We Are Awake

Washington D.C:  Our skies are about to get a lot more high-tech as a team of researchers is developing robotic bees that can fly themselves. The Harvard University's National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported RoboBees project aims to create autonomous robotic insects capable of sustained, independent flight. Such robots could one day assist in reconnaissance, aid in remote communication or even act as artificial pollinators. Led by principal investigator Robert Wood, the researchers have designed increasingly sophisticated and tiny robots with a range of features that will one day soon enable autonomous flying. To do so the team required to advance basic research in a number of areas where they saw obstacles to realizing their vision: from micro-manufacturing methods and materials for actuation, to small-scale energy storage and algorithms to effectively control individuals and coordinated swarms of robots. The group's research led to breakthroughs i...

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS:   A Dutch architect Wednesday unveiled a unique 3D printer with which he aims to construct a large building "without beginning or end" shaped like an infinite loop. "It's just like a normal printer," architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars told AFP as he presented the tool he hopes to use to build what he has dubbed the "Landscape House". "But instead of putting ink onto paper, we are putting a liquid onto sand which solidifies wherever the liquid has been spread." Ruijssenaars, of Universe Architecture in Amsterdam, aims to print the Mobius strip-shaped building with around 1,100 square metres (12,000 square feet) of floor space using the massive D-Shape printer. Designed by Italian Enrico Dini, the printer can print up to almost a six-metre-by-six-metre square (20-foot-by-20-foot), using a computer to help build up fine layers of 5-10 mm (a quarter to half an inch) thick. The machine is almost two m...

Path-breaking technology of Li-Fi uses light to carry data Imagine an LED bulb doubling as an access point for connecting to the Internet and ordinary light being used as a medium to carry data. A whole new world wherein a bulb would not only give us light but also help us access the Web might not be too far away, if a new technology called Li-Fi (or Light-Fidelity) goes mainstream. Prof. Harald Haas of the University of Edinburgh, who coined the term Li-Fi in 2011, demonstrated the new technology to a packed auditorium at the Wipro’s Electronics City campus on Wednesday. He streamed a video from the Internet on a laptop using light from an LED bulb to access the Web. Prof. Haas said Li-Fi was a disruptive technology that could transform business models, create new opportunities, and was poised to be a $113 billion industry by 2022. He said that the RF (radio frequency) spectrum would not be enough considering the rate of growth of wireless data communication. The ...

In a breakthrough towards mitigating climate change, scientists have discovered a quick and permanent method to remove human-produced carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - by turning it into harmless rock. A new study has shown for the first time that the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) can be permanently and rapidly locked away from the atmosphere, by injecting it into volcanic bedrock. The CO2 reacts with the surrounding rock, forming environmentally benign minerals, researchers said. Measures to tackle the problem of increasing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change are numerous. One approach is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), where CO2 is physically removed from the atmosphere and trapped underground. Geoengineers have long explored the possibility of sealing CO2 gas in voids underground, such as in abandoned oil and gas reservoirs, but these are susceptible to leakage. So attention has now turned to the mineralisation of carbon to permanently dispose of CO2...