 31, 2017January 31, 2017 by

'SayText' reads aloud the text in the image. It is intended for visually impaired users. SayText is a free spin off product from the DocScanner team. Place the iPhone center of a document and double-tap the “Take picture” -button Slowly elevate the iPhone upwards from the document, until the whole document is in picture. A beep sound indicates, that the document has been detected. The camera will shoot automatically when focused While the OCR is running, tap the screen to hear the...

Amazon’s ‘Echo’ Virtual Assistant Has Many New ‘Skills’ to Voice Control All Walks Of Your Daily Life

Posted on January 29, 2017January 29, 2017 by

Amazon's 'Echo' is a hands-free Virtual Assistant with speaker that you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, provide information, news, sports... Amazon Echo (known in-development as Doppler or Project D and shortened and referred to as Echo) is a smart speaker developed by Amazon.com. The device consists of a 9.25-inch (23.5 cm) tall cylinder speaker with a seven-piece microphone array. The device connects to the voice-controlled intelligent person...

‘SensorTile’ is a sensing and connectivity hub ideal for developing products such as wearables, gaming accessories, smart-home and IoT devices.

Posted on January 25, 2017 by

'SensorTile' is a sensing and connectivity hub ideal for developing products such as wearables, gaming accessories, smart-home and IoT devices. It has small sensor board with MEMS accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, pressure sensor, and a MEMS microphone STMicroelectronics’ 13.5mm x 13.5mm 'SensorTile' is currently the smallest turnkey sensor board of its type, containing a MEMS accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, pressure sensor, and a MEMS microphone. With the on-board low-power ST...

Graphene may be the new “miracle material” of the 21st century

Posted on January 23, 2017 by

Superconductivity is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic flux fields occurring in certain materials when cooled below a characteristic critical temperature. Electrical resistance in metals arises because electrons propagating through the solid are scattered due to deviations from perfect translational symmetry. These are produced either by impurities (giving rise to a temperature independent contribution to the resistance) or the phonons - lattice vibr...

University of Tokyo research findings will help thermal conduction and insulators. Study suggest trajectory of an electron passing through a magnetic field is bent.

Posted on January 23, 2017January 23, 2017 by

A research group at the University of Tokyo and their collaborators have observed a phenomenon similar to the Hall effect—found only in electricity-conducting metal—in a spin liquid state, which, as an insulator, does not carry electricity. This groundbreaking discovery presents a new research method for studying spin liquid states, which are shrouded in mystery. A trajectory of an electron passing through a magnetic field is bent by what is known as the Lorentz force—the force exerted on the...

IBM’s Watson supercomputer will soon be the new smart doctor on the block

Posted on January 20, 2017 by

IBM's Watson correctly diagnosed a patient after doctors failed. It turns out the world’s smartest supercomputer is a pretty good doctor, too. Five years after dominating geniuses in its debut on Jeopardy!, IBM’s Watson is still putting human intelligence to shame. The artificial intelligence machine correctly diagnosed a 60-year-old woman’s rare form of leukemia within 10 minutes — a medical mystery that doctors had missed for months at the University of Tokyo. After treatment for a wo...

Trinity College Dublin – CRANN researchers develop new method of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen

Posted on January 18, 2017 by

Researchers at CRANN, Ireland’s leading Science Foundation Ireland funded nanoscience institute based at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), have developed a new method of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. The discovery will have significant impact in the worldwide race to cheaply and efficiently produce hydrogen gas, hailed as the clean energy source of the future. Professor Mike Lyons, a Principal Investigator at CRANN and TCD’s School of Chemistry and his team have developed new inexpens...

‘Creative Technologies’ is a new fast growing field that integrates creative arts and technology

Posted on January 14, 2017 by

The Creative Technologies Research Theme integrates creative arts and technology, creating a unique and dynamic combination in areas of multimedia, gaming, content and production. Creative Technologies researchers in Trinity look at technologies which are creative in themselves, including computer animation, computer graphics, and signal processing, while also carrying out research into how these technologies can be utilised in other wider research areas such as Education and Traini...

MIT Media Lab and Berklee’s Institute have started Open Music Initiative (OMI) to dramatically simplify the way music creators and rights owners are identified and compensated using blockchain-inspired open and interoperable digital rights management platform.

Posted on January 14, 2017 by

Berklee’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE) announced today a groundbreaking initiative called the Open Music Initiative (OMI) to dramatically simplify the way music creators and rights owners are identified and compensated—a thorny issue that has challenged the music industry and stifled creator incomes and industry revenues since the dawn of the digital era. The effort will combine BerkleeICE’s expertise in the music industry with the MIT Media Lab’s expertise in decentraliz...

China’s first human-like robot, Jia Jia can hold a conversation and make specific facial expressions when asked

Posted on January 12, 2017January 12, 2017 by

The University of Science and Technology of China has recently unveiled an eerily realisticrobot named Jia Jia Jia Jia’s prototype was unveiled by a team of its creators in Shanghai. Her inventors say the robot can hold a simple conversation and make specific facial expressions when asked. It is able to accurately answer a query about the day’s weather, hold basic conversations, and recognize the gender of her questioners. Engineers predict within a decade, artificially i...

‘Muse’ headband is your personal meditation assistant with real-time feedback

Posted on January 11, 2017 by

Muse is your personal meditation assistant. While you meditate, Muse measures whether your mind is calm or active, and translates that data into weather sounds. When you’re calm, you’ll hear peaceful weather sounds. When your mind wanders, the weather will intensify, guiding you back to a calm state. After each session, review your data, set goals, and build a deeply rewarding meditation practice that gets better every time. 'Muse' is the first tool in the world that gives you accurate, real-...

LEGO launched ‘Boost’, an easy to build and program ‘robot kit’ that can operate using iphone

Posted on January 10, 2017 by

LEGO Group announced LEGO® BOOST, a supercharged building and coding set that lets children bring their LEGO creations to life by adding movement, sound and personality. Lego Boost is a programmable set of motors to bring your bricked creations to life. LEGO® BOOST combines the endless play opportunities of a traditional LEGO set with an endless variety of movement and sound capabilities made possible through an easy-to-use, app-based coding environment. LEGO BOOST has been developed for chil...

‘SimforHealth’ offers an immersive, interactive and collaborative approach to the training of health professionals, in line with the ethical concept

Posted on January 9, 2017January 9, 2017 by

SimforHealth offers an immersive, interactive and collaborative approach to the training of health professionals, in line with the ethical concept. SimforHealth creates and markets customized solutions for digital simulation teaching, aimed at medical students and at health professionals in continuing education. SimforHealth helps with patient management via virtual consultations, which rely on a range of methods and technologies including 3D real-time simulators, serious games, virtual re...

Berkeley Lab Scientists Brew Jet Fuel in Lab

Posted on January 8, 2017 by

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have engineered a strain of bacteria that enables a “one-pot” method for producing advanced biofuels from a slurry of pre-treated plant material. The Escherichia coli (E. coli) is able to tolerate the liquid salt used to break apart plant biomass into sugary polymers. Because the salt solvent, known as ionic liquids, interferes with later stages in biofuels production, it needs to be removed be...

Apple’s White paper on ‘Understanding of 21st Century Skills and Classrooms needs’

Posted on December 31, 2016December 31, 2016 by

Understanding of 21st Century Skills and Outcomes Early in this century, leaders and visionaries in the business and education communities joined together to recommend the skills needed to enrich the lives of those living in the 21st century and to make them more successful in their work. Business leaders were especially outspoken in their call for a workforce well versed in 21st century skills. In a recent survey, business leaders were asked about the skills most needed for readiness for tod...

‘CubeSat’ micro satellite for students

Posted on December 28, 2016 by

A CubeSat (U-class spacecraft) is a type of miniaturized satellite for space research that is made up of multiples of 10×10×11.35 cm cubic units. California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and Stanford University developed the CubeSat specifications to promote and develop the skills necessary for the design, manufacture, and testing of small satellites intended for low Earth orbit (LEO) that perform a number of scientific research functions and explore new space technologies. CubeS...

Carnegie Mellon University has developed adaptive traffic lights using Artificial Intelligence for real-time traffic tracking and pattern recognition

Posted on December 26, 2016 by

About six years ago, Stephen Smith was stopped at a traffic light in East Liberty, driving home from Carnegie Mellon University. The robotics professor had been working over a tricky problem — how to make urban traffic flow more efficiently. Computer simulations showed his proposed system worked, but he needed a place to test it amidst aggressive drivers, slow buses and errant pedestrians. And then he saw it: At the traffic light, mounted on a pole, was a camera. Smith, 63, had no experien...

Nova Southeastern University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine create avatars in a virtual clinic to help diagnostic procedures

Posted on December 21, 2016 by 41629066

Medical students and researchers at Nova Southeastern University are stepping into the virtual world to better serve patients. Using Second Life®, students at Nova Southeastern University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine create avatars that fly into a virtual clinic where students can practice communication skills and diagnostic procedures on virtual world patients. The program allows students to practice in a relaxed environment where they are not afraid to make mistakes. Researchers at NSU...

MIT Media Lab Doc On “In the Matter of Promoting the Open Internet.”

Posted on December 20, 2016 by

This document is the response of members of the MIT Media Lab to NPRM 14-28, “In the Matter of Promoting the Open Internet.” We recognize that the Internet has become the platform for a great many innovations that have changed the face of society and industry. It has provided opportunity for people throughout the world to gain from unfettered access to information and, most important, to create a universal platform upon which advances in computing can propagate and impact the well-being of peopl...

MIT’s Study On – Tuning Social Networks to Gain the Wisdom of the Crowd

Posted on December 14, 2016 by

eToro OpenBook enables investors to view, follow and copy the network's top traders automatically. As we engage more with social networking sites, there is always the danger of a “group think” mentality–when people follow a group consensus rather than critically evaluate information; make decisions without guidance from the social network; or follow “gurus” who provide them with bad information. So how do we avoid these errors and maximize the “wisdom of the crowd”? Part of the answer may ...

MIT’s research on ‘glasses-free 3-D TV’ technology.

Posted on December 13, 2016 by

Currently, all 3D TV viewing available for consumers has to be done by wearing 3D glasses. However, there are technologies in various stages of development that can enable you to see a 3D image on a TV or other type of video display device without glasses. The main issue with regards to viewing 3D on a TV (or video projection screen) is that humans have two eyes, each separated by a couple of inches. This physical state is the reason we are able to see 3D in the real world as each eye sees a...

Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have new understanding of metastability clears path for next-generation materials

Posted on December 11, 2016 by

They say diamonds are forever, but diamonds in fact are a metastable form of carbon that will slowly but eventually transform into graphite, another form of carbon. Being able to design and synthesize other long-lived, thermodynamically metastable materials could be a potential gold mine for materials designers, but until now, scientists lacked a rational understanding of them. Now researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have published a ...