Engineers and scientists have known for quite a while capacitors could possibly replace batteries in such devices as electric cars. The problem with this idea was that these capacitors suffer from diminished capacity. There may be a change in the wind as researchers from MIT have used a new type of super composite material which outperforms all other carbon based models. The super composite will recharge and discharge a lot faster than a battery. One of the main problems with electric cars is the time it takes to recharge the battery. If one could do this in just a couple of minutes, electric cars would truly become rivals to the gasoline powered ones if the price was right. The new super capacitors feature three times the surface area of the old carbon ones due to the use of this new material. The scientists state that if we took 1 gram of this new material and unraveled it, it would be large enough to cover a football field. The new material is known as Ni3(hexaiminotriphenylene)2. This is quite a mouthful to say the least, but as they say actions speak louder than words. The material has another use and that is for improving batteries. The reason for this is its ability to withstand more charge and discharge cycles.

Robots are getting more human-like every day and the new one invented by the Japanese uses a function which is the same one our bodies use. The Japanese faced a problem in robotics, they wanted to keep their new robot cool. I don’t mean cool as in desirable, I am referring to temperature. They didn’t want to weigh it down with all sorts of fans and liquid cooling systems with pumps and such. They decided to look at the human body and realized when the human body starts to heat up it sweats and this sweat evaporates and cools us. The same principle was used in developing this new robot. As its parts start to heat up when it is exerting itself, tiny droplets of liquid are extruded which evaporate and cool off the device. In order to heat the robot so they could watch the reaction to the cooling, the Japanese had the robot do push-ups.

Reconstructive surgery has always been a tough thing to go through. Some of the most challenging parts of the surgery are repairing or replacing bones. The problems with this part of the surgery may have become a thing of the past. A new type of bone is being created using 3D printers. The new bones are hyper elastic and fit in perfectly, because they are custom tailored. The bones are made mostly of hydroxyapatite which is a naturally occurring material that contains mostly calcium and phosphate. This material is nothing new in surgery as it has been used for years as a scaffolding material implanted under the skin to promote bone growth. The scaffolding material is brittle, but researchers at Northwestern University created a composite material which also contains collagen which is soft. This allows the bones to resist breaking from forces. The bone has been tested and the tests show that it can be compressed up to 50% of its original height and yet return to its original shape. It’s starting to look like the artificial bone is better than the bone we have in our body which occurs naturally. The best part of the whole thing is human cells grow in this material and they do it three times faster than normal. It is said the new material is easy to make, cheap and could be stored for up to a year.

Heat is the enemy of superconductors that is why they have to be cooled to very low temperatures. The dream for engineers and scientists has been to create a superconductor which will work at room temperature. Electronics heat up, because microchips lose a lot of their energy in heat. The goal is not having to use a lot of energy to cool superconductors. Obviously the answer is the superconductor that works at room temperature that I spoke about. Too bad it doesn’t exist yet. This may change soon as researchers from Berkeley lab, UC Berkeley and Germany have found a new material. The material has unique properties which could provide lossless electrical conductivity. The problem is this material can’t be used in electronics, so this research doesn’t have any direct benefits yet. The material I am talking about is cadmium arsenide. It is hoped a similar material will be found which will exhibit lossless conducting at room temperature, because this is the Holy Grail of electronics.

Hey Star Trek fans I bet you all remember the many times the tractor beam on the enterprise was used. Do you remember thinking wow too bad we don’t really have one of those? Well in a way we do. Scientists have developed a sonic system which can push or pull objects, but these objects have to be a heck of a lot smaller than an enemy spaceship. The device they have invented costs under $10. It was created by engineers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany. The device is only three parts which consist of a plastic disc made on a 3D printer, a thin breastplate and a small speaker of the type you find inside of a watch which is used for the alarm. The engineers said, “We were genuinely surprised that nobody had ever thought of this before.” The engineers found their device worked even better than they had planned. We still have a long way to go before we can move large objects, but baby steps are required before giant steps can be taken.

Are you tired of lacing your shoes? Sure you could get shoes which close with Velcro tabs or you could get the incredible new shoe from Adidas which ties itself. I do have one thing against this new shoe and that is the fact it is being made in a factory which only uses robots. I also realize this is the wave of things to come. The laces don’t exactly tie themselves however, they sort of tighten themselves up to proper pressure which is determined by a sensor. The shoes will quickly become a collector item since only 500 pairs of them are being scheduled to be created in 2017.

For years engineers and scientists have been talking about replacing the material which a computer chip is made from and that is mostly silicone. There have been several projects launched to find a suitable replacement for this material which will offer better abilities. A new material is being experimented with by scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The material holds a lot of promise and is made from a crystal complex oxide. It was discovered this material contains many tiny regions which can be controlled in multiple different ways making the material far more suitable for computer chips. One thing which has excited the scientists is the fact it may become possible after using this material to actually rewrite the circuitry of these chips. I only hope if we go to this material we won’t find hackers developing viruses which change the circuitry.