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    Category Technology/Electronics

    NASA’s Opportunity Rover Mission on Mars Comes to End

    February 15, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    This infographic highlights NASA’s twin robot geologists, the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) Spirit and Opportunity.
    Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    One of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration, NASA’s Opportunity rover mission is at an end after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars and helping lay the groundwork for NASA’s return to the Red Planet.

    The Opportunity rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location in June 2018. After more than a thousand commands to restore contact, engineers in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) made their last attempt to revive Opportunity Tuesday, to no avail...

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    Laser-induced Graphene gets Tough, with help

    February 14, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Rice University scientists have combined laser-induced graphene with a variety of materials to make robust composites for a variety of applications.
    Credit: Tour Group/Rice University

    Laser-induced graphene (LIG), a flaky foam of the atom-thick carbon, has many interesting properties on its own but gains new powers as part of a composite. The labs of Rice University chemist James Tour and Christopher Arnusch, a professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, introduced a batch of LIG composites in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano that put the material’s capabilities into more robust packages.

    By infusing LIG with plastic, rubber, cement, wax or other materials, the labs made composites with a wide range of possible applications...

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    Gummy-like Robots that could Help Prevent Disease

    February 11, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    EPFL scientists have developed microscopic, hydrogel-based muscles that can manipulate and mechanically stimulate biological tissue. These soft, biocompatible robots could be used for targeted therapy and to help diagnose and prevent disease.
    Credit: Nebahat Yenihayat

    Scientists have developed microscopic, hydrogel-based muscles that can manipulate and mechanically stimulate biological tissue. These soft, biocompatible robots could be used for targeted therapy and to help diagnose and prevent disease. Human tissues experience a variety of mechanical stimuli that can affect their ability to carry out their physiological functions, such as protecting organs from injury...

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    Scientists find a Cheaper way to Light up OLED screens

    February 10, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Chemist Mark E. Thompson holds new copper-based LEDs invented by him and a team of chemists that could be a cheaper option for TV and smartphone screens to produce the color — including blue — and light. Right now, the industry relies on iridium, an expensive precious metal, for LED light and color.
    Credit: Mark E. Thompson, USC Dornsife

    USC Dornsife chemists have found a cheaper way to light up smartphone and TV screens, which could save manufacturers and consumers money without affecting visual quality. Copper is the answer, according to their study, published Feb. 8 in the journal Science.

    “The current technology that is in every Samsung Galaxy phone, high-end Apple iPhone and LG TV relies on iridium compounds for the colors and light on OLED screens,” says Mark E...

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