ScienceDaily: Computers & Math News

Researchers have shown that solar cells can be used to achieve underwater wireless optical communication with high data rates. The new approach -- which used an array of series-connected solar cells as detectors -- could offer a cost-effective, low-energy way to transmit data underwater.

Physicists have made one of the highest performance atomic clocks ever. ­­ Their instrument, known as an optical lattice atomic clock, can measure differences in time to a precision equivalent to losing just one second every 300 billion years and is the first example of a 'multiplexed' optical clock, where six separate clocks can exist in the same environment. Its design allows the team to test ways to search for gravitational waves, attempt to detect dark matter, and discover new physics with clocks.

Researchers have made an android child named Nikola that successfully conveys six basic emotions -- happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. Facial expressions are generated by moving 'muscles' in Nikola's face. This is the first time that the quality of android-expressed emotion has been tested and verified for these six emotions.

Researchers calculated the optimal search strategy for organisms that employ run-and-tumble motion when looking for a food's odor. They determined that the chemotaxis demonstrated by E. coli closely resembles this system when accounting for the costs of control and the noise of the environment. This work may lead to new methods of designing chemical-seeking drones or nanobots.

Simulations have led to the fabrication of a polymer-DNA gel that could be used in tissue regeneration and robotics.

Scientists have developed mathematical models that act as patient 'surrogates' for evaluating potential prostate cancer treatments.

A machine-learning algorithm could provide auto manufacturing, aerospace and other industries a faster and more cost-efficient way to test bulk materials.

Physicists have coated droplets in atomically-thin graphene that can be used to wrap any liquid, in liquid tech advance.

Carrying data streams using the terahertz (THz) spectral region could meet the ever-growing demand for unprecedented data transfer rates, i.e. terabits-per-second (Tb/s), since it offers a higher available bandwidth. However, it is extremely challenging to develop physical components that go beyond the most elementary processing functionalities for constructing future communication systems at THz frequencies. Scientists have now developed a new waveguide to overcome those limitations.

Researchers have succeeded in developing a simple hydrocarbon molecule with a logic gate function, similar to that in transistors, in a single molecule. The discovery could make electric components on a molecular scale possible in the future.

Human-computer interaction researchers have developed a new prototype that can monitor people's brain signals while they are coloring mandalas and produce real-time feedback on a peripheral display to represent levels of mindfulness. The researchers, who specialize in thinking about how new computing technologies can be designed to help people, believe systems like these could be developed to aid the learning, and training, of focused attention mindfulness techniques and help people deal with stress, depression and other affective health disorders.