ROBOTICS RESEARCHER NABS NSF AWARD
The National Science Foundation gave a $400,000 award to a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) professor for cutting-edge robotics work, according to M2 Communications Ltd., a British media company.
Srinivas Akella, assistant professor of computer science at RPI, will use the Faculty Early Career Development Award to develop software that will allow industrial robots to manipulate flexible objects, something they have never done before.
The work involves developing algorithms to enable robots to do complex manipulation tasks, such as folding and assembling cardboard boxes, or folding microparts into three-dimensional structures.
MOLECULES NOW IN POLE POSITION
Development of solar energy devices and research into body proteins could benefit from a new method devised by researchers that can determine the alignment of a molecule’s axis, or poles, Science Daily magazine said.
The work of researchers at the University of Rochester, appearing in the June 4 issue of Physical Review Letters, will help scientists and engineers predict the ways atoms and molecules exchange energy.
That energy exchange is more likely to happen if molecules are positioned so respective poles align. Someday, researchers hope to control the alignment to direct chemical reactions at the atomic level, the report said.
RESEARCHERS PLAY WITH WATER MARBLES
Water droplets that can float on a surface without sticking or leaving liquid behind have been created by physicists in France, according to the journal Nature.
By adding a nonstick powder coating to the droplets, physicists at College de France in Paris have found that the droplets can even float on the surface of water, and create so little friction that they can be moved by very small magnetic or electrical forces, the report said.
Applications from the research could come in the field of microfluidics, in which tiny quantities of liquid move on a silicon chip for chemical or biological analysis. The research might be useful in labs-on-a-chip for environmental monitoring, medicine and forensic science, according to the report.
NANOTUBES ALL TIED UP
While microchip makers like Intel and IBM struggle to create faster transistors for computers, German researchers might have found a better way by thinking smaller, not quicker, the journal Nature reported.
Researchers at the University of Ulm in Germany used a beam of electrons to link two hollow tubes of carbon just millionths of a millimeter across, in effect soldering the world’s smallest wires, the report said.
The carbon nanotubes form components spontaneously from carbon-rich gases, conduct electricity and can act like transistors and other electronic devices. If the components can be connected, the report said, computer power could be boosted dramatically.