ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Prototype of lunar water-prospecting robot to search for water ice at moon's northern pole
• New interactive system detects touch and gestures on any surface
• Pioneer anomaly solved? Interstellar travelers of the future may be helped by physicist's calculations
• Most complex synthetic biology circuit yet: New sensor could be used to program cells to precisely monitor their environments
• 2010 Korea bomb 'tests' probably false alarms, says study
• Drawing a line, with carbon nanotubes: New low-cost, durable carbon nanotube sensors can be etched with mechanical pencils
• Topological superconductors: Seeking a robust home for qubits
• Glowing DNA invention points towards high speed disease detection
• Dead stars could be the future of spacecraft navigation
• Graphene membranes may lead to enhanced natural gas production, less CO2 pollution
• Computational model identifies potential pathways to improve plant oil production
• App protects Facebook users from hackers
• New tool for making genetic engineering of microbial circuits reliably predictable
• An operating system in the cloud: TransOS could displace conventional desktop operating systems
• Large water reservoirs at the dawn of stellar birth
• Solar cells made from black silicon
• Malaysian researchers create new durable wood-plastic composite material
• New way to determine amount of charge remaining in battery
• Robots using tools: Researchers aim to create 'MacGyver' robot
• Control any device -- from mobile phones to television sets -- with just a wave of your hand
• Nobel Prize in Physics 2012: Particle control in a quantum world

Prototype of lunar water-prospecting robot to search for water ice at moon's northern pole Posted: 09 Oct 2012 02:37 PM PDT A robotics technology company has completed assembly of a full-size prototype of Polaris, a solar-powered robot that will search for potentially rich deposits of water ice at the moon's poles. The first of its kind, Polaris can accommodate a drill to bore one meter into the lunar surface and can operate in lunar regions characterized by dark, long shadows and a sun that hugs the horizon.

New interactive system detects touch and gestures on any surface Posted: 09 Oct 2012 02:15 PM PDT People can let their fingers -- and hands -- do the talking with a new touch-activated system that projects onto walls and other surfaces and allows users to interact with their environment and each other. The system identifies the fingers of a person's hand while touching any plain surface. It also recognizes hand posture and gestures, revealing individual users by their unique traits.

Pioneer anomaly solved? Interstellar travelers of the future may be helped by physicist's calculations Posted: 09 Oct 2012 01:11 PM PDT Interstellar travel will depend upon extremely precise measurements of every factor involved in the mission. The knowledge of those factors may be improved by a researcher's solution, found to a puzzle that has stumped astrophysicists for decades.

Most complex synthetic biology circuit yet: New sensor could be used to program cells to precisely monitor their environments Posted: 09 Oct 2012 10:15 AM PDT Using genes as interchangeable parts, synthetic biologists design cellular circuits that can perform new functions, such as sensing environmental conditions. However, the complexity that can be achieved in such circuits has been limited by a critical bottleneck: the difficulty in assembling genetic components that don't interfere with each other. Unlike electronic circuits on a silicon chip, biological circuits inside a cell cannot be physically isolated from one another.

2010 Korea bomb 'tests' probably false alarms, says study Posted: 09 Oct 2012 09:17 AM PDT This spring, a Swedish scientist sparked international concern with a journal article saying that radioactive particles detected in 2010 showed North Korea had set off at least two small nuclear blasts -- possibly in experiments designed to boost yields of much larger bombs. Separate claims surfaced that intelligence agencies suspected the detonations were done in cooperation with Iran. Now, a new paper says the tests likely never took place -- or that if they did, they were too tiny to have any military significance.

Drawing a line, with carbon nanotubes: New low-cost, durable carbon nanotube sensors can be etched with mechanical pencils Posted: 09 Oct 2012 09:17 AM PDT Researchers have designed a new type of pencil lead in which graphite is replaced with a compressed powder of carbon nanotubes. The lead, which can be used with a regular mechanical pencil, can inscribe sensors on any paper surface.

Topological superconductors: Seeking a robust home for qubits Posted: 09 Oct 2012 09:17 AM PDT A new study, taking into account realistic conditions for the first time, shows that Majorana qubits are possible.

Glowing DNA invention points towards high speed disease detection Posted: 09 Oct 2012 09:17 AM PDT Many diseases, including cancers, leave genetic clues in the body just as criminals leave DNA at a crime scene. But tools to detect the DNA-like sickness clues known as miRNAs, tend to be slow and expensive. Now researchers have invented a DNA sensor, coupling genetic material to a luminous molecule which goes dark only in the presence of a specific target.

Dead stars could be the future of spacecraft navigation Posted: 09 Oct 2012 09:16 AM PDT Scientists are investigating the feasibility of using dead stars to navigate spacecraft in deep space. If feasible, this technique may in future revolutionize the way spacecraft navigate in the outer Solar System and beyond.

Graphene membranes may lead to enhanced natural gas production, less CO2 pollution Posted: 09 Oct 2012 08:24 AM PDT Engineering researchers have produced the first experimental results showing that atomically thin graphene membranes with tiny pores can effectively and efficiently separate gas molecules through size-selective sieving.

Computational model identifies potential pathways to improve plant oil production Posted: 09 Oct 2012 08:24 AM PDT Using a computational model they designed to incorporate detailed information about plants' interconnected metabolic processes, scientists have identified key pathways that appear to "favor" the production of either oils or proteins. The research may point the way to new strategies to tip the balance and increase plant oil production.

App protects Facebook users from hackers Posted: 09 Oct 2012 08:24 AM PDT A new app to detect spam and malware posts on Facebook users' walls was found to be highly accurate, fast and efficient, new study suggests.

New tool for making genetic engineering of microbial circuits reliably predictable Posted: 09 Oct 2012 08:24 AM PDT Researchers have developed an adapator that makes the genetic engineering of microbial components substantially easier and more predictable.

An operating system in the cloud: TransOS could displace conventional desktop operating systems Posted: 09 Oct 2012 08:19 AM PDT A new cloud-based operating system for all kinds of computer is being developed.

Large water reservoirs at the dawn of stellar birth Posted: 09 Oct 2012 08:12 AM PDT The European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory has discovered enough water vapor to fill Earth's oceans more than 2000 times over, in a gas and dust cloud that is on the verge of collapsing into a new Sun-like star. Stars form within cold, dark clouds of gas and dust -- 'pre-stellar cores' -- that contain all the ingredients to make solar systems like our own.

Solar cells made from black silicon Posted: 09 Oct 2012 08:12 AM PDT Solar cells convert three-quarters of the energy contained in the Sun's spectrum into electricity -- yet the infrared spectrum is entirely lost in standard solar cells. In contrast, black silicon solar cells are specifically designed to absorb this part of the Sun's spectrum -- and researchers have recently succeeded in doubling their overall efficiency.

Malaysian researchers create new durable wood-plastic composite material Posted: 09 Oct 2012 08:10 AM PDT Researchers from the Universiti Teknologi MARA in Malaysia have created a new durable wood-plastic composite (WPC). Recent discoveries in the production of new materials have enabled researchers to develop new types of composite materials that perform better and are more durable.

New way to determine amount of charge remaining in battery Posted: 09 Oct 2012 07:21 AM PDT Researchers have developed a new technique that allows users to better determine the amount of charge remaining in a battery in real time. That's good news for electric vehicle drivers, since it gives them a better idea of when their car may run out of juice.

Robots using tools: Researchers aim to create 'MacGyver' robot Posted: 09 Oct 2012 07:13 AM PDT Robots are increasingly being used in place of humans to explore hazardous and difficult-to-access environments, but they aren't yet able to interact with their environments as well as humans. If today's most sophisticated robot was trapped in a burning room by a jammed door, it would probably not know how to locate and use objects in the room to climb over any debris, pry open the door, and escape the building. A research team hopes to change that by giving robots the ability to use objects in their environments to accomplish high-level tasks.

Control any device -- from mobile phones to television sets -- with just a wave of your hand Posted: 09 Oct 2012 06:30 AM PDT Forget the TV remote and the games controller, now you can control anything from your mobile phone to the television with just a wave of your hand. Researchers have developed a sensor the size of a wrist-watch which tracks the 3-D movement of the hand and allows the user to remotely control any device.

Nobel Prize in Physics 2012: Particle control in a quantum world Posted: 09 Oct 2012 04:36 AM PDT The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2012 has been awarded to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland "for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems." Haroche and Wineland have independently invented and developed methods for measuring and manipulating individual particles while preserving their quantum-mechanical nature, in ways that were previously thought unattainable.

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