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Issue no. 32, 2006 Published: Sep 22, 2006
'Sticky' silicon could speed data
Honda touts ethanol advance as huge potential
Google Earth links with UN for environment watch
Earth storms lead to space storms, scientists say
Researchers tap nature to create energy
Disc in the works would play both new DVD formats
Japan to trial inter-vehicle messaging system
Projector size of sugar cube made
US researchers build paper-thin plastic battery
Listening for breaking bones
Ancient Greeks invented 'quantum dot' dye

'Sticky' silicon could speed data
Intel researchers have solved a manufacturing problem that has delayed the creation of devices that can both generate and route light. The breakthrough could mean cheaper and higher speed computer networks and help to speed up the transfer of data inside computers. Silicon has been the mainstay of chip making for decades and its ability to move, amplify and detect light is well known. However, it is not very good at generating light. As a result high-speed continent-spanning networks often use components made from indium phosphide that possesses very good light generating properties. Now, the researchers have found an easy way to unite silicon and indium phosphide. The researchers discovered that the use during manufacturing of an oxygen plasma acts as a 'glass glue' that tightly bonds the two materials into one device. Applying a voltage makes the indium phosphide generate light which can then be manipulated by the silicon elements of the hybrid chip. The close mating of the two materials could mean that data can get on and off computer chips far more quickly. It should also mean much closer links between computers and data networks.
BBC News Sep 18, 2006	back to top

Honda touts ethanol advance as huge potential
Honda on Thursday announced it had developed a practical way to use discarded plant material to make abundant quantities of ethanol. Ethanol is a major source of motor fuel in Brazil and is gaining popularity in the US, but the renewable fuel is produced mainly from sugar cane and corn, raising the issue of balancing supply against the use of the crops as food. Honda and the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, a non-profit entity set up by the Japanese government and private enterprises, said the new method allows large volumes of ethanol to be produced from widely available waste wood, rice straw, leaves and other so-called soft biomass that is currently discarded. The resulting fuel has been called cellulosic ethanol, as opposed to ethanol from sugar cane and corn. Honda and RITE said they had overcome a major obstacle that limited how much ethanol could be made from cellulosic biomass. A micro organism developed by RITE helps reduce interference in the fermentation process, allowing for far more efficient ethanol production, the partners said.
MSNBC / Reuters Sep 14, 2006	back to top

Google Earth links with UN for environment watch
Google Earth has teamed up with the United Nations to allow users to monitor global environmental crisis zones. The website, which allows users to zoom in on any location on a satellite-based, colour, 3D depiction of the planet, will 'overlay' information from partners on to its geographical images. A tie-up with the United Nations Environmental Program will allow users to see images illustrating the world's most extreme areas of environmental degradation. It will offer 'before-and-after' imagery spanning the last 30 years of environmental disasters, including the deforestation of the Amazon. Separately, a partnership with Discovery Networks, owner of the Discovery Channel, will allow people to take a virtual world holiday tour. Other partners in the new programme - which Google is calling 'featured content' - include the National Park Service representing 58 US parks and wildlife centre the Jane Goodall Institute.
EJC Media News / Media Guardian Sep 15, 2006	back to top

Earth storms lead to space storms, scientists say
Thunderstorms on Earth can lead to storms in the outer reaches of the atmosphere that disrupt radio transmissions and other electronic communications, according to researchers at the University of California in Berkeley. The discovery could lead to more reliable GPS navigation and shortwave radio transmissions by improving forecasts of high-altitude disturbances that can disrupt them. Using data from NASA satellites, the researchers discovered that thunderstorms over South America, Africa and Southeast Asia can create turbulence in two bands of electrical gas that hover 400 km above the equator in the ionosphere. These plasma bands are far too thin to be directly affected by wind from thunderstorms, but researchers found that the wind can shape the plasma bands by generating electricity in the layer of atmosphere below them. Three of the densest sections of plasma were located directly above areas with frequent thunderstorms - the Amazon Basin in South America, the Congo Basin in Africa, and Indonesia. But researchers found another dense section of plasma above the Pacific Ocean, far from thunderstorm zones - evidence that tropical thunderstorms have a global influence. That may explain why the ionosphere above North America is more turbulent than other areas, disrupting radio transmissions that travel through it.
EJC Media News / Reuters Sep 14, 2006	back to top

Researchers tap nature to create energy
Scientists at the University of Michigan have unveiled a research project that aims to manufacture microscopic engines which can generate electricity using just water or heat. The engine was inspired by the way that ferns spread spores. When the cells in the outer wall of the fern sporangium were waterlogged, the sporangium remained closed like a fist, storing the spores safely inside. But when the water in the outer wall evaporated, it caused the sporangium to unfurl and eject the spores into the environment. The researchers examined some fern leaves under a microscope and found that, when exposed to light or heat which caused evaporation, the sporangia opened and released the spores. The method for making the material centres on coating a wafer with silicone and hitting it with light, causing a pattern. The residual pattern is lifted off and used for the device. It resembles a curved spine with equally spaced ribs fanning outwards from the spine. To make the device move, the researchers loaded the space between the ribs with water. When the water evaporates, the surface tension of the water pulls on the tips of the ribs so that the tips move toward each other, straightening out the spine of the device. The researchers plan to add electrical components to the device to generate electricity.
VNUnet UK Sep 19, 2006	back to top

Disc in the works would play both new DVD formats
A patent application has been filed by three Warner Bros. employees for a disc that would play two competing high-definition DVD formats, which, if successful, could help appease a battle that has divided Hollywood and confounded consumers. The 'multilayer dual optical disk' would have one layer of data in the standard CD or DVD format, a second layer able to play one high-capacity format and a third layer for the competing high-capacity format. Movies on a DVD are stored at different depths depending on the technology. Blu-ray discs store information only 0.1 millimetre from the surface while HD-DVD discs store it at 0.6 millimetres. By using reflective films, the inventors say their disc would enable the lasers to read the top layer and 'see through' to the lower one if necessary. Additional information also could be stored on the other side of the disc.
ZDNET / Reuters Sep 19, 2006	back to top

Japan to trial inter-vehicle messaging system
Japanese carmaker Nissan has announced plans to test an 'intelligent transportation system' that sends wireless messages to passing cars. The company said it plans to include 10,000 drivers in a 30-month experiment starting on 1 October 2006. Messages will be beamed optically from roadside beacons to passing cars in the trial. Information received by an onboard computer will then be used to alert a driver to potential danger from an approaching vehicle or inform them of traffic congestion ahead. The experiment will test several functions including a 'vehicle alert' which tells drivers that another vehicle is moving too fast at a blind intersection. When drivers are travelling above the speed limit a 'speed alert' will be issued. The system also includes 'dynamic route finder' which informs drivers of the quickest route to their destination using data collected from other vehicles. Drivers will be able to synchronise their cellphone with a car's navigation system in order to relay information about their journey to a central command system.
New Scientist Sep 15, 2006	back to top

Projector size of sugar cube made
A video projector that is the size of a sugar cube has been created by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. The miniature device could be used to project images from mobile phones, PDAs or laptops. Traditional projectors use arrays of millions of mirrors to display footage, but this petite prototype comprises a single tiny mirror. The width of the projector measures less than 16mm; its height and depth is 9mm. Inside, a laser is fired at a tiny vibrating mirror, which deflects the beam to produce the pixels that form the final image. Presently, the projector can only work with red and blue lasers, meaning any displays have a limited colour range. Green diode lasers are not yet small enough to allow the device the full range of colours. But the researchers said once laser technology has moved forward, their projector will offer a smaller, lighter and cheaper alternative to the classic system.
BBC News Sep 19, 2006	back to top

US researchers build paper-thin plastic battery
Researchers at Brown University in the US have created a prototype rechargeable battery that is as thin as a plastic transparency and as powerful as 100 alkaline batteries. The plastic battery has been described as a 'hybrid' that delivers the energy output of an electrical capacitor with the longevity of an alkaline battery. Traditional alkaline batteries use electrical current generated from a chemical reaction within the battery to generate a small amount of energy for a long period of time. Electric capacitors use a pair of oppositely charged plates to store a large amount of energy for a short period of time. The plastic battery allows for the power of a capacitor and the extended output of an alkaline battery. The key component is a chemical compound called polypyrrole which conducts electrical current. The researchers applied the polypyrrole to a pair of gold-coated plastic strips that were then given opposite charges and stuck together, separated by a thin membrane to prevent a short-circuit. The result is a super-thin plastic battery roughly 8.5 cm long that is rechargeable and extremely powerful.
VNUnet UK Sep 20, 2006	back to top

Listening for breaking bones
A technique used to pinpoint the origin of an earthquake could be adapted to warn of an impending injury to dancers, athletes and even racehorses. Just as earthquakes produce detectable seismic waves at the Earth's surface, the tiny cracks that appear in stressed bones emit ultrasound. So Ozan Akkus, a biomedical engineer at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, has built a wearable device that detects this telltale ultrasound and warns athletes before a series of small cracks turns into a full-blown fracture. X-rays can capture the hairline fractures that occur when tiny cracks in bones build up due to repeated stress, but not the cracks themselves. So athletes often do not stop exercising until it is too late. To see if he could detect the small cracks, Akkus applied stress to human cadaver bones and recorded the ultrasound waves using a piezoelectric sensor that converts bone vibration into an electrical signal. He found that the rate of high-frequency sound waves 'skyrockets' shortly before a fracture occurs.
New Scientist Sep 21, 2006	back to top

Ancient Greeks invented 'quantum dot' dye
Ancient Greek hairdressers could teach us a thing or two about nanotechnology. When hair is dyed using a lead-based dye popular 2000 years ago, crystals of lead sulphide just 5 nanometres across form within the microstructure of the hair fibres, according to a team at the French Museums' Research and Restoration Centre in Paris. A hair-like scaffold could be used to grow 'quantum dots' - tiny crystals which confine a handful of electrons in a way that makes it possible to exploit their quantum properties, such as spin, for use in emerging quantum computing systems. Existing methods for producing quantum dots create defects.
New Scientist / Nano Letters Sep 18, 2006	back to top