"Engineers from Oxford University have used the principles of origami to create the first rigid, flat-folding shopping bag with a rectangular base.
The project started off as a mathematical curiosity for Dr Zhong You, a lecturer at Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science, but it may have important implications for the packaging industry."
Origami principles lead to rigid, flat-folding shopping bag | News | The Engineer
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Fernando Sanford and the "Kirlian effect"
My paper on Fernando Sanford and the Kirlian effect has been selected by
Look 'n' Watch
The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv this week
Look 'n' Watch
The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv this week
To use sound waves to measure temperature
"A sensor that uses sound waves to measure temperature could replace thermometers that lose accuracy in harsh environments such as nuclear power stations. Scientists at UK measurement institute the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) are using the long-established principle that sound travels faster through warm air to create a cheap and robust thermometer that doesn’t need recalibrating or replacing. They hope the device would be used to measure extremely high temperatures or in locations where it would be difficult to change the thermometer, such as in nuclear reactors."
'Memristor' could mimic brain neurons in future
"Computers that mimic the human brain in the way they process data have moved a step closer to reality thanks to new research from the US. Researchers at Hewlett Packard (HP) and California University in Santa Barbara have used highly focused X-rays to, for the first time, map out the nanoscale properties of a newly understood circuit element called a memory resistor or ‘memristor’. These have the ability to ‘remember’ how much electronic charge passes through them and one day may be able to act like synapses within electronic circuits, mimicking the complex network of neurons present in the brain."
Photosynthesis and the entanglement
"Recent studies have indeed suggested that electronic excitation transfer (EET) in photosynthesis benefits from quantum entanglement. ... To model the photosynthesis that occurs in plants, Briggs and Eisfeld study a collection of monomers, each possessing a single electronic state and coupled to its neighboring units by a dipolar interaction. The authors find that for dipolar interactions similar to those found in real molecular aggregates, the coherences in quantum transport (from the Schrödinger equation) are identical to those occurring in classical transport according to Newton’s equation."
Photosynthesis disentangled?
Monday, May 16, 2011
Graphite oxides boost supercapacitors
"Researchers in the US have discovered a new form of carbon produced by "activating" expanded graphite oxide. The material is full of tiny nanometre-sized pores and contains highly curved atom-thick walls throughout its 3D structure. The team has also found that the material performs exceptionally well as an electrode material for supercapacitors, allowing such energy-storage devices to be used in a wider range of applications."
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Makara
Museo Arte Orientale
Uttar Pradesh, II d.C.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makara_(mitologia_indiana)
Makara (Sanskrit: मकर) is a sea-creature in Hindu mythology. It is generally depicted as half animal (in the frontal part in animal forms of elephant or crocodile or stag, or deer) and in hind part as aquatic creature, in the tail part, as a fish tail or also as seal. Sometimes, even a peacock tail is depicted.
Makara is the vahana (vehicle) of the Ganga - the goddess of river Ganges (Ganga) and the sea god Varuna. ... Makara is the astrological sign of Capricorn, one of the twelve symbols of the Zodiac. It is often portrayed protecting entryways to Hindu and Buddhist temples. Read more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makara_(Hindu_mythology)
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Energy harvesting
A new device that collects and focuses light before converting it into a current of electrons has been developed by researchers at Rice University in the US. The nano-optical antenna and photodiode – the first device of its kind – could potentially be used in a variety of applications such as photosensing, energy harvesting and imaging.
Nano-antenna fashions charge from light - physicsworld.com
Boosting the thermoelectric performances
"Physicists in the US and China have boosted the performance of a common thermoelectric material by modifying its electronic band structure. The improvement was made by carefully adjusting the relative abundances of tellurium and selenium in a lead alloy. The result is a material with an all-time-high thermoelectric figure of merit of 1.8 – a result that could lead to new types of thermoelectric devices that can convert waste heat into useful electricity"
Polymers for neural implants
Polymers for Neural Implants
by Christina Hassler, Tim Boretius, Thomas Stieglitz
The paper is discussing neural implants, technical systems that restore sensory or motor functions after injury and modulate neural behavior in neuronal diseases. According to the abstract the interface between the nervous tissue and the technical material is the place that determines success or failure of the neural implant. Polymers are the most common material class for substrate and insulation materials in combination with metals for interconnection wires and electrode sites. The paper focuses on the neuro-technical interface and summarizes its fundamental specifications first. The most common polymer materials are presented and described in detail. An overview is proposed also, of the different applications and their specific designs with the accompanying manufacturing processes.
2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym
Sci Part B: Polym Phys 49: 18–33, 2011