Hojima - Slashdot User

+ - New Basic Element for Electronic Circuits 0

Submitted by Hojima on Friday May 02, 2008 @09:58PM

Hojima writes "HP labs has proven the existence of the theoretical "memristor" , a new and quite fundamental electrical component that can retain prior signals that it receives and revolutionize the field of electrical engineering. From the article:'This scientific advancement could make it possible to develop computer systems that have memories that do not forget, do not need to be booted up, consume far less power and associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain...Leon Chua, a distinguished faculty member in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department of the University of California at Berkeley, initially theorized about and named the element in an academic paper published 37 years ago. Chua argued that the memristor was the fourth fundamental circuit element, along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor, and that it had properties that could not be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements.'"

+ - Vacuum-glazed super glass 0

Submitted by Hojima on Tuesday April 29, 2008 @10:07PM

Hojima writes "New super insulation glass has been developed by Guardian Industries based on the principles of vacuum thermos bottles. This could allow the production of windows that prevent two primary heat transferring mechanisms. It would practically allow houses to have a thermal supply from their windows, rather than a heat loss that engineers have been trying to prevent, allowing for much more energy efficient homes."

+ - Mechanism for neuron coordination discovered-> 0

Submitted by Hojima on Sunday April 27, 2008 @11:26AM

Hojima writes "The studies involving macaque monkeys that were trained to follow objects with their eyes has shed some light on how neurons coordinate their actions. The recorded a number of neurons during this action, and "using a formula from financial securities market analysis that looks at how individual stocks behave at a given time within the context of fluctuations in the larger financial market, they explored how individual neurons would behave relative to their neighbors." This technique has proven that across the span of any movement, no neuron fires independently. This suggests that "either that a small number of neurons are sufficient to drive the behavior at any given time or that many neurons operate collectively at each moment.""
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+ - New threat-detecting camera-> 0

Submitted by Hojima on Friday April 25, 2008 @12:22PM

Hojima writes "British scientists working at ThruVision have created a camera capable of detecting weapons, illigal substances, and other threats from a distance of 25 meters. Just like all its sister devices, it uses electromagnetic waves, however the wavelength given for the unique Terahertz rays that they use are rather vague (between 1 millimeter and 100 micrometers). Unlike the wavelengths used by other devices, T-rays have another advantage along with their range and relative harmlessness to health:

T-rays travel through many non-conducting materials including cloths, wood, plastic, fog, and walls. Depending on the material, the signature of the wave is different, so that explosives can be distinguished from a block of clay, and cocaine can be distinguished from a bag of flour.
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