Popeye was right when it came to the health benefits of spinach, but that simple sailor man couldn’t have predicted this unorthodox use of the superfood. Researchers at MIT have found a way to use spinach to detect explosive materials in soil, potentially making the plant a safe way to detect landmines.
Carbon nanotubes have been pegged as the wonder material that could finally allow us to build a space elevator. A discouraging new study suggests these microscopic strands aren’t as resilient as we thought—and all it could take is a single misplaced atom to bring the whole thing crashing down.
This looks like the kind of thin material you might make a trash bag out of. But that would be a waste because this material, made from carbon nanotubes, is stronger and more compliant than kevlar or carbon fiber.
What’s that up your nose? Researchers have found carbon nanotubes lurking in the lungs of children in Paris, marking the first time the tiny tubes have been observed in humans.
In the semiconductor industry, size matters — and people are worried that it won’t be able make transistors any smaller. But a team of IBM scientists has now published research showing how carbon nanotubes could help.
Space colonization has reached an impasse, for reasons far more fundamental than a lack of money for the Space Shuttle program. There is simply no way humans can travel easily offworld without using massive amounts of rocket fuel to escape the gravity well — and that’s both expensive and environmentally unsustainable.…
There’s a reason why we call it the “march of progress” instead of the “moonwalk of progress.” Technology is meant to move steadily forward, but there are still plenty of times when tech has inexplicably reversed course on us. One of the most striking examples are Damascus swords.
Some MIT eggheads invented a very impressive and very inexpensive sensor that stands to protect you against anything from a bomb to a bad pack of beef. And it's so simple. The new sensor is just a modified near field communication (NFC) chip that can detect the presence of specific gases with the help of carbon…
Light the touchpaper and stand well back, because we're about to... make sustainable electricity? That's the idea according to a researcher from MIT, whose vision for future power generation involves a healthy dose of TNT.
A few years ago, we looked at NASA's long project to design a paint so black, it would absorb nearly every bit of light around it (that's it above, in the "D" spot). Now, NASA has finally launched the stuff into space—which means that the six-year effort to make it is finally paying off. So, why is this such a vital…
Our world of amazingly tiny electronics is about to get even tinier. After a decade of research, IBM says it'll bring carbon nanotube transistors to market by 2020. The company is now readying the technology to take over from silicon transistors, and that opens up a lot of exciting doors.
Researchers in Japan have developed an incredibly thin wire—just half a micrometer in diameter—made from a new composite material composed of traditional copper and those new fangled carbon nanotubes. But what makes this creation particularly awesome is that the new wire allows over 100 times more current to flow than…
If you've ever lamented the fact that putting your sofa right next to a warm crackling fireplace was dangerous, carbon nanotubes might one day come to the rescue—again. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology—or NIST—have created a carbon nanotube-based coating that makes the foam used in…
Coming just a year after the creation of the first carbon nanotube computer chip, scientists have just built the very first actual computer with a central processor centered entirely around carbon nanotubes. Which means the future of electronics just got tinier, more efficient, and a whole lot faster.
It’s only got 178 transistors, but it’s an important proof-of-concept that’s poised to keep Moore’s Law right on track. The breakthrough, in which a basic computer was powered by microscopic chains of carbon atoms, means we may have finally found a viable alternative to silicon chips.
Have you ever had a roommate who saves plastic grocery bags just in case they ever have the need to reuse the dang things? Like, hundreds of plastic grocery bags? Well, thanks to some Australian engineers, those extra bags can not only have a purpose, they can become technology of the future.
You know all that sawdust you're left with when hacking through a piece of lumber? It's a minor inconvenience for carpenters, but a huge problem for electronics manufacturers cutting expensive materials like silicon wafers on the microscopic scale. So researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute have found a way to make…
Scientists have used carbon nanotubes to engineer an astonishingly small electrode, pictured here, that is thin and long enough to record electrical activity within individual neurons.
The expansion and contraction of muscles keeps us alive every second of every day. Even though it's such a basic part of our existance, creating artificial muscles has proven to be a bit more complicated. That is, until now. Scientists have recently found what could be a good solution: yarn full of wax.
