Technology

Vanadium Dioxide is an interesting material. It functions as a metal at some temperatures and then as an insulator at other temperatures. The microscopic reason for the transition is unknown but the ways this can be used is interesting. Transition metal oxides make for interesting studies. They are normally an insulator that does not allow…

Dr Hagan Bayley’s lab has been working on ion channels, pores and droplet based technologies. Dr Gabriel Villar from that group just published a paper in Science that shows the formation of unique droplets submerged in hydrocarbons/oil. The formation of these droplets is interesting but what is unique is that they can form interactions amongst…

Many visitors come to Philadelphia to learn about American history and make a compulsory stop to see the Liberty Bell. However, what is relatively unknown to most of them is that there is a great chemical technology library, museum and a center for scholars less than three blocks away called the Chemical Heritage Foundation. There…

Microsoft Kinect was originally invented as a good way to control gaming but due to its good flexibility has quickly turned into a good way to control things. In biology, it has not been used as much to control microscopes or other expensive devices but Dr David McGloin at the University of Dundee in UK…

Currently the line of thinking is that technology is complex and we need to complex instrumentation and thoughtful experiments over a long period of time before a new technology is created. However, consider time. We take for granted that the clock divides the day into 60 minutes, with 60 seconds per minute and 24 hours…

It is surprising that something has common as ink that we use for writing has been innovated in so many ways but not too many innovations are successful. The purpose of ink, whether in a pen on paper or in printer on paper has been primarily used to display objects on paper and that is…

Fluorescence technologies with flow cytometry have been used in the clinical sciences for many purposes since it has been established method. This is standardized for clinical analysis but also for other research based applications. It however suffers from one limitation that it is limited to 20 independent channels and is very complex to setup 20…

People in developed countries fail to realize the problems that face citizens of countries that have to fight to get pure water to drink. There have been a few technologies for that but the easiest one has been the use of a Lifestraw made by a company called Vestergaard Frandsen. The specifications are impressive: it…

LED have been used in all applications in electronics and also in imaging for providing long lasting consistent illumination, as well as indicators in instruments but only recently have started entering the market as home lights. UK based IMS Research publishes reports that estimate the market for packaged LED’s and they have estimated the market…

As we browse the web, we realize that each of the websites asks for authentication. So for example, if you are at Google Mail, it asks for entering the name and password combination. Browse to another site like Amazon and they ask for their own authentication. These name and password combinations are tedious to remember…