IBM’s Watson for Genomics took just 10 minutes to analyze a brain cancer patient’s genome and suggest a treatment plan, where human experts took 160 hours to make a comparable plan. IBM’s Watson cognitive computing platform, with its natural language processing abilities, was able to go through 23 million journal articles currently in medical literature, government listings of clinical trials, and other existing data sources without requiring someone to reformat the information and make it digestible.
Tag: Technology News
IBM Making Silicon to Sort Viruses and Other Nanoscale Biological Targets – IEEE Spectrum
In cross-disciplinary research described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, a team at IBM … has been able to … create a diagnostic device that can separate viruses, DNA, and other nanoscale-size biological targets from saliva or urine. This could enable the device to detect the presence of diseases before any physical symptoms are visible.
Source: IBM Making Silicon to Sort Viruses and Other Nanoscale Biological Targets – IEEE Spectrum
New Li-ion battery won’t overheat :: Industry News :: ElectronicsOnline
A new lithium-ion battery shuts down before overheating and then restarts once it cools down, preventing fires that have plagued electronic devices. The new battery technology, developed by Stanford University Professor Zhenan Bao and her colleagues, could prevent the kind of fires that have prompted recalls and bans on a wide range of battery-powered devices
Source: New Li-ion battery won’t overheat :: Industry News :: ElectronicsOnline
Bob Dylan & IBM Watson on Language
IBM engineers carbon nanotube transistors to replace silicon in computing | VentureBeat | Business | by Dean Takahashi
Carbon nanotubes are the leading candidate to replace silicon in semiconductor chips after the decades-long run of silicon electronics runs out. And IBM is hoping to usher along that transition with a new breakthrough being announced today. In the October 2 issue of the journal Science, IBM researchers say they have overcome one of the most daunting challenges around carbon nanotube transistors, which are the building blocks of electronic circuits with dimensions that are measured in billionths of a meter. Carbon nanotube chips could greatly improve the capabilities of high-performance computers, enabling Big Data to be analyzed faster, increasing the power and battery life of mobile devices and the Internet of Things, and allowing cloud data centers to deliver services more efficiently and economically, IBM said.
The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy – IEEE Spectrum
The Phoebus cartel engineered a shorter-lived lightbulb and gave birth to planned obsolescence. Phoebus expended considerable technical effort into engineering a shorter-lived lightbulb.
How exactly did the cartel pull off this engineering feat? It wasn’t just a matter of making an inferior or sloppy product; anybody could have done that. But to create one that reliably failed after an agreed-upon 1,000 hours took some doing over a number of years. The household lightbulb in 1924 was already technologically sophisticated: The light yield was considerable; the burning time was easily 2,500 hours or more. By striving for something less, the cartel would systematically reverse decades of progress.
World data transfer record back in Danish hands – Technical University of Denmark
… proving that it is possible to transfer fully 43 terabits per second with just a single laser in the transmitter. This is an appreciable improvement on the German team’s previous record of 26 terabits per second.
via World data transfer record back in Danish hands – Technical University of Denmark.
Inert Gas Data Center Fire Protection and Hard Disk Drive Damage – The Data Center Journal
Roughly around 2007, reports started to surface saying that hard disk drives HDDs were damaged during gas discharges from IGFSSs (inert gas fire suppression systems). Since then there has been significant speculation and misinformation as to what the cause of failure is…
via Inert Gas Data Center Fire Protection and Hard Disk Drive Damage – The Data Center Journal.
Low-cost, high-energy batteries powered by rhubarb
Flow batteries, a type of rechargeable fuel cell using chemical compounds dissolved in liquids, have seen some of the biggest advances …
The (new) research holds the promise of sharply reduced costs, with … the family of molecules used – known as quinones – were sourced from crude oil, the material could as easily have been sourced from rhubarb or most other green plants, Professor Aziz said.
Unlike lithium, for instance, there is little chance the batteries will ignite. “Our molecules are deliberately dissolved in water, so they don’t catch fire,” he said.
The work, funded by the US government, is likely to result in a three-year extension to develop a commercial technology. The aim is to produce a battery capable of storing 24 kilowatt-hours of energy – the equivalent output of a typical roof-top solar photovoltaic array over 8 hours – before scaling up to much larger units.
Modeling The Lithium-Ion Battery
Modeling The Lithium-Ion Battery.
“Lithium-ion batteries have become the most common
rechargeable batteries for consumer electronics,
due to their high energy densities, relatively high cell
voltages and low weight to volume ratios. They are
also predicted to become commonplace for industrial,
transportation and power-storage applications, even if
they tend to be more expensive than equivalent battery
technologies with aqueous electrolytes.
Modeling and simulations are necessary tools for accelerated
understanding, design optimization, and design
of automatic control of batteries and battery systems. “
Scaling up production of graphene microsupercapacitors :: ElectronicsOnline
The UCLA researchers have developed a groundbreaking technique that uses a DVD burner to fabricate microscale graphene-based supercapacitors – devices that can charge and discharge a hundred to a thousand times faster than standard batteries. These microsupercapacitors, made from a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon, can be easily manufactured and readily integrated into small devices such as next-generation pacemakers.
via Scaling up production of graphene microsupercapacitors :: ElectronicsOnline.
Using snails’ teeth to improve solar cells and batteries :: ElectronicsOnline
“Kisailus is using the lessons learned from this biomineralisation pathway as inspiration in his lab to guide the growth of minerals used in solar cells and lithium-ion batteries. By controlling the crystal size, shape and orientation of engineering nanomaterials, he believes he can build materials that will allow the solar cells and lithium-ion batteries to operate more efficiently … and the lithium-ion batteries could need significantly less time to recharge … (and) engineering nanocrystals can be grown at significantly lower temperatures, which means significantly lower production costs.”
via Using snails’ teeth to improve solar cells and batteries :: ElectronicsOnline.
Electromagnetic harvester can charge your batteries from thin air – PC & Tech Authority
Electromagnetic harvester can charge your batteries from thin air – PC & Tech Authority.
“This tiny device will wirelessly suck up energy from power lines, coffee machines, photocopiers and pretty much anything else.”
“The harvester uses coils and high frequency diodes to capture the energy, while an LED indicates the strength of the signal. One thing to consider: Siegel says it takes about a day to charge a single AA battery, depending on the signal strength …”
IBM claims spintronics memory breakthrough | Computerworld New Zealand
IBM scientists used ultra short laser pulses to monitor the evolution of thousands of electron spins that were created simultaneously in a very small spot, said Gian Salis, co-author of the Nature paper and a scientist in the Physics of Nanoscale Systems research group at IBM Research.Usually, such spins find electrons randomly rotating and quickly losing their orientation. In this study, IBM and ETH researchers found, for the first time, how to arrange the spins neatly into a regular stripe-like pattern – the so-called persistent spin helix.
via IBM claims spintronics memory breakthrough | Computerworld New Zealand.
Generating terahertz on silicon chips :: ElectronicsOnline
Current methods of generating terahertz radiation involve lasers, thermionic valves and special circuits cooled near absolute zero, often in room-sized apparatuses costing thousands of dollars.
Cornell researchers with Ehsan Afshari, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, have developed a new method using the familiar and inexpensive CMOS chip technology, generating power levels high enough for some medical applications.
via Generating terahertz on silicon chips :: ElectronicsOnline.
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