News by Subject Technology & Engineering

In Current Biology, Medical University of South Carolina researchers report the results of a study using artificial intelligence and human brain studies to compare brain areas involved in mental imagery and vision. Their findings suggest that mental imagery and vision are similar, but that low-level visual areas are activated in a less precise manner with mental imagery. This suggests that the brain is more tuned and sensitive to what it sees than what it imagines.

NASA's Aqua satellite revealed better organization and colder cloud top temperatures in Tropical Storm Cristina, indications that the storm was strengthening.

NASA used satellite data to create an animation of Fay's development and progression over the past few days, showing how the storm organized into a tropical storm. Additionally, NASA's Aqua satellite used infrared light to find the location of the strongest storms in Tropical Storm Fay occurring in the northeastern quadrant of the storm, mostly over the Atlantic Ocean.

A team of scientists at the University of Vermont have invented a new tool--they call it a "nanocage"--that can catch and straighten out molecule-sized tangles of polymers --whether made of protein or plastic. This tool--that works a bit like pulling a wad of thread through a needle hole--opens a new way to create custom materials that have never been made before.

Thin film coatings do more than add color to walls. For example, they can be used as pharmaceutical devices. How these coatings dry can change their properties, which is especially important for films used in drug delivery. Lehigh University engineering researchers studying the in situ drying behavior of thin film coatings are visualizing particle interactions with groundbreaking precision. Their findings could impact the development of drug delivery technology.

A technologically relevant material for HAMR data memories are thin films of iron-platinum nanograins. An international team led by the joint research group of Prof. Dr. Matias Bargheer at HZB and the University of Potsdam has now observed experimentally for the first time how a special spin-lattice interaction in these iron-platinum thin films cancels out the thermal expansion of the crystal lattice.

Scientists are a step closer to developing a fast and cost effective camera that utilises terahertz radiation, potentially opening the opportunity for them to be used in non-invasive security and medical screening.