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Blog – Page 11505

3D printing has has a presence in the medical industry since the 1980s for modelling body parts that are otherwise untouchable without invasive surgery, but research into the potential of this technology is bringing clinicians closer to getting a good look up close at the real thing. Instead of scans, what about injecting a camera no bigger than a grain of salt into your patient?

A group of German researchers have been working on a complex lens system that is small enough to fit inside a syringe, and applications aren’t just limited to the medical industry. They have the potential to also be used in many products which need parts to be as small and light as possible, such as drones and smart phones.

syringe-camera-4

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With Singapore planning to 3D print public housing and the fascinating 3D Print Canal House in Amsterdam, the concept of 3D printed houses is hardly new. But as a result of a Freeform Home Design Challenge hosted by a Tennessee-based startup Branch Technology, the world will see its first freeform 3D printed house called ‘Curve Appeal’ by first half of 2017.

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Is quantum technology the future of the 21st century? On the occasion of the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, this is the key question to be explored today in a panel discussion with the Nobel Laureates Serge Haroche, Gerardus ‘t Hooft, William Phillips and David Wineland. In the following interview, Professor Rainer Blatt, internationally renowned quantum physicist, recipient of numerous honours, Council Member and Scientific Co-Chairman of the 66th Lindau Meeting, talks about what we can expect from the “second quantum revolution”.

Blatt has no doubt: are driving forward a technological revolution, the future impact of which is still unclear. Nothing stands in the way of these technologies becoming the engine of innovations in science, economics and society in the . Early laboratory prototypes have shown just how vast the potential of quantum technologies is. Specific applications are expected in the fields of metrology, computing and simulations. However, substantial funding is required to advance from the development stage.

Professor Blatt, the first quantum revolution laid the physical foundations for trailblazing developments such as computer chips, lasers, magnetic resonance imaging and modern communications technology. In the Quantum Manifest published in mid-May, researchers now talk about the advent of a second quantum revolution. What exactly does this mean?

This second quantum revolution, as it is sometimes called, takes advantage of the phenomenon of entanglement. It’s a natural phenomenon that basic researchers recognized as early as the 1930s. Until now, all the technologies you mentioned derive their utility from the wave property upon which quantum physics is based. In the quantum world, its associated phenomena are often discussed in the context of wave-particle duality. Though they are not recognized as such, quantum technologies are therefore already available, and without them, many of our instruments would not be possible. By contrast, the nature of entanglement, which has been known for 85 years, has only been experimentally investigated in the past four decades based on findings by John Bell in the 1960s. Today, entanglement forms the basis for many new potential applications such as quantum communications, quantum metrology and quantum computing.

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Q-Dot demand in Healthcare is predicted to be high.

http://embedded-computing.com/news/rising-quantum-dots-market/#

Quantum Dots Market is driven by increasing demand for energy efficient displays and lighting solutions, North America accounted for largest quantum dots market share, use of quantum dots in solar cells and VLSI design is expected to open new possibilities for quantum dots market.

Quantum dots are semiconducting nanoparticles that range from 1nm to 10nm diameter in size and demonstrate quantum mechanical properties. The peculiarity of quantum dots is that they have ability to unite their semiconductor properties with those of nanomaterials. In addition, tunable nanocrystal size and superior optical properties have made quantum dots attractive semiconducting material for variety of applications in the field of healthcare, optoelectronics, solar energy, and security among others.

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Technology can be awkward. Our pockets are weighed down with ever-larger smartphones that are a pain to pull out when we’re in a rush. And attempts to make our devices more easily accessible with smartwatches have so far fallen flat. But what if a part of your body could become your computer, with a screen on your arm and maybe even a direct link to your brain?

Artificial electronic skin (e-skin) could one day make this a possibility. Researchers are developing flexible, bendable and even stretchable electronic circuits that can be applied directly to the skin. As well as turning your skin into a touchscreen, this could also help replace feeling if you’ve suffered burns or problems with your nervous system.

The simplest version of this technology is essentially an electronic tattoo. In 2004, researchers in the US and Japan unveiled a pressure sensor circuit made from pre-stretched thinned silicon strips that could be applied to the forearm. But inorganic materials such as silicon are rigid and the skin is flexible and stretchy. So researchers are now looking to electronic circuits made from organic materials (usually special plastics or forms of carbon such as graphene that conduct electricity) as the basis of e-skin.

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Two interconnected brain areas — the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex — help us to know where we are and to remember it later. By studying these brain areas, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute have uncovered new information about how dysfunction of this circuit may contribute to memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease. Their results appear in Cell Reports.

“We created a new mouse model in which we showed that spatial memory decays when the entorhinal cortex is not functioning properly,” said co-corresponding author Dr. Joanna Jankowsky, associate professor of neuroscience at Baylor. “I think of the entorhinal area as a funnel. It takes information from other sensory cortices — the parts of the brain responsible for vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste — and funnels it into the . The hippocampus then binds this disparate information into a cohesive memory that can be reactivated in full by recalling only one part. But the hippocampus also plays a role in spatial navigation by telling us where we are in the world. These two functions converge in the same cells, and our study set out to examine this duality.”

The new mouse model was genetically engineered to carry a particular surface receptor on the cells of the entorhinal cortex. When this receptor was activated by administering the drug ivermectin to the mice, the cells of the entorhinal cortex silenced their activity. They stopped funnelling information to the hippocampus. This system allowed the scientists to turn off the entorhinal cortex, and to determine how this affected hippocampal function.

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Imagine a future full of electric cars where everyone’s a passenger. Where traffic is not only managed but controlled by a digital network. Where on-demand ride-sharing services have become the norm, and the only human drivers are emergency crews behind the wheel of super-fast vintage “antiques” tasked with taking down AI cars that have gone haywire.

Some of that sounds like the vision of today’s automakers, city planners, tech visionaries and the like, who all salivate at the thought of removing the human element from our roadways as much as possible. Recent developments in driverless technology are surprisingly close to the vision of autonomy portrayed in Kōsuke Fujishima’s 2000 Japanese anime series éX-Driver, which has even more to say about what could become our future in transportation.

éX-Driver follows the adventures of Lisa, Lorna, and their new teammate Sōichi as they wrangle autonomous vehicles that have run amok. These out-of-control “AI cars” endanger not only the helpless passengers inside, but other road users as well. Not looking forward to “autonomobiles”? This could be the perfect gig for you.

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