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Showing posts from February, 2015

Scanner By GE reveals Brains, Veins, Hearts and Blood

General Electric has revealed a new next generation body scanner dubbed as 'Revolution CT' that will give a Guts, Brains, Veins, Hearts and Bones of a body in a high definition.  Using this scanner, Doctors at Florida hospital get up close to bones, organs and veins, without making a single cut. The patients ride into the chamber of the scanner, dubbed as 'Revolution CT' where a fan-shaped beam of x rays passes down their bodies and a computer reconstructs a digital model of the body, slice-by-slice. The scanner can build an image of a heart in the time it takes for a single heartbeat, according to GE. To know more :  click on this link

Solar Cell Made Cheaply From Shrimp Shells

The materials chitin and chitosan found in the shells are abundant and significantly cheaper to produce than the expensive metals such as ruthenium, which is similar to platinum, that are currently used in making nanostructured solar-cells. Currently the efficiency of solar cells made with these biomass-derived materials is low but if it can be improved they could be placed in everything from wearable chargers for tablets, phones and smartwatches, to semi-transparent films over window. Researchers, from QMUL's School of Engineering and Materials Science, used a process known as hydrothermal carbonization to create the carbon quantum dots (CQDs) from the widely and cheaply available chemicals found in crustacean shells. They then coat standard zinc oxide nanorods with the CQDs to make the solar cells. Dr Joe Briscoe, one of the researchers on the project, said: "This could be a great new way to make these versatile, quick and easy to produce solar cells from readily ava

A New Vaccine That Can Block HIV

Researchers at various reserach institutes has been working and successful in finding out a dru that can work against HIV virus and immune against it. The drug has worked against doses of HIV that were higher than  transmitted between humans, and works for at least eight months after injection. A new drug led by the team of researchers at  Scripps Research Institute in the US, is found to be effective against doses of HIV-1, HIV-2 and SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) that have been extracted from humans - including what researchers consider to be the ‘hardest-to-stop’ variants. "Our compound is the broadest and most potent entry inhibitor described so far,” lead researcher Michael Farzan from the Scripps Institute said in a press release. "Unlike antibodies, which fail to neutralise a large fraction of HIV-1 strains, our protein has been effective against all strains tested, raising the possibility it could offer an effective HIV vaccine alternative.” HIV infect

Now Get Your 3-D Selfie

Addicted of taking selfies and love to share it with your friends, Now, a German company will take your selfies to a whole new level. For all selfie lovers, a German company is allowing people to get a 3D selfie - a detailed, four-inch figurine of their body - for a sum of $95. Making one of the selfies requires a lot of harware and software component: 54 DSLRs, 54 lenses, a complex 3-D modelling pipeline, a $80,000 full-color, and a room-size scanning booth. The Dusseldorf-based company DOOB 3D has four 3D scanning booths in different locations throughout the world. One is in Dusseldorf, one in Tokyo, another at Santa Monica Place in Los Angeles, and one in New York City's Chelsea Market. The company said they are set to add more US locations soon, 'Wired' reported. Each Doob-licator is fitted with DSLRs, arranged in nine columns of six cameras each. A customer steps in, strikes a pose, and the booth operator fires all the cameras at once. That creates a full-body s

Gold Nanotubes To Cure Cancer

Scientists has found out that Gold nanotubes can be used in fighting Cancer; internal nanoprobes for high-resolution imaging; drug delivery vehicles; and agents for destroying cancer cells. The article published in the journal, Advanced Functional Materials, details the first successful demonstration of the biomedical use of gold nanotubes in a mouse model of human cancer.  Dr Sunjie Ye, who is based in both the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Leeds Institute for Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at the University of Leeds, said:  “High recurrence rates of tumours after surgical removal remain a formidable challenge in cancer therapy. Chemo- or radiotherapy is often given following surgery to prevent this, but these treatments cause serious side effects. Gold nanotubes – that is, gold nanoparticles with tubular structures that resemble tiny drinking straws – have the potential to enhance the efficacy of these conventional treatments by integrating diagnosis and therapy

SkyCruiser : Flying Car Without Runway , A Car, Helicopter and Aeroplane

Flying Car has been a dream of many people for lot of years and many company are working on making it possible. Think about a flying Car which can take off without runaway. Now a Arizona based start-up called Krossblade Aerospace Systems is thinking of making it possible. Krossblade has come out a concept of a SkyCruiser that will act as a car, airplane and helicopter. Skycruiser is a 5-seat hybrid VTOL transformer plane with an ability to drive on road also. While the concept has been in developing mode, therefore company is coming out with a miniature unctioning prototype called 'SkyProwler'. VTOL, vertical take off and landing give it a power to take off from anywhere and land it anywhere. To fly it fast it has to be aerodynamically clean therefore it is made narrow, somewhat drop-shaped with only few things sticking out. Working: SkyCruiser in normal mode is pushed along by two 150 bhp electric motors in the tail, which is then switched to set of four rotors arm fro

70 Feet Tall Car Juggling Robot

Dan Granett, a former engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory has designed a giant robot, called BugJuggler which will juggle cars in a motoring shows to wow crowds. The BugJuggler at 70 ft will throw three VW bettle cars into the air and will catch them in mid-air using hydralic cylinder. A human sitting in the robots's head will  be controlling using haptic feedback interface, giving them full sensory feedback from the throwing and catching forces. It has a full budget of $2.3 million and is still in funding stage. These robots will impress the audience and will add thrill in the party. BugJuggler                                      

New Natural Material Even Stronger Than Spider Silk

Many of us have been fascinated by the strength of Spider webs as it has thought as the strongest natural material on the Earth. Spider silk has a tensile strength same as that of a high-grade steel alloy and strongest than most of the metals and alloys with only the density of one-sixths of the steel. While now scientist has discovered a new 'strongest natural materials' which is the teeth of   Limpet , a type marine animal. Asa Barber, from the School of Engineering at Portsmouth University in the UK, said " Until now, we thought that spider silk was the strongest biological material because of its super-strength and potential applications in everything from bullet-proof vests to computer electronics. But now we have discovered that limpet teeth exhibit a strength that is potentially higher'. While examining teeth of the Limpet to the atomic structure, the team found a super-hard, iron-bearing hydroxide mineral called goethite in the tooth structures. Researche

Future Manufacturing Through Nanoshaping

– A new method that creates large-area patterns of three-dimensional nanoshapes from metal sheets represents a potential manufacturing system to inexpensively mass produce innovations such as "plasmonic metamaterials" for advanced technologies. The metamaterials have engineered surfaces that contain features, patterns or elements on the scale of nanometers that enable unprecedented control of light and could bring innovations such as high-speed electronics, advanced sensors and solar cells. The new method, called laser shock imprinting, creates shapes out of the crystalline forms of metals, potentially giving them ideal mechanical and optical properties using a bench-top system capable of mass producing the shapes inexpensively. The shapes researchers created include nanopyramids, gears, bars, grooves and a fishnet pattern, and are too small to be seen without specialized imaging instruments and are thousands of times thinner than the width of a human hair. The re

New Nano-Manufacturing Makes Steel 10 Times Stronger

The Seattle-based Startup has developed a process called Modumetal  that can increase the strength of metals like steel ten times, and will make it more resistant to corrosion. The process is really inexpensive and if the modified metal can pass field testing, it will find it uses in many applications like building bridges and other infrastructure last longer, and making light weight and fuel efficient cars and plane. The company has been in  collaboration with oil companies like Chevron, Conoco-Philips, and Hess. The parts has been tested in some oil fields. Hydrogen Sulphide, found in some Oil is very corrosive and damage production equipment, but with the help of this new technology those parts may last longer and thus will reduce the cost of oiling. Modumetal is based on the fact of controlling the materials at a nanoscale that can change the properties of a materials. CEO Christina Lomasney has said that hte process costs same as that for a galvanization. It is just a advanced

NASA Released A Time-Lapse Video of Sun Taken By SDO

NASA on Wednesday celebrated the fifth anniversary of their Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and thus released a incredible time-lapse video showing the amazing changing surfaces of Sun from June 2010 to February 2015 of a period of 5 years. These three minute video will show you the various activities happening in the Sun like  dancing giant loops, hovering in the Corona and solar flares hurled into space, energy and X-rays. In this video, Sun is shown changing colour which is caused by the different wavelength emerging from the Sun.  The splendid video was created by capturing the image of Sun every 8 hours for a time period of 5 years and presenting in a time-lapse. Time lapse video created by NASA by the image captured by SDO in 5 year period.

Needle Free Way To Find Glucose Levels Using Temporary Tattoo

At the  University of California, San Diego;  Nanoengineers have tested a temporary tattoo that both extracts and measures the level of glucose in the fluid in between skin cells. This first-ever example of the flexible, easy-to-wear device could be a promising step forward in noninvasive glucose testing for patients with diabetes. The sensor was developed and tested by graduate student Amay Bandodkar and colleagues in Professor Joseph Wang’s laboratory at the NanoEngineering Department and the Center for Wearable Sensors at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. Bandodkar said this “proof-of-concept” tattoo could pave the way for the Center to explore other uses of the device, such as detecting other important metabolites in the body or delivering medicines through the skin. The research team is also working on ways to make the tattoo last longer while keeping its overall cost down, he noted. “Presently the tattoo sensor can easily survive for a day. These are extremely i

Telescopic Contact Lens For Visually Impaired People

See far distance just by winking your eyes. A team of engineers have designed a telescopic contact lens that can switch between normal and magnefied vision.  The Researchers at  San Jose, California has built a prototype pf lens that could one day help people with visual impairment  to see. The lenses might be particularly useful with age-related macular degeneration, a debilitating condition in which people gradually lose their central vision. It is the leading cause of visual impairment and affect millions worldwide. The contact lens developed by Ford’s team is one millimeter thick. Researchers used aluminum mirrors, fit tightly together, to create a ring-shaped telescope embedded in the contact lens. The center of the lens allows for normal, non-magnified vision.  Its periphery, where the telescope is located, magnifies images 2.8 times. Switching between normal and magnefied vision Without the glasses, the contact lenses superimpose both normal and magnified images. With

Reusable Spaceplane launched by ESA

Reusable space vehicle is the future of space travel . Lots of space organisation around the world like NASA of USA, SPACE-X, ESA, ISRO and lot more are working to built and upgrade the spaceplane that can be used multiple times. European Space Agency has built his own reusable spaceplane called IXV that can be used multiple times.  On 11 February, 2015 the IXV has completed a 100-minute mission. IXV has been launched from the Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guinea. After reaching at a altitude of  211 miles from the Earth surface, IXV got separated from the Vega rocket and continued upward to 256 miles into the thermosphere. It then fell back to Earth reentering atmosphere at a altitude of 74.6 miles and a speed of 4.7 miles per second. The 300 sensors abroad the IXV recorded valuable data that the ESA will use to guide further future vehicles design. Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle or IXV is a spaceplane by European Space Agency launched abroad a Vega rocket. The spac

New Radar can see Stealth Plane

At the University of Rochester, New York State, Mehul Malik and his colleagues has developed a new radar systems that uses the Quantum properties of photons to create an unjammable radar signal. This radar technology will able to see the stealth plane in air and can locate it. Stealth plane uses the technology that jams the radar signal, like drowning the radar frequency with noise or dropping chaff to create a false reflection. Unlike conventional radar systems, the quantum radar can't be fooled. It works on the principle that any jamming system must modify the radar's polarised photon signal at a quantum level in order to generate a false image, with that alteration identifiable by sensors. If the target aircraft is incapable of jamming the quantum radar's signal, then a true image of it is received by the radar sensors, with invalidity confirmed by the low number of statistical errors in the photon's quantum properties. Working a quantum radar In the first

Reducing pollution using 'parasitic' drone

Pollution in China is at its worst, so the team of designers at Hong Kong has come with a incredible idea to filter air in the big cities like Hong Kong. Designers have built a winged 'parasitic' drone that come out at night, suck pollution and capture energy from the neon light and use the energy to grow a forests of small air-purifying plants at their back. The drone will suck carbon-dioxide through a carbon-adsorbant polymer paint and will use the heat from the neon to heat up the polymer to a temperature that would release the CO2. The CO2 will be used to help the air purifying plants grow at the back of the robot wings which will act as miniature farm. The design has been named as a NAS-DRA. They will be producing a new source of renewable energy. At the daytime , they will perch on building, with their wings open so that the carbon absorbing polymer paint can suck up carbon dioxide. The organic waste generated from these plants could be then converted into biogas, an

Scramjet engine – making hypersonic travel possile

Hypersonic  travel seems to be impossible now a days, but it be possible after 10-15 years from now on. Scramjet (supersonic combusting ramjet) is similar to Ramjet except in this combustion takes place in supersonic airflow. Unlike the Ramjet, in which air was decelerated at subsonic velocity to be combusted; Scramjet combusts the air in supersonic speed which give Scramjet very high speed, in the range of MACH 12(14000 km/hr) to MACH 24(25000 km/hr). Working of a Scramjet engine Scramjet like any other jet engine , uses fuel and oxidiser to protect thrust. The design of Scramjet consists of a converging inlet, in which incoming air is compressed using high pressure in front of it; a combustor ; and a diverging nozzle to produce accelerated thrust. Scramjet like Ramjet does not use any rotating parts, therefore it require high kinetic energy of hypersonic flow to compress the incoming air ; and must be accelerated to high velocity, like Mach 4. Due to supersonic flow of air, f

Chandra X-ray Observatory

United Nations has declared the year 2015 as the International Year of  Light. Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched by NASA on July 23, 1999 to study the stars and galaxies in the universe. It was previously known as Advanced X-ray Astrophysics facility but later changed in honor of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. It was specially designed to detect X-ray emission from very hot regions of the Universe such as exploded stars, clusters of galaxies, and matter around black holes.   Top games Chandra X-ray Observatory study the X-ray sources coming from far away galaxy which do not enter the Earth atmosphere. By using the X-rays images from the Chandra observatory, scientists understand the structure and evolution of the universe. X-ray telescope uses a Wolter telescope consisting of nested cylindrical paraboloid and hyperboloid surfaces coated with gold and iridium, as X-rays would be absorbed by normal mirrors. Chandra is one of the farthest satellite in the Earth orbit. Chand

Ramjet engine and how its works

Ever thought of travelling at a speed of more than 7000 km/hr . Flying at supersonic and hypersonic speed is need of the present world and the dream that every aeronautical engineers want to be true. But now, hypersonic and supersonic travel is not a dream but a reality. With the use of Ramjet and Scramjet engine hypersonic travel are possible. Ramjet and Scramjet works on a same principle with similar design, differing only on the method of combustion of air. Ramjet slow the air to subsonic flow before combusting  while Scramjet combust it at supersonic flow. Also referred to as flying stovepipe, Ramjet engine can operate upto speed of MACH 6 (7350 km/hr). Ramjet engine is different from the turbojet engine as it compresses air without using a rotary compressor. Ramjet are used in missiles, artillery shells, supersonic aircraft that require a small and simple mechanism to acquire high speed.  Ramjet has a disadvantage that it cannot work on a low velocity means that it canno

Compact Fusion Reactor in the size of a truck

Think about a truck supplying the energy demand of a whole city. Well it seems to be the thing of the future and definitely of not this century. But Lockheed Martin is working on building a truck size nuclear fusion reactor that will ready before next 10 years. The reactor which will be small enough to fit on the truck will be able to power the city of 100,000 people.It will revolutionize the Earth energy requirement and production. The reactor will fuse two hydrogen atoms into a single helium atoms, releasing a energy ten times than the regular nuclear reactor. Fusion will offer a cleaner, safer source of energy. It will use a "magnetic bottle" to contain the hundreds of million of degreed created by the nuclear fusion  reactor. It will be useful in spacecraft to mars, and power generation in aircraft carrier and large ship, and also in puring large quantites of water. It can provide plane will unlimited range. To know more about this topic, clink on the link below:

Eradicating Guinea worm disease from the world

Read a interesting news today that humans are wiping away the second disease from the face of this planet. There are only 126 cases of Guinea worm left in this world after which Guinea worm will be completely eradicated from the Earth. The first disease that was wiped out was small pox in 1977.     Guinea worm is caused by a Guinea worm parasite named as Dracunculiasis. It is very great leap for mankind. From 3.5 million cases in 1986, it has been reduced to only 126 cases in only four African countries. 

Lowest Temperature ever recorded

We have been taught that the lowest temperature that can ever reach in this whole Universe is 0 K, which is equal to -273.15 celsius.  In Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) lab i 2003, the lowest temperature that scientists and researcher recorded was 0.45 nanokelvin. It  is the lowest temperature ever recorded by mankind in which a cloud of Sodium atoms was cooled to the lowest extent possible. The temperature was less than half one-billionth of a degree kelvin above absolute temperature.

Weightless experiencing Aircraft

When as kids most of us would have wanted to be an astronaut and dreamed of doing all that cool stuff that a astronauts got a chance to do. One of the coolest things that everyone want to do is float in no gravityand experience weightlessness like we see in movies, videos and photos.Well for doing all these stuff we do not need to go to NASA and be a astronaut, but we can do it by remaining inside the Earth orbit. NASA has a special plane that provide the experience of weightlessness. ZERO G Corporation is a American company that will give you weightlessness experience at a sum of about $5000(Rs 4lakh approx).  In order to train astronauts,conducting research and for shooting space movies depicting gravity free , NASA uses a reduced gravity aircraft that provides brief weightless environment in which people can float like they do in space. The aircraft has been nicknamed as "vomit comet". The aircraft do it by following an elliptic path relative to the centre of Earth. Whi

Agni-5 successful launched from canister.

India has again successfully launched a 5000 km range Agni-5 missile from a mobile launcher. Agni-5 can carry a payload of upto 1.3 ton nuclear warhead and can strike it target 5000 km in just 20 minutes. Agni-5 is a three stage missile and this time it was launched from a canister mounted on a truck at Wheeler Island off Odisha coast. Agni-5 weigh 50 tonnes and cost 10 million $ or 50 crores rupees. The canister launch will give Indian army a great flexibility and strength. It is 17 metres long and 2 m wide. The very accuracy Ring Laser Gyro based Inertial Navigation System (INS) and the most modern and accurate Micro Navigation System (MNS) has ensured the missile reach the target point within few metres of accuracy.