SciTech #ScienceSunday Digest - 32/2016.
SciTech #ScienceSunday Digest - 32/2016.
Permalink here: http://www.scitechdigest.net/2016/08/negative-poissons-ratio-ibm.html
Negative Poisson’s ratio, IBM lab on chip, IBM neuromorphic computing, Single pixel cameras, Magnetic atom chains, On-chip LIDAR, Code patching bots, Airship fixing bots, Resistant productive microbes, Novel electrical materials.
1. Materials with Negative Poisson’s Ratio
Materials with a positive Poisson’s ratio contract when stretched, but those with a negative ratio actually expand when stretched, and while rare metamaterials are being engineered to create materials that possess this property of expanding when stretched http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=44123.php. This review article digs into the negative Poisson’s ratio materials that already exist as well as laying out avenues for exploring ever better materials with beneficial mechanical properties such as shear resistance, indentation resistance, and fracture toughness. I’d even just like to play with a strip of this stuff.
2. IBM’s Latest Lab on a Chip
IBM’s latest microfluidic lab on a chip devices are capable of size-based separation of biological particles down to 20nm, a scale that allows DNA, viruses, and cellular exosomes to be separated out http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/50275.wss. Working with researchers they are examining exosome communication and signalling between cells, and working with clinicians they are using the new capability in a similar way to diagnose cancer and other diseases. The architecture of the device allows variable particle separations under continuous flow and can actually split a mixture of many different particle sizes into a spread of defined particle streams, analogous to a prism splitting light. Meanwhile other microfluidic systems are replicating the connections between neurons and muscle fibers http://news.mit.edu/2016/replicating-connection-between-muscles-and-nerves-0803.
3. IBM’s Latest Neuromorphic Computing Device
IBM’s latest brain-like computing hardware has demonstrated chips that produce spiking neuromorphic features using phase-change materials to store and process data http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/50297.wss. IBM’s phase-change technology platform has already demonstrated novel memory techniques, but these new neuromorphic applications can perform data correlation detection and also unsupervised learning at high speed and low energy; updating these phase-change neurons requires just five picojoules. When will we start to see these things appearing in robots?
4. Single Pixel Camera Advances
The latest advance in computational photography using single-pixel cameras now enables single-pixel camera devices to not only produce human-like foveated images in which the center is captured in high-resolution and periphery in low-resolution, but can now also move this foveated region around to follow objects in the field of view https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602090/single-pixel-camera-reaches-milestone-mimicking-human-vision/. The system can produce two moveable foveated regions, works in visible and infrared, and might enable applications in terahertz imaging for which single pixel sensors are available and arrays are not, as well as allowing conventional trade-offs between resolution and framerate to be optimised on the fly for general imaging systems.
5. One Dimensional Magnetic Atom Chains
That’s a headline I didn’t expect to write this side of 2020. By combining a process of evaporating metals onto a surface with the controlled introduction of oxygen, one dimensional magnetic atom chains bordered by oxygen can now be created, and all via a process of self-assembly http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/onedimensional-magnetic-atom-chain-forged. Metals explored as part of the proof-of-concept include Mn, Fe, Co, & Ni. The atom chains cover the entire surface, space 0.8nm apart, and up to 500 atoms long without a single structural defect. In the new one dimensional state the different metal atoms exhibit altered magnetic properties including non-magnetic, ferromagnetic, & anti-ferromagnetic. Such structures may have applications in high-density data storage but the advance will be a boon to studying and controlling one dimensional systems in general.
6. On-Chip LIDAR Systems
Recent advances in developing on-chip LIDAR systems for 3D mapping and ranging local environments using conventional semiconductor fabrication techniques look set to produce complete LIDAR systems smaller than a dime at less than $10 per unit http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/optoelectronics/mit-lidar-on-a-chip. While not only being orders of magnitude smaller than conventional systems, and orders of magnitude cheaper, the devices have 1,000 times faster image scanning. There is a roadmap to boost field of view from 50 to 100 degrees, from 2m to 10m soon and 100m later in range, and further boosting resolution. These systems are going to be absolute game changers for autonomous vehicles, robots, drones, and our smart devices generally, massively boosting their ability to move about in the real world. Spectrum shared a big drone sporting big LIDAR system navigating a barn this week, as part of http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/drones/video-friday-drone-with-lidar-robot-tai-chi-strange-android.
7. Smarter Bots Fix Malicious Code
New machine learning approaches are able to search hacker marketplaces and other hidden parts of the Web to help find and identify zero day exploits and other critical software vulnerabilities in order to drastically improve the ability of organisations to fix broken code and distribute patches before they can be exploited https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602115/machine-learning-algorithm-combs-the-darknet-for-zero-day-exploits-and-finds-them/. In related news DARPA’s Grand Cyber Challenge continues to encourage the development of ever-better software systems able to quickly find and fix a range of different software bugs better than human teams can http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/security/autonomous-supercomputers-seek-and-destroy-software-bugs-in-darpa-cyber-grand-challenge.
8. Spider Bots Monitor Airships
Lockheed Martin has developed a SPIDER bot platform that involves groups of robots that move around and inspect the skin of an airship for tiny pinholes that are difficult for humans to detect, which can then be quickly patched and sealed to prevent the leakage of Helium http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/how-lockheed-martin-spider-blimp-fixing-robot-works. While this is a prototype autonomous inspection and repair system that should contribute to airship safety and cost reduction, the team hope that further development will allow such systems to function in-flight as needed in a range of conditions.
9. Resistant Productive Microbial Fermenters
To combat the problem of undesirable contaminant microbes growing in fermenters and bioreactors with productive microbes and so serving to decrease and contaminate yields, productive microbes are being engineered to be able to extract the vital growth nutrients nitrogen and phosphorous from unconventional xenobiotic compounds http://news.mit.edu/2016/microbial-engineering-technique-could-reduce-contamination-biofermentation-plants-0804. In some cases this involved the addition of six genes to provide the enzymatic processing network needed to extract nutrients from the xenobiotic compounds; contaminant microbes lacking these pathways are unable to use the nutrients and are massively outcompeted by the productive microbes.
10. Novel Electrical Materials
Some interesting new electrical materials and devices this week. First, nanoparticles of topological insulators appear to provide a platform for strong coupling between a single photon and a single electron that could be useful for photonics and optoelectronics in future http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_4-8-2016-11-5-15. Second, a layer of buckyballs proves important in creating tiny on-chip diodes that conduct electricity 1,000 times more effectively on one direction as opposed to the other http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2016/bes-2016-08-a/. Third, graphene appears to facilitate a novel property of electrons called pseudospin http://phys.org/news/2016-08-electrons-electronics.html. Finally, the ability to create and manipulate two-dimensional sheets of silicon, or silicene, for electronics applications takes a major step forward http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/breakthrough-in-silicene-production-promises-a-future-of-silicenebased-electronics.
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Permalink here: http://www.scitechdigest.net/2016/08/negative-poissons-ratio-ibm.html
Negative Poisson’s ratio, IBM lab on chip, IBM neuromorphic computing, Single pixel cameras, Magnetic atom chains, On-chip LIDAR, Code patching bots, Airship fixing bots, Resistant productive microbes, Novel electrical materials.
1. Materials with Negative Poisson’s Ratio
Materials with a positive Poisson’s ratio contract when stretched, but those with a negative ratio actually expand when stretched, and while rare metamaterials are being engineered to create materials that possess this property of expanding when stretched http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=44123.php. This review article digs into the negative Poisson’s ratio materials that already exist as well as laying out avenues for exploring ever better materials with beneficial mechanical properties such as shear resistance, indentation resistance, and fracture toughness. I’d even just like to play with a strip of this stuff.
2. IBM’s Latest Lab on a Chip
IBM’s latest microfluidic lab on a chip devices are capable of size-based separation of biological particles down to 20nm, a scale that allows DNA, viruses, and cellular exosomes to be separated out http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/50275.wss. Working with researchers they are examining exosome communication and signalling between cells, and working with clinicians they are using the new capability in a similar way to diagnose cancer and other diseases. The architecture of the device allows variable particle separations under continuous flow and can actually split a mixture of many different particle sizes into a spread of defined particle streams, analogous to a prism splitting light. Meanwhile other microfluidic systems are replicating the connections between neurons and muscle fibers http://news.mit.edu/2016/replicating-connection-between-muscles-and-nerves-0803.
3. IBM’s Latest Neuromorphic Computing Device
IBM’s latest brain-like computing hardware has demonstrated chips that produce spiking neuromorphic features using phase-change materials to store and process data http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/50297.wss. IBM’s phase-change technology platform has already demonstrated novel memory techniques, but these new neuromorphic applications can perform data correlation detection and also unsupervised learning at high speed and low energy; updating these phase-change neurons requires just five picojoules. When will we start to see these things appearing in robots?
4. Single Pixel Camera Advances
The latest advance in computational photography using single-pixel cameras now enables single-pixel camera devices to not only produce human-like foveated images in which the center is captured in high-resolution and periphery in low-resolution, but can now also move this foveated region around to follow objects in the field of view https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602090/single-pixel-camera-reaches-milestone-mimicking-human-vision/. The system can produce two moveable foveated regions, works in visible and infrared, and might enable applications in terahertz imaging for which single pixel sensors are available and arrays are not, as well as allowing conventional trade-offs between resolution and framerate to be optimised on the fly for general imaging systems.
5. One Dimensional Magnetic Atom Chains
That’s a headline I didn’t expect to write this side of 2020. By combining a process of evaporating metals onto a surface with the controlled introduction of oxygen, one dimensional magnetic atom chains bordered by oxygen can now be created, and all via a process of self-assembly http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/onedimensional-magnetic-atom-chain-forged. Metals explored as part of the proof-of-concept include Mn, Fe, Co, & Ni. The atom chains cover the entire surface, space 0.8nm apart, and up to 500 atoms long without a single structural defect. In the new one dimensional state the different metal atoms exhibit altered magnetic properties including non-magnetic, ferromagnetic, & anti-ferromagnetic. Such structures may have applications in high-density data storage but the advance will be a boon to studying and controlling one dimensional systems in general.
6. On-Chip LIDAR Systems
Recent advances in developing on-chip LIDAR systems for 3D mapping and ranging local environments using conventional semiconductor fabrication techniques look set to produce complete LIDAR systems smaller than a dime at less than $10 per unit http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/optoelectronics/mit-lidar-on-a-chip. While not only being orders of magnitude smaller than conventional systems, and orders of magnitude cheaper, the devices have 1,000 times faster image scanning. There is a roadmap to boost field of view from 50 to 100 degrees, from 2m to 10m soon and 100m later in range, and further boosting resolution. These systems are going to be absolute game changers for autonomous vehicles, robots, drones, and our smart devices generally, massively boosting their ability to move about in the real world. Spectrum shared a big drone sporting big LIDAR system navigating a barn this week, as part of http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/drones/video-friday-drone-with-lidar-robot-tai-chi-strange-android.
7. Smarter Bots Fix Malicious Code
New machine learning approaches are able to search hacker marketplaces and other hidden parts of the Web to help find and identify zero day exploits and other critical software vulnerabilities in order to drastically improve the ability of organisations to fix broken code and distribute patches before they can be exploited https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602115/machine-learning-algorithm-combs-the-darknet-for-zero-day-exploits-and-finds-them/. In related news DARPA’s Grand Cyber Challenge continues to encourage the development of ever-better software systems able to quickly find and fix a range of different software bugs better than human teams can http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/security/autonomous-supercomputers-seek-and-destroy-software-bugs-in-darpa-cyber-grand-challenge.
8. Spider Bots Monitor Airships
Lockheed Martin has developed a SPIDER bot platform that involves groups of robots that move around and inspect the skin of an airship for tiny pinholes that are difficult for humans to detect, which can then be quickly patched and sealed to prevent the leakage of Helium http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/how-lockheed-martin-spider-blimp-fixing-robot-works. While this is a prototype autonomous inspection and repair system that should contribute to airship safety and cost reduction, the team hope that further development will allow such systems to function in-flight as needed in a range of conditions.
9. Resistant Productive Microbial Fermenters
To combat the problem of undesirable contaminant microbes growing in fermenters and bioreactors with productive microbes and so serving to decrease and contaminate yields, productive microbes are being engineered to be able to extract the vital growth nutrients nitrogen and phosphorous from unconventional xenobiotic compounds http://news.mit.edu/2016/microbial-engineering-technique-could-reduce-contamination-biofermentation-plants-0804. In some cases this involved the addition of six genes to provide the enzymatic processing network needed to extract nutrients from the xenobiotic compounds; contaminant microbes lacking these pathways are unable to use the nutrients and are massively outcompeted by the productive microbes.
10. Novel Electrical Materials
Some interesting new electrical materials and devices this week. First, nanoparticles of topological insulators appear to provide a platform for strong coupling between a single photon and a single electron that could be useful for photonics and optoelectronics in future http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_4-8-2016-11-5-15. Second, a layer of buckyballs proves important in creating tiny on-chip diodes that conduct electricity 1,000 times more effectively on one direction as opposed to the other http://science.energy.gov/bes/highlights/2016/bes-2016-08-a/. Third, graphene appears to facilitate a novel property of electrons called pseudospin http://phys.org/news/2016-08-electrons-electronics.html. Finally, the ability to create and manipulate two-dimensional sheets of silicon, or silicene, for electronics applications takes a major step forward http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/breakthrough-in-silicene-production-promises-a-future-of-silicenebased-electronics.
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