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NASA hopes to improve computers with tiny carbon tubes on silicon

The life of the silicon chip industry may last 10 or more years longer, thanks to a new manufacturing process developed by NASA scientists. The novel method, announced in the April 14 issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters, includes use of extremely tiny carbon ‘nanotubes’ instead of copper conductors to interconnect parts within integrated circuits (ICs). Carbon nanotubes are measured in nanometers, much smaller than today’s components. A nanometer is roughly 10,000 times smaller than the width of an average human hair. ICs are very small groups of electronic components made on silicon wafers.

Tiny bubbles are key to liquid-cooled system for future computers

Researchers have made a discovery that may lead to the development of an innovative liquid-cooling system for future computer chips, which are expected to generate four times more heat than today’s chips. Researchers had thought that bubbles might block the circulation of liquid forced to flow through “microchannels” only three times the width of a human hair. Engineers also thought that small electric pumps might be needed to push liquid through the narrow channels, increasing the cost and complexity while decreasing the reliability of new cooling systems for computers. Purdue researchers, however, have solved both of these potential engineering hurdles, developing a “pumpless” liquid-cooling system that removes nearly six times more heat than existing miniature pumpless liquid-cooling systems, said Issam Mudawar, a professor of mechanical engineering.

Odors Summon Emotion And Influence Behavior, New Study Says

College students frustrated by playing a rigged computer game in a scented room later exhibited that frustration when they inhaled the same smell, according to a new study by a Brown University psychologist. The study provides further evidence for a growing body of research that indicates emotions can become conditioned to odors and subsequently influence behavior, according to Rachel S. Herz, assistant professor of psychology at Brown. Sixty-three female undergraduates at Brown University participated in the two-pronged study, which used novel scents developed in a laboratory so that the students would not have any previous emotional connections to them. Any potential subjects who noted that a scent “reminded” them of another smell did not take part.

Cray, gov't team on first split-personality supercomputer

With the delivery next month of the Cray X1 supercomputer, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Cray Inc. will take a big step toward investigating computer architectures for scientific discovery. The Cray X1 is the first U.S. computer to offer vector processing and massively parallel processing capabilities in a single architecture and will be used to solving scientific problems in climate, biology, nanoscale materials, fusion and astrophysics.

Training helps dyslexic brains behave 'normally'

For the first time, researchers have shown that the brains of dyslexic children can be rewired — after undergoing intensive remediation training — to function more like those found in normal readers. The training program, which is designed to help dyslexics understand rapidly changing sounds that are the building blocks of language, helped the participants become better readers after just eight weeks.

New Molecular Self-Assembly Technique May Mimic How Cells Assemble Themselves

Researchers report that they have created tree-like molecules that assemble themselves into precisely structured building blocks of a quarter-million atoms. Such building blocks may be precursors to designing nanostructures for molecular electronics or photonics materials, which “steer” light in the same way computer chips steer electrons.

'Selfish routing' slows the Internet

The Tragedy of the Commons , as explained by Garrett Harding in his classic 1968 book, is that self-interest can deplete a common resource. It seems this also applies to the Internet and other computer networks, which are slowed by those who hurry the most. Fortunately, say computer scientists at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. , there is a limit to how bad the slowdown can get. And after developing tools to measure how much the performance of a particular network suffers, they say, the way to get improved performance on the Internet is the same as the way to maintain air and water quality: altruism helps.