Category Technology/Electronics

UCI professor of neurobiology & behavior Craig Stark, here holding a 3-D-printed model of his own hippocampus, says that “video games may be a nice, viable route” to maintaining cognitive health. Credit: Steve Zylius / UCI

Results suggest novel approaches to maintaining cognition as we age. Along with adding to the trove of research that shows these games can improve eye-hand coordination and reaction time, this finding shows the potential for novel virtual approaches to helping people who lose memory as they age or suffer from dementia.

METHOD: Before and after the 2wk period, the students took memory tests that engaged the brain’s hippocampus, associated with complex learning and memory. They were given a series of pictures of everyday objects to study...

Illustration depicting biocell attached to CMOS integrated circuit with membrane containing sodium-potassium pumps in pore. Credit: Trevor Finney and Jared Roseman/Columbia Engineering

System combines biological ion channels with solid-state transistors to create a new kind of electronics. Researchers have, for the first time, harnessed the molecular machinery of living systems to power an integrated circuit from ATP, energy currency of life. They integrated a conventional solid-state complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit with an artificial lipid bilayer membrane with ATP-powered ion pumps, opening the door to creating entirely new artificial systems that contain both biological and solid-state components.

“We are excited at the prospect of expanding the palette...

By evaporating indium gallium arsenide onto a gallium arsenide substrate TUM physicists created nanometer-scale hills, so-called quantum dots. An electron trapped in one of these quantum dots can be used to store information. Hitherto unknown memory loss mechanisms could be switched off by applying a magnetic field. Credit: Fabian Flassig / TUM

Magnetic field helps qubit electrons store information longer. Physicists have tracked down semiconductor nanostructure mechanisms that can result in the loss of stored information – and halted the amnesia using an external magnetic field. The new nanostructures comprise common semiconductor materials compatible with standard manufacturing processes.

In principle, there are various possibilities of implementing qubits: photons are an option equally ...

A schematic of the new energy-storing thread. Credit: Image courtesy of Brunel University

Industrial design researchers have solved two of the major challenges which prevent everyday items of clothing being turned into power sources for smartphones, tablets and other personal tech. Technology to produce supercapacitor thread capable of being made into cloth has been around for some time. But until now scientists have been unable to make it provide sufficient voltage for most devices or devise a method to produce it economically outside the lab.

Now patented breakthroughs made by colleagues Professors David Harrison and John Fyson, Dr Yanmeng Xu, Dr Fulian Qiu and Ruirong Zhang of Brunel’s Department of Design mean thread capable of storing and supplying enough power for common devices and ...