On/Off Paint on Switches

The On/Off paint turns any surface, even an entire wall, into an electric switch.

Designed by the French firm Quarks, the paint contains embedded electronic mechanisms which can be controlled by touch. The On/Off paint can be applied onto any normal material, and can function when covered with another coat of paint or even wallpaper. The switch can be any size desired- an entire wall, a selected spot, or a long narrow strip- and can be combined with any electrically controlled devices.

CBI arrests DB group MD Shahid Balwa in 2G scam

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday night arrested Dynamix Balwas (DB) group managing director Shahid Usman Balwa in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam. Highly-placed sources in the agency said Balwa was arrested from his Bandra residence in Mumbai this evening and would be taken to Delhi for being confronted with former Telecom Minister A Raja whose CBI custody was extended by two more days on Tuesday.on Tuesday. The arrest of Balwa comes two days before the 2G case comes up for hearing in the Supreme Court.
He would be produced before a magistrate tomorrow for transit remand to Delhi, the sources said.
Balwa-promoted DB Reality floated Swan Telecom. Raja allegedly helped Swan bag 2G licences for 13 circles, including Mumbai and Delhi, for Rs 1,537 crore but Swan sold 45 per cent shares to the UAE telecom giant Etisalat for approximately Rs 4,500 crore within months of bagging the spectrum.
The sources claimed CBI has evidence from the Income Tax department that Balwa, considered close to Raja, was instrumental in channelling the kickbacks allegedly received by the former telecom minister from the sale of 2G spectrum.
According to the sources, Balwa had allegedly helped the former Telecom Minister and some of his aides park the money in real estate sector.
Balwa is the fourth person to be arrested in 2G spectrum case after Raja, his former personal secretary R K Chandolia and former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura.
Chandolia and Behura were today sent by a court in Delhi to judicial custody on completion of their interrogation by CBI.

laser beam rocket

Laser Beam Rocket Launch

NASA is looking into the idea of using beamed energy to provide propulsion for space launches, which would allow for reusable rockets and cut payload costs.

The system, developed by Laser Motive, would involve focusing laser beams on a heat exchanger on board the rocket. The heat exchanger would transfer the energy to a liquid propellant such as hydrogen, which would covert it into a gas and force it out of a nozzle.

The thermal propulsion vehicles would be safer, since the potential for explosion would be eliminated and pieces would not need to drop off during flight. Since most of the complex components would remain on the ground, they would also be smaller, lighter, and less expensive to launch.

graphene

Physicists at the University of California have taken a major step towards developing a "spin computer" by successfully tunneling "spin injection" into graphene.
"An electron can be polarized to have a directional orientation, called 'spin.' This spin comes in two forms: 'up' or 'down' - and allows for more data storage than is possible with current electronics," explained UC associate professor Roland Kawakami.
"[Now], spin computers, when developed, would utilize the electron's spin state to store and process vast amounts of information while using less energy, generating less heat and performing much faster than conventional computers in use today."

According to Kawakami, graphene has amongst "the best" spin transport characteristics of any material at room temperature. 

"This makes it a promising candidate for use in spin computers. But [still], electrical spin injection from a ferromagnetic electrode into graphene is inefficient. 


"And an even greater concern is that the observed spin lifetimes are thousands of times shorter than expected theoretically. We would like longer spin lifetimes because the longer the lifetime, the more computational operations you can do."
To address the above-mentioned shortcomings, Kawakami and his colleagues inserted a nanometer-thick insulating layer - known as a "tunnel barrier" - in between the ferromagnetic electrode and the graphene layer.
"We found a 30-fold increase in the efficiency of how spins were being injected by quantum tunneling across the insulator and into graphene. [This is because the] insulator was operating like a one-way valve, allowing electron flow in one direction - from the electrode to graphene - but not the other," said Kawakami.


"[Clearly], the insulator helps to keep the injected spin inside the graphene, which is what leads to high spin injection efficiency. This counterintuitive result is the first demonstration of tunneling spin in graphene"

Russian scientists have won the Nobel Prize

Two Russian scientists have won the Nobel Prize for Physics for their work developing graphene

.
Andrei Geim

and Konstantin Novoselov demonstrated that carbon in this extremely thin form - just one atom thick - had exceptional properties originating in the world of quantum physics.
Konstantin Novoselov is a Royal Society Research Fellow at the University of Manchester in their Mesoscopic Research Group researching mesoscopic systems and nanostructures.
He was awarded the 2008 Europhysics Prize for the same discovery.
Andre Geim is a physicist who, as well as the discovery of graphene, is known for the development of gecko tape and demonstrations of diamagnetic levitation. He's also based at the University of Manchester.
Graphene is both the thinnest and the strongest material yet discovered. Geim and Novoselov extracted it from ordinary graphite, and used ordinary adhesive tape to obtain a flake of carbon with a thickness of just one atom.
"Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov have shown that carbon in such a flat form has exceptional properties that originate from the remarkable world of quantum physics," says the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
"A vast variety of practical applications now appear possible including the creation of new materials and the manufacture of innovative electronics. Graphene transistors are predicted to be substantially faster than today’s silicon transistors and result in more efficient computers."
 

nucler

Nuclear reactors placed on the ocean floor may provide another option for nations determined to find alternative energy sources.

Developed by the French naval defense company DCNS, the reactors, known as Flexblue, could produce up to 250 megawatts of energy on the ocean floor. The Flexlblues are quite small, only 300 feet long, and include a nuclear reactor, steam turbine-alternator set, and equipment that carries the electricity to the coast.

Because the Flexblue plants would be hidden under water and several miles out to sea, they would be out of sight and, possibly, out of mind. Which may or may not be a good thing.

mouse

The new optical mouse is made of the same combination of Arboform and Biograde materials as those that were used in an eco-friendly keyboard released by Fujitsu last year. Arboform is based on a by-product of the paper making process, while Biograde is a biodegradable cellulose acetate. The mouse is also a bit more comfortable to use, since the outer shell is more elastic than other renewable materials.

plastic

By altering the wavelength of light, researchers have developed a method of welding transparent plastics together without the need for added absorbers.

Because soot particles must be used to absorb the radiation, conventional laser welding of plastic are usually limited to joining transparent plastic to black plastic. Researchers from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology studied a variety of transparent polymers to determine at what wavelengths they themselves absorbed radiation and then developed a laser that emits that particular wavelength, eliminating the need for soot or expensive alternatives.

The new technology could be applied in the production of microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices.

solar

A new bridge proposal in Italy could utilize a Solar Wind concept, incorporating both wind and solar energy into its design.

The Solar Wind concept was conceived for a contest to repurpose unused viaducts in Southern Italy. Wind turbines installed in the spaces between the viaduct could provide 36 million kilowatt hours of energy, while a solar paneled roadway would provide an additional 11.2 million kilowatt hours. The concept even includes plans for solar powered greenhouses along the bridge and pull over spaces for travelers to enjoy the view.