http://www.activematerials.com science, news, rumors, and business Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:11:18 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en "Looking into the future is difficult and projections are frequently wrong, being based as they usually are on the status quo. But sometimes, a view of the way things are can help with a kind of simulated clairvoyant foresight. Little argument exists against the empirical view that things are in ... http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/17/the-new-world-order-and-nanotechnology/ "Lockheed has teamed up with Infinite Power Solutions, a small Colorado-based clean power company, to develop tiny, long-lived power sources for military and civilian use.Don't expect this sort of energy to power a car or run a radar, said Larry Easton, a senior strategic analyst for Lockheed's Information Systems and ... http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/17/stray-sounds-radio-waves-could-power-military/ "Researchers from Monash University in Australia are working on microbot motors designed to swim through the human bloodstream. Dubbed the "Proteus" after the miniature submarine that traveled through the body in the 1966 sci-fi flick, Fantastic Voyage, the tiny piezoelectric motor is just 250 micrometers or a quarter of a ... http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/17/miniscule-motor-swims-through-the-bloodstream/ “The main advantage of the CBCM (controlled behavior composite material) is that the entire structure is active, compared to classical actuators used in this kind of structures, such as shape memory alloys (SMA) or piezoelectric materials, so there is no problem of junction and connection between the actuator and the ... http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/17/new-smart-material-bends-under-internal-heat-source/ US researchers have found an unlikely new source of renewable energy – a hamster. A hamster in an electricity-generating jacket, to be precise. more here and here http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/17/hamsters-provide-small-scale-energy-source/ East Japan Railway Company (JR East) will install piezoelectric elements in the floors at ticket gates and other areas of Tokyo Station to test a system that generates power using the energy created by passengers passing through the gates. more here http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/17/revamped-power-generating-floor-to-be-tested-at-tokyo-station/ "Promising applications combining nanotechnologies and food are also expected to result from new encapsulation technologies. Such nano encapsulation systems can be used to add additional nutrients without changing a product’s flavour or quality. This might enable producers to integrate nutrients which are not naturally occurring, or which could so far ... http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/16/what-nanotechnology-might-bring-to-the-food-sector/ "A group of PhD candidates at Northwestern University are making the search far more precise with nanotechnology. The students are customizing nanoconjugates – submicroscopic titanium dioxide (TiO2) particles attached to biological molecules. Such conjugates can be designed to carry specific cancer treatments and then bind only to harmful cells that need ... http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/16/nanotechnology-and-cancer-drug-delivery/ "Intelligent" or "smart" clothing is part of an exciting technology that involves building computing, connectivity, and sensing abilities into materials people are comfortable wearing. Some of the latest products in this area are very fashionable, lightweight, and look no different than other clothes. In some cases, the electronic circuits ... http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/15/smart-fabrics-and-wearable-electronics-the-future-of-clothing/ ISSCC Microrobotics just took a giant step toward reality, according to a paper presented at this week's International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco. Microrobots are the subject of intense experimentation and development in a project formally known as Intelligent Small World Autonomous Robots for Micro-manipulation, but better known by ... http://www.activematerials.com/2009/02/14/microrobots/