Pulsars, glitches and superfluids
These neutron stars usually rotate with such precision that they are known as the best timekeepers in the universe, but every so often their rotation rate suddenly increases. It is thought that these ...
Glass floppy disks?
Aluminium alloys are widely used as a substrate in magnetic disks, but the demand for higher storage and faster access times require better materials. A replacement material would need to offer a thin...
Modelling electron orbits
In 1911 Niels Bohr used quantum theory to explain how negatively charged electrons could remain in certain orbits without radiating energy. Patent 5695344 describes an educational demonstrator that si...
Bone breakthrough
One of the holy grails of medicine is the production of a compound that help speeds up the regeneration of bone. Toshiyuki Ohnishi and Nobuhiro Moriyama, have patented a material they claim can do so....
Still moving images
When we walk across a room, our eyes automatically adjust to keep objects in focus. The eyeballs swivel in their sockets to compensate for the movement. Professional camera operators use a harness con...
Carbon-based electronics
In addition to being very strong and flexible, carbon nanotubes also have unusual electronic properties. Nanotubes are described by two numbers, conventionally m and n, and a specific nanotube can be ...
Battery boost
The growth in the use of mobile phones and portable computers is placing new demands on battery technology, but a new type of lithium battery could solve many of these problems
Replicating objects by laser light
One of the biggest changes in CAD design in the past five years is the creation of models direct from the CAD package using machine controlled tools. Recently, this design process took another leap fo...
Testing the water
The detection and monitoring of metals and organic compounds in water, is normally done by having an technician collect on-site field samples. These samples are then take back to a laboratory. Though ...
Collision course for fusion
They claim that the “colliding beam fusion reactor” is superior to the tokamak approach favoured by the international fusion community. The University of Florida/University of California-I...
