http://antidepressionguide.org depression symptoms - depression treatment - depression help - Depression Causes, Symptoms, Types, Signs, Facts, Medication Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:16:46 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/08/27/human-motion-energy-harvester/ http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/08/27/human-motion-energy-harvester/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:45:00 +0000 Tom Magnetoelastic materials change their shape when zapped with a magnetic field and are widely thought of as a way to produce movement, for example in small robots. But they also work in reverse, producing a magnetic field when they are deformed.

Greg Hampikian and Peter Mullner, both at Boise State University in Idaho say this property can be used to harvest energy from human movement.

They connect the magnetoelastic material to a magnetic transducer that generates a current from changes in a magnetic field.

This approach can create energy from low-level vibrations. The inventors say that relatively small movements are needed to produce an effect, making their devices ideally suited to harvesting power from human movement. That could be useful to stretch the battery life of portable gadgets, or medical implants.

Read the full human-motion energy harvester patent application.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant

]]> http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/08/27/human-motion-energy-harvester/feed/ 0 http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/08/21/electronic-nose-radiation-sniffer/ http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/08/21/electronic-nose-radiation-sniffer/#comments Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:22:00 +0000 Tom
The gamma rays produced by radioactive materials can pass through containers relatively easily, but uranium produces only small amounts of such radiation.

Joseph Farmer and colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have produced a new detector sensitive even to low levels of gamma radiation. Their device is set to speed up screening times.

It doesn't directly detect gamma rays themselves, but instead looks for the hydrogen peroxide generated when the rays interact with water.

The detector consists of an "electronic nose" chip coated with a thin layer of water that is condensed onto its surface. When gamma rays strike water molecules in that layer the nose chip detects any hydrogen peroxide formed.

The inventors say that as well as being more sensitive their design can pick up a wider range of gamma ray energies than conventional detectors.

Read the full electronic nose radiation sniffer patent application.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant

]]> http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/08/21/electronic-nose-radiation-sniffer/feed/ 0 http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/08/19/laser-microphone-for-sonar/ http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/08/19/laser-microphone-for-sonar/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:51:00 +0000 Tom
Noureddine Melikechi and Aristides Olaizola at Delaware State University's Applied Optics Center in Dover exploit the effect using an optical fibre with a photoelastic core. They bounce a laser beam back and forth along a fibre to produce a distinctive diffraction pattern and then bombard the fibre with sound.

That causes the photoelastic part to stretch and compress, altering the way light travels through the fibre and changing the pattern. In effect the fibre behaves like a microphone, transforming sounds it receives into light signals.

The team says that the fibre could be used as a low-cost sonar device by laying it across the seafloor and listening out for reflected sound pulses.

Read the full fibre-optic sonar patent application.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant

]]> http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/08/19/laser-microphone-for-sonar/feed/ 0 http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/04/01/spintronic-electron-injector/ http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/04/01/spintronic-electron-injector/#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:32:00 +0000 Tom
Many researchers believe "spintronic" devices will revolutionise electronics, but a number of challenges need to be overcome before new devices can be built that utilise these properties.
One of the big hurdles is to create and control streams of electrons that have their spins aligned.

This is relatively straightforward to do in metallic materials called ferromagnetics that contain tiny magnetic fields which keep the spins aligned.

The trouble is, when that neatly aligned stream is injected into a semiconductor, the spins become randomised because of a mismatch between the density of electrons in the metal and in the semiconductor.

Now, Ya-Hong Xie at the University of California, Los Angeles, has a solution.
His idea is to build a set of ferromagnetic fins on top of a semiconductor transistor. The transistor is so thin that the quantum wave function of any electron travelling through it extends into the ferromagnetic material above.

That means the ferromagnet can keep the electrons' spin in check while the transistor does whatever processing is necessary. Xie says that the process could be incorporated into current fabrication methods, bringing spintronic transistors a step closer.

Read the full spintronic injector patent application.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant]]> http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/04/01/spintronic-electron-injector/feed/ 0 http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/03/31/gaseous-gyroscope/ http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/03/31/gaseous-gyroscope/#comments Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:54:00 +0000 Tom Coriolis forces during rotation.

But they have a number of drawbacks, say Lisa Lust and Dan Youngner from the aerospace equipment company Honeywell International in Morristown, New Jersey, US. For example, the devices require highly stable electronics, which are bulky and expensive to make, and are prone to drift as the constituent materials degrade over time.

Lust and Youngner have come up with a new type of gyroscope that avoids these problems. It is essentially a cavity containing a mixture of rubidium and xenon atoms that can be controlled using two lasers.

The first laser causes the gaseous rubidium atoms to become polarised. The rubidium atoms then transfer their spin to the xenon atoms. The second laser can be used to measure the polarisation of the xenon atoms independently of the rubidium.

If the cavity is rotating, the polarisation of the xenon atoms ends up lagging behind the polarisation of the rubidium atoms and the difference gives a straightforward measure of the rate of rotation.

Lust and Youngner say the device is low powered, physically small and robust since it has no moving or vibrating parts. They suggest it could be used to help uncrewed vehicles and robots navigate. Or it could aid personal navigational when GPS is not available – for example, inside a cave or large building.

Read the full atomic gaseous gyroscope patent application.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant]]> http://antidepressionguide.org/2008/03/31/gaseous-gyroscope/feed/ 0