The Enlightening Science Thread

Beyond Silicon: Transistors without Semiconductors Developed by Researchers

For decades, electronic devices have been getting smaller, and smaller. It is now possible to place billions of transistors on a single silicon chip. But transistors based on semiconductors can continue getting smaller only to a certain degree, it is generally believed. Great minds of the planet think how they can further shrink the transistor with a semiconductor, but some other look in a completely different direction.

“At the rate the current technology is progressing, in 10 or 20 years, they will not be able to get any smaller. Also, semiconductors have another disadvantage: they waste a lot of energy in the form of heat,” said Yoke Khin Yap, a physicist of Michigan Technological University.

Source

A Guy

APOD: 2012 March 12 - The Scale of the Universe Interactive

BBC News - Pluto moons get mythical new names

A Guy said:

Beyond Silicon: Transistors without Semiconductors Developed by Researchers

For decades, electronic devices have been getting smaller, and smaller. It is now possible to place billions of transistors on a single silicon chip. But transistors based on semiconductors can continue getting smaller only to a certain degree, it is generally believed. Great minds of the planet think how they can further shrink the transistor with a semiconductor, but some other look in a completely different direction.

“At the rate the current technology is progressing, in 10 or 20 years, they will not be able to get any smaller. Also, semiconductors have another disadvantage: they waste a lot of energy in the form of heat,” said Yoke Khin Yap, a physicist of Michigan Technological University.

Source

A Guy

Yep Bill this is what I find really exciting stuff near the bottom of this ref
Graphene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and this
Flexible graphene transistor sets new records - physicsworld.com
mind blowing stuff

Britton30 said:

APOD: 2012 March 12 - The Scale of the Universe Interactive

Wow what a site Gary that is just mind numbing stuff:)

Golden said:

BBC News - Pluto moons get mythical new names

Hum Golden I thought it a bit off knocking off the planet handle but anyway they did but the stuff coming in is just fantastic stuff eh?

Mind you I'd make them call it Brian just to be flippin awkward

A nanotech fix for nicotine dependence

A chemical component present in the nightshade family of plants is one of the world’s most tenaciously addictive substances. It is the nicotine contained in tobacco and found in high concentrations in cigarettes. Smoking remains a global scourge; in the U.S. it is the leading source of preventable death.

Yung Chang and her colleagues at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute have launched an ambitious new project, designed to attack nicotine dependence in a radically new way. The research effort, pursued under a new $3.3 million grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, will attempt to design a vaccine conferring immunity to nicotine, using nanoscale structures assembled from DNA.

Source

A Guy

A Guy said:

A nanotech fix for nicotine dependence

A chemical component present in the nightshade family of plants is one of the world’s most tenaciously addictive substances. It is the nicotine contained in tobacco and found in high concentrations in cigarettes. Smoking remains a global scourge; in the U.S. it is the leading source of preventable death.

Yung Chang and her colleagues at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute have launched an ambitious new project, designed to attack nicotine dependence in a radically new way. The research effort, pursued under a new $3.3 million grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, will attempt to design a vaccine conferring immunity to nicotine, using nanoscale structures assembled from DNA.

Source

A Guy

This strikes chord with me Bill as I see the end results of smoking particularly and it ain't pleasant. The nicotine mentioned has been considered more addictive than heroin for a long time now.

By the by did you know that we eat a lot of plants from this genus too things like potatoes and capsicums to name but two Solanaceae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Golden said:

How's your pareidolia? Rats on Mars?

BBC News - Pareidolia: Why we see faces in hills, the Moon and toasties

Always been a favorite of mine :)

BBC Science - The secret life of the Sun