Category: reader

Superhydrophobia: Breakthroughs in Next-Level Waterproofing

Water might be good for our bodies, but it’s terrible for our stuff. Our smartphones, the walls in our home, the precious documents we’re carrying—water can ruin all of it. So when a material is created that can repel water so perfectly that whatever it covers essentially never gets wet, we take notice. This kind of material is called superhydrophobic. That means that water droplets remain in their spherical shape, sit on top of the material, and then roll off of it like pearls from a necklace. The droplets never really touch the material in the first place. Check out the photo below. The angle between the bottom of the droplet sphere and the surface will be more than 120 degrees. If it were 180 degrees the droplet would not touch the surface. There have been many variations of superhydrophobic materials and most involve embedding structures within the material that prevent the water from coming into contact. For instance in a recent study researchers from Brigham Young University used material that either had microscopic long ridges or posts (see photos below) that prevented the droplet from penetrating through the fibers. (more…)

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Superhydrophobia: Breakthroughs in Next-Level Waterproofing

This Supercooling Fridge Chills Food To Sub-Zero Without Freezing It

The current trend in fridge innovation involves adding extra doors, built-in soda dispensers, and pointless touchscreens. So it’s refreshing when a company like Mitsubishi brings a truly unique advancement to its new refrigerators in the form of a freezer drawer that chills food to three degrees below freezing , without actually freezing it. Read more…

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This Supercooling Fridge Chills Food To Sub-Zero Without Freezing It

Photonic crystals used to make optical RAM

This photonic lattice created at Sandia National Laboratories acts like a crystal in guiding light because of its tiny, regularly placed silicon “logs.” Japanese researchers have shown how to use photonic crystals like this as optical RAM. Sandia National Labs Most high-speed networking is done using optical fibers. The hardware on each end of these fibers has to convert the optical signals to electronic ones in order to figure out a packet’s destination and will often return it to optical form before sending it on toward its destination. Researchers at the Japanese telecom NTT find all that converting a bit wasteful and are working on ways to avoid it. They’ve recently published a paper that includes a description of a working 115-bit optical Random Access Memory device, made of a carefully structured series of photonic crystals, each of which can store light of a different wavelength. Photonic crystals are made of layered semiconductors, with the precise structure (the thickness and spacing of the layers) determining how they interact with light—it’s possible to make photonic crystals that selectively block or transmit a narrow frequency range. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Photonic crystals used to make optical RAM

A Simple Blast of Laser Could Help Your Teeth Grow Back

Teeth don’t grow back, as your dentist might like to remind you while revving up the drill for a root canal. But scientists have now found a way to regenerate dentin , the hard stuff in the middle of the tooth, right in the mouth. It’s surprisingly simple, too—all it takes is a blast of laser. Read more…

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A Simple Blast of Laser Could Help Your Teeth Grow Back

Apple Buys Beats Electronics For $3B

 Apple has indeed purchased Beats, which includes both Beats Audio hardware and Beats Music, the streaming radio service that was founded by rapper Dr. Dre and longtime music industry exec Jimmy Iovine. The deal was reported to be in the works earlier this month, and was said to be worth an estimated $3.2 billion at the time, thought a recent New York Post report said it was cut to $3 billion… Read More

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Apple Buys Beats Electronics For $3B

It Only Takes One Bozo To Kill Your Cloud Data

Think all your data is safe and sound in The Cloud? Maybe you shouldn’t be so sure. Yesterday, a system administrator at a cloud service data center accidentally rebooted every single server at once by accident . It’s a handy reminder that you’re only one idiot away from total data annihilation. Read more…

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It Only Takes One Bozo To Kill Your Cloud Data

Google’s Self-Driving Car Just Got Slightly More Real

They could have done worse : as of yesterday afternoon, the Google Self-Driving Car Project has made a concerted push into the public eye with the unveiling of a pod-like prototype vehicle and a few new videos about what they’ve been up to lately. It’s a stripped-down electric two-seater—no steering wheel or pedals to speak of—that tops out at 25mph and is strictly intended for demonstration and pilot purposes, as seen in the video below: This is not by any means a production vehicle—they’re making “about a hundred” of them for now—so I’ll leave it to our dear readers to provide feedback on the styling (it’s on our discussion boards as of 8:26am this morning). All I can say is, open those doors up and I dare you not to picture a cutesy cartoon koala. An early rendering of the prototype Some talking points, regarding how they are presenting the self-driving car and what they’ve disclosed about the project in the videos they’ve released thus far (embedded below): (more…)

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Google’s Self-Driving Car Just Got Slightly More Real

Levar Burton Enlists the Internet To Help Resurrect Reading Rainbow

You loved Reading Rainbow as a kid. Everyone did! But since the show went off the air in 2006, your ol’ pal Levar Burton’s now trying to bring it back via the internet. He just needs a little Kickstarter help to do it. Read more…

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Levar Burton Enlists the Internet To Help Resurrect Reading Rainbow

Of all the Chinese cemeteries in Calcutta’s Old Chinatown, Choong Ye Thong Cemetery is almost certai

Of all the Chinese cemeteries in Calcutta’s Old Chinatown, Choong Ye Thong Cemetery is almost certainly the largest and most well-maintained. The graves here are horse shoe-shaped, which (according to Chinese Feng Shui culture) is the most conducive to conserving energy. [ Rangan Datta ] Read more…

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Of all the Chinese cemeteries in Calcutta’s Old Chinatown, Choong Ye Thong Cemetery is almost certai