Polymers™

In many ways, the large scanners used today to screen for cancer represent many of the problems with advanced technology. They’re complex, they’re invasive and they’re extremely expensive. An innovative new cancer test may change that, bringing simplicity, ease of use and affordability to this delicate medical arena by analyzing a patient’s breath for indicators of cancer. First unveiled on June 2 at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago,  this cancer-detecting breathalyzer system, which is still awaiting clinical trials, is able to conduct pre-screening for both  breast cancer  and lung cancer. Developed by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the cancer breathalyzer could drastically reduce costs for American patients, while enabling expanded screening in countries with inadequate infrastructure and taboos against  mammograms . “Most of the directions people are moving in are toward the more complex, the more expensive. I...

A supercamera that can take gigapixel pictures — that's 1,000 megapixels — has now been unveiled. Researchers say these supercameras could have military, commercial and civilian applications, and that handheld gigapixel cameras may one day be possible. The gigapixel camera uses 98 identical microcameras in unison, each armed with its own set of optics and a 14-megapixel sensor. These microcameras, in turn, all peer through a single large spherical lens to collectively see the scene the system aims to capture. Since the optics of the microcameras are small, they are relatively easy and cheap to fabricate. A specially designed electronic processing unit stitches together all the partial images each microcamera takes into a giant, one-gigapixel image. In comparison, film can have a resolution of about 25 to 800 megapixels, depending on the kind of film used. "In the near-term, gigapixel cameras will be used for wide-area security, large-scale event capture — for examp...

The evolution of cruise control led to adaptive cruise control, which enables drivers to maintain a safe distance behind a vehicle in front based on the leader's variable speed, and in some cases to do this all the way to a stop. Now, Ford Motor Co. says it is working on the next step beyond this––an adaptation of adaptive cruise control and related technologies that will keep the car moving the same way in a traffic jam––along with other car tech innovations aimed at reducing driver stress levels and letting the car take on even more of the driving task than it can already. Ford’s new auto tech includes, for example, a system that could warn a driver about an impending collision sooner if it senses that the driver is tired, giving him more time to respond, and an automatic perpendicular parking system that complements the automatic parallel parking system available from Ford and other automakers today. [ Why America's Love Affair with Cars Is No Accident ] •   Traffic...

Looking for a new material that was tough, scientists developed one that also can stretch up to 20 times its original length without breaking. The new compound, a hydrogel, could someday be used as artificial cartilage, the researchers say. A typical hydrogel (a gel whose particles are dispersed in water) can stretch only a few times its length, if that. Even natural rubber can  stretch only five to six times its length. But the new compound, made of alginate, polyacrylamide and water, proved to be far more stretchable and fracture-proof in tests. Harvard mechanical engineer Zhigang Suo said the scientists clamped it in a stretching machine and also dropped a stainless-steel ball on it. Lab-made hydrogels are used in soft contact lenses, tissue engineering scaffolds, and drug delivery. Natural hydrogels include tofu (which can be nearly 90 percent water) and "many of our body parts," Suo said. "Cartilage, your heart, your brain can be characterized as hydrogels...

Seeking a low-cost way to launch their experiments into space, a team of scientists has designed a space-ready, 3-D printed CubeSat. CubeSats are standardized, tiny satellites, often only 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) on each side and weighing less than 1.33 kilograms (just under 3 lbs). They are so small that they have room for only a few sensors and burn up in the Earth's atmosphere after just a few months. Kits cost under $10,000, which is considered cheap for the space industry. But Jacopo Piattoni of the University of Bologna and his team aim to drive the satellites' price down even further while making the devices easier to customize. In  3D printing , a computer-directed nozzle "prints" a three-dimensional object in plastic. Often, engineers use this method to design a prototype for a product that will then be built out of metal or another, sturdier medium. But Piattoni’s team hopes their plastic CubeSat could survive launch and low-Earth orbit. Using 3...

What if you could control your TV without using a remote or use your computer without ever touching it? Innovative imaging technology is on the horizon and it’s bringing new meaning to the term “hands-free.” An Austrian research team has developed a versatile device that can capture images on a flexible, polymer sheet. The image is a rectangle of clear, plastic film and uses  fluorescent  particles to capture incoming light. The light is channeled to sensors, then to a computer that combines the light signals and creates an image on the device’s surface. “To our knowledge, we are the first to present an image sensor that is fully transparent- no integrated microstructures, such as circuits- and is flexible and scalable at the same time,” Oliver Bimber of the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, said in a statement. The new invention could have many practical applications, Bimber and his fellow researchers said. They envision the image being applied on top of ...

A fogged-up camera lens can ruin a perfect shot, and a frosty car window can lead to potentially deadly accidents. To help keep glass clear in harsh weather, scientists are developing an advanced new coating that resists both fogging and frosting. Glass fogs up and frosts because of  water . So you might assume so-called hydrophobic materials, which repel water, provide the best method of fighting such moisture. However, these solutions tend only to make water bead up, scattering light and obscuring views. Researchers have also experimented with the opposite tactic, attempting to prevent fogging and frosting using hydrophilic materials, which attract water. Here, researchers hope to smear water across the glass surfaces in uniform sheets, to keep the moisture from distorting light. Although these materials work against fog, they can't prevent frosting. When cold glass encounters humid air, the layer of water that develops simply freezes. However, the new coating posse...

No flash? No problem. A new imaging sensor could soon make it possible for photographers to take clear, sharp photos, even in dim lighting. Created by a team of researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, the new sensor is highly sensitive to both visible and infrared light, which means it could be used in everything from the family Nikon to surveillance and satellite cameras.  The sensor, which is 1,000 times more sensitive to light than the imaging sensors of most of today's cameras, gets this high photoresponse from its innovative structure. It's  made of graphene , a super strong carbon compound with a honeycomb structure that is as flexible as rubber, more conductive than silicon and which resists heat better than a diamond. Graphene, which is a one atom-thick layer of the mineral graphite, has already earned a reputation as the building material of the future. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov  took home the Nobel Prize  in...

How do you build the world’s lightest metal? Make it mainly from air, according to scientists. The material, known as a "microlattice," was developed by scientists at HRL Laboratories in Malibu, California, which is co-owned by Boeing and General Motors. The new microlattice is made up of a network of tiny hollow tubes and is roughly 100 times  lighter than Styrofoam . In an effort to save fuel, aerospace and automotive companies constantly strive to make their materials as lightweight as possible without sacrificing structural integrity. The process used to build the new microlattices holds huge promise, the researchers say, because the materials created are not only incredibly light, but also very strong. Boeing showcased the material in a recent video, by demonstrating how a small piece of metal microlattice could be balanced on top of a delicate dandelion seed head. "People think it must be the metal that's the light part, so they assume we made some ...

The Apple Watch and Google Glass are some of the most widely known wearable devices, but the ways users can interact with these "smart" gadgets are limited. For instance, it would be pretty difficult to type a message out on the face of a watch. And forget even trying with a pair of smart glasses. But now, researchers have developed wearable keyboards made of electronics knitted together like fabric that could lead to a new kind of human-machine interface. Right now, the key way that people interact with computers is by using the keyboard, researchers say. However, creating wearable keyboards for  wearable electronics  is a challenging task — such keyboards have to be large to fit enough keys to be useful, and must be flexible and stretchable to follow the movements of the human body. In the past three years or so, researchers have tried to make electronics more wearable by  making them like clothing  — for instance, by knitting wires together into fabrics. T...

Great Scott! "Back to the Future" fans may still be waiting for time machines and (true) hoverboards to be invented, but a self-drying jacket akin to the one Marty McFly wore in "Back to the Future Part II" could soon make a futuristic addition to your wardrobe. Falyon Wearable Tech, a San Francisco-based startup, has developed a jacket that can dry itself from the inside out in mere minutes. The "Back to the Future"-inspired jacket, dubbed SDJ-01, works by circulating high-pressure air in the enclosed space between the coat's inner lining and outer layer. The jacket's air amplifiers are fueled by a  rechargeable battery  that tucks into an interior pocket. Falyon said it takes about 1 or 2 minutes to dry out the jacket — after you get caught in the rain, for example — but the battery can run the systems for up to 30 minutes. The power of these built-in air amplifiers is equal to or better than that of commercially available hair dryers, ac...

Ever wonder what weird microorganisms are crawling around on your kitchen counter? Or, perhaps you'd like a close-up view of those dust bunnies in the corner of your room. Well, there's a new pocket-size tool that could help you take a much closer look at these and other household specimens. A sleek, smartphone-powered microscope, dubbed μPeek, recently reached its funding goal  on Kickstarter . The device, which attaches to the back of any smartphone (over the top of the camera lens), is about the size of a credit card and is controlled via an app, allowing you to view crystal-clear images of tiny objects and make adjustments to the microscope right on your phone. But the powerful microscope isn't "just another magnifying lens for your smartphone," Patrick Galliker, co-founder and CEO of Scrona, the company behind μPeek, said in a Kickstarter video promoting the new device. The microscope is equipped with a motorized lens and sophisticated optical compone...