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Electronics & Semiconductors

Copper's biggest rival yet? New carbon nanotube fibers could reshape wiring for EVs, drones and aircraft

Spanish researchers have demonstrated a scalable manufacturing process for carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers with electrical conductivity comparable to that of copper and aluminum. The result, published in Science, is a breakthrough ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

3D-MIND: A flexible device that can be integrated with living brain cells

Contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as the models underpinning the functioning of ChatGPT, image generators and AI-powered creative tools, draw inspiration from the human brain's functions and organization. ...

Engineering

Scientists program materials just by spinning them

There is something universally appealing about the slap bracelet, and the way a simple tap causes it to switch between a straight shape and a curled one. What you probably didn't know is that a slap bracelet's satisfying ...

Engineering

Move over cassette tapes, adhesive tape has memory too

Materials can store information about their past—like a crease in a piece of paper that has been unfolded is a "memory" of being folded—that can be retrieved or read out and used for various purposes. In everyday life, combination ...

Engineering

Hidden math link helps designers build fantastic shapes

Termite mounds are remarkable structures that regulate temperature, balance airflow, and maintain structural stability in some of Earth's harshest climates. And like other irregular, disordered systems, they can be difficult ...

Software

Extended reality tool lets dancers analyze movement

It's been said that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Writing, or talking, about dancing can be similarly futile. A Cornell doctoral student has helped develop a tool that lets dancers use video and ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Video: Electrical control of a metal-mediated DNA memory

DNA stores our genetic code. What if it could also be integrated with electronics to store and read other information? Scientists have been investigating how to store data in DNA, but retrieving the information remains a ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

New 3D device harnesses living brain cells for computing

Princeton researchers have combined brain cells and advanced electronics into a single 3D device that can be programmed to recognize patterns using computational techniques. Past attempts at using brain cells to do computation ...

Robotics

Tiny, knotted robots jump, fly and plant seeds

When a knot lets go, it doesn't just fall apart. It snaps. That simple observation led Penn Engineers to rethink what a knot can do. Instead of treating it as something that holds tension, they asked a different question: ...

Energy & Green Tech

Creating green materials with light could transform clean energy

Metal-organic frameworks, better known as MOFs, are among the most intensely studied materials for addressing major environmental challenges. Their highly ordered, ultra-porous architecture enables applications ranging from ...

Energy & Green Tech

Colored films enable patterns on photovoltaic modules

Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE have succeeded in creating colored films with transparent cutouts, thereby producing realistic-looking designs on photovoltaic modules. In this way, roof ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Lasers turn parchment paper into high-performance electronic circuits

What if the next generation of disposable electronics—the sensors in your food packaging, the diagnostic strips in a medical clinic, the environmental monitors scattered across a farm—were built not on silicon or plastic, ...