universityofcolorado
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Rugged e-skin can heal its cuts and scrapes
Scientists dream of prosthetics and robots with electronic skin that can convey heat and pressure just like the real thing, but there's a big problem getting in the way: the outside world. Bumps and scrapes can damage these sensors, and it's not really practical to toss these skins in the trash when they're no longer useful. UC Boulder researchers hope to fix that. They've developed an e-skin that can communicate temperature and pressure, but is both self-healing and fully recyclable. You could take a cut on a synthetic arm without panicking, and reuse any damaged 'tissue' to make replacements.
Light-triggered nanoparticles kill drug-resistant bacteria
Many current attempts at killing drug-resistant "superbugs" amount to racing against time, whether it's improving research technology or developing germ-fighting techniques that are less likely to promote resistance. That's not really an effective long-term strategy, is it? However, University of Colorado scientists might have a more permanent solution. They've developed light-triggered nanoparticles (specifically, quantum dots) that can kill stubborn bacteria on demand. They're dormant when it's dark, but shining the right light wavelength will make the particles attack infected cells. And unlike metal nanoparticles, they won't inadvertently wreck healthy cells in the process.
Researchers show off a working light-based processor
The year has been chock-full of scientific breakthroughs, but the University of Colorado is determined to finish 2015 with a bang. Its researchers have created what they say is the first full-fledged processor to transmit data using light instead of electricity. The design isn't entirely photonic, but its 850 optical input/output elements give it the kind of bandwidth that make electric-only chips look downright modest -- we're talking 300Gbps per square millimeter, or 10 to 50 times what you normally see. The key was finding a way to reuse existing conventional processes to put optics in places where regular circuitry would go.
World's most precise atomic clock will still be spot-on in 5 billion years
Most of us only pay attention to time when it's causing headaches, but the same can't be said of a team of researchers working out of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Led by National Institute of Standards and Technology fellow Jun Ye, they've crafted an atomic clock that can keep precise time for billions of years, a world record. This hefty new timekeeper can tick off the seconds with the same unflinching regularity as the best of them, but it'll be about 5 billion years before it experiences its first temporal hiccup. For the morbidly curious, that means the clock will still be precise when the sun starts ballooning into a massive red giant. That may not sound like a huge deal now, but when our descendants start laying in escape routes to some more pleasant planets they'll be glad for that extra precision. How does the thing work? Well, strontium atoms are held in "traps" formed by lasers, and researchers are able to track how often they oscillate by using that laser light to get them moving. It's hardly a new technique, but you can't argue with the results: The new clock is 50 percent more precise than the last record-setter, and Ye says that there are plenty more breakthroughs to come.
Researchers aim to give surgeons 3D maps, directions of human body
While a GPS-style "navigation system" for surgeons may not seem like the best idea to anyone that's ever been led astray by their dash-mounted co-pilot, it apparently seemed like a good enough idea for a group of researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. While they do stretch the metaphor a bit, the group's TLEMsafe system does provide surgeons with a complete 3D map of the lower body, which can actually be personalized for each individual patient, giving surgeons a reference and means to practice before any actual surgery takes place -- and, yes, even an "automated navigation system" during surgery. Coincidentally, some researchers from the University of Colorado have also just announced that they've developed a similar modeling system that would give surgeons 3D views of arteries and let them see any blockages up close. It's even already been tested on patients, while the University of Twente says its system will be ready for clinical trials in about four years' time.
New atomic clock claims title of world's most accurate
You may have thought that the previous world's most accurate clock was good at keeping time, but it's apparently nothing compared to this new strontium atomic clock developed by scientists at the University of Colorado, which is supposedly more than twice as accurate and just as atomic. To achieve that impressive feat, the scientists made use of the same so-called "pendulum effect" of atoms as before, but took things one step further by holding the atoms in a laser beam and freezing them to almost -273 degrees Celsius, or the temperature at which all matter stops resonating. In clock terms, that translates to about one second lost every 300 million years. Of course, that's still one second too many for the researchers, and they say they "dream of getting an atomic clock with perfect precision." You just know you never want to be late for a meeting with these guys.
