News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Quantum computers that are exponentially faster than any of our current classical computers and are capable of code-breaking applications could be available in 12 to 15 years, posing major risks to the security of current communications systems, according to a new RAND Corporation report. The security risks posed by this new category of computers can be managed if the US government acts quickly, and a centrally coordinated, whole-of-nation approach is the best way to manage those challenges.

Someday, microbial cyborgs -- bacteria combined with electronic devices -- could be useful in fuel cells, biosensors and bioreactors. But first, scientists need to develop materials that not only nurture the microbes, but also efficiently and controllably harvest the electricity or other resources they make. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed one such material that enabled them to create a programmable 'biohybrid' system that conducts electrons from electricity-producing (exoelectrogenic) bacteria.

A team of scientists at Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) has developed a novel mechanical cleaning method for surfaces on the nanoscale. The technique successfully removes even the tiniest contaminants down to the atomic scale, achieving an unprecedented level of cleanliness.

MIT physicists have found a way to cool molecules of sodium lithium down to 200 billionths of a Kelvin, just a hair above absolute zero. They did so by applying a technique called collisional cooling, in which they immersed molecules of cold sodium lithium in a cloud of even colder sodium atoms. The ultracold atoms acted as a refrigerant to cool the molecules even further.

Researchers have demonstrated the ability to implant an ultrathin, flexible neural interface with thousands of electrodes into the brain with a projected lifetime of more than six years. Protected from the ravaging environment of internal biological processes by less than a micrometer of material, the achievement is an important step toward creating high-resolution neural interfaces that can persist within a human body for an entire lifetime.