university of bristol
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Environmentally friendly robots will feed the flowers they trample
Dr Jonathan Rossiter, a senior lecturer at the University of Bristol's Department of Engineering and Mathematics, has snagged a two-year research grant of over £200,000 to develop robots that decompose once their mission if complete. This means instead of our automaton friends rusting away, devoid of purpose, they could return gracefully (and more importantly non-toxically) back to mother earth. Not only would this be a boon to the environment, but scientists would no longer need to track and retrieve their mechanical progeny once it reached the end of its usable life, further sparing resources and allowing mass deployment. At least we know, when the day comes, the planet won't be harmed.
Magnetic soap could make your next oil spill less oily
Instead of spending millions upon millions to clean up the next oil spill, why don't we just all pitch in and buy some soap? That's basically what researchers at the University of Bristol are proposing, with a new kind of soap that's apparently like no other. This soap, you see, is magnetic, which means it could be easily removed from water without leaving behind any hazardous chemicals -- a potentially major selling point for cleanup crews and environmentalists alike. To create it, the team collected water with chlorine and bromine ions, and used it to dissolve iron particles, creating a metallic core. They proceeded to test their creation by placing the soapy particles within a test tube, underneath layers of water and oil. Much to their delight, they were able to remove the particles with only a magnet, ostensibly providing a template upon which disaster response crews may build.
Scientists claim equation can predict songs' hit potential; still doesn't help David Hasselhoff
Forget Simon Cowell -- when it comes to having an eye for potential hits, the bright minds over at the University of Bristol in the UK believe they can predict a song's hit potential through good, old science. More specifically, the scientists use a "hit potential equation" that they've devised by factoring in 23 musical features like tempo, loudness, harmonic simplicity and danceability. By using the equation, they claim that they can predict a song's hit potential with an accuracy rate of 60 percent. As for that other 40 percent, well, they say it's due to non-musical factors they couldn't account for like, um, marketing. The equation's biggest challenge? Predicting hit songs from the '80s.
Groundbreaking photonic chip could spark Quantum Computing revolution
Quantum Computers already exist, but not in the "universal" form that would truly revolutionize computing. That's why the latest innovation from Bristol University has so much promise: a team from its center for Quantum Photonics has built a reprogrammable quantum chip. The 70mm x 3mm box is capable of measuring and manipulating entanglement and mixture -- fundamental elements of the mythical "universal" chip. It's taken the team six years to reach this point, but now it'll concentrate on scaling up the technology to create more complex systems, hopefully in time for our next smartphone purchase.
Quantum refrigerator could cool your quantum computer, allow for quantum overclocking
The quantum computer is still ranking pretty high up there on the vaporware charts, somewhere between Duke Nukem Forever and a Steorn in-home power generator. Eventually we'll get there, and theoretical physicists at the University of Bristol are helping with a quantum cooling system. It is effectively a means for two qubits to cool a third, with the outer two cooled by lasers and absorbing energy from the third, which is heated to its excited state. Unsurprisingly this is all rather theoretical at this point, but the team does plan to actually build such a quantum refrigerator in the not too distant future. Then, we figure, they'll host the first quantum kegger.
Video: Jules the robot makes convincing argument to destroy humanity
Besides rarely showering, Robotic engineers and researchers also possess a peculiar sense of humor. Trip with us through the uncanny valley as we take a look at the animatronic head developed by David Hanson. Software, developed by the University of Bristol with some help by a professional animator, controls 34 tiny servo motors to mimic facial expressions picked up by Jules' camera. Watch Jules make an ecologically sound case to "destroy humanity" in the video after the break. Indeed, if only Maggie was still in power.
Researchers demo "unbreakable encryption" based on quantum cryptography
Call us devilish, but we just can't help but love these types of stories. Here we have yet another overly confident group of researchers grossly underestimating the collective power of the hacking underground, as gurus from all across Europe have joined together to announce "the first commercial communication network using unbreakable encryption based on quantum cryptography." Interestingly enough, quantum cryptography has already been cracked in a kinda-sorta way, but that's not stopping these folks from pushing this claim hard to government agencies, financial institutions and companies with distributed subsidiaries. We've no doubt this stuff is pretty secure, but the last time we heard someone utter a claim similar to this, we saw him uncomfortably chowing down on those very words merely months later.[Via Physorg]
