A computerised navigation system has been developed to enable wheelchair users to select the most accessible routes around a town centre. It means a journey can be planned that avoids obstacles like cobbled streets, steep areas and steps.
The work has been carried out by a team led by Professor Hugh Matthews, at University College Northampton, with funding from the Swindon based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
The ‘Wheelyroute’ system, believed to be the first
A team of physicists in the United States has made an important step towards making quantum computing a reality. Research into a new type of noiseless quantum information bit, or qubit, is published today in the joint Institute of Physics and German Physical Society journal, New Journal of Physics.
At a sub-atomic scale the laws of quantum physics lead to strange new properties of matter. For several years physicists have been trying to exploit this quantum weirdness to build a new type of `
Joint work with IETF produces XML-based solution for digital signatures, foundation for Secure Web services
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has issued XML-Signature Syntax and Processing (XML Signature) as a W3C Recommendation, representing cross-industry agreement on an XML-based language for digital signatures. A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor its widespread
Tyrannosaurus rex , Apatosaurus and the other dinosaur giants capture the popular imagination. But paleontologists often focus on smaller fry – especially with regard to the origin of birds, which are believed to have evolved from petite, predatory dinosaurs. Researchers describe one such specimen — the partial skeleton of a previously unknown genus of chicken-size dinosaur that roamed Chinas Liaoning province nearly 130 million years ago — today in the journal Nature. According to
’Sleeping your life away’ could be more than a saying.
Excessive sleeping may increase your risk of an early death by up to 15%. So hints a new analysis of data collected on one million people by the American Cancer Society. The figures cast doubt on the reputed benefits of eight hours’ sleep a night.
People with the longest lives get only seven hours of sleep each night, find psychiatrists at the University of California, San Diego 1 . Why seven is the magi
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is lower at the weekend.
The climate-monitoring station on Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii, 3,400 metres above sea level, could hardly be farther away from it all. Yet even here there is no escaping the weekly rhythm of modern life. The observatory records lower concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the weekend than during the week.
Because there is no known natural cause of such a seven-day cycle, Randall Cerveny of Arizona State Univer
Not all magnets are the same. When we think of magnetism, we often think of magnets that stick to a refrigerator’s door. For these types of magnets, the electronic interactions…
An international research team from the University of Jena and the Helmholtz Institute Jena are demystifying the mechanisms by which high-intensity laser pulses produce plasma on the surface of solids….
Using the Hubbard model, Flatiron Institute senior research scientist Shiwei Zhang and his colleagues have computationally re-created key features of the superconductivity in materials called cuprates that have puzzled scientists…
A study from the Hackett group at EMBL Rome led to the development of a powerful epigenetic editing technology, which unlocks the ability to precisely program chromatin modifications. Understanding how…
Our human brain is not only bigger and contains more neurons than the brains of other species, but it is also connected in a special pattern: Thick bundles of neurons…
Macquarie University researchers have debunked a 75-year-old theory about how humans determine where sounds are coming from, and it could unlock the secret to creating a next generation of more…
Good vibrations… What if your earbuds could do everything your smartphone can do already, except better? What sounds a bit like science fiction may actually not be so far off….
The new technique can modify the nanostructure of bulk and 2D crystals without a cleanroom or expensive etching equipment. In a new paper published on May 1 in the journal…
Research led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated that small changes in the isotopic content of thin semiconductor materials can influence their optical…
In five years’ time, a large asteroid will fly very close to Earth – a unique opportunity to study it. Concepts for a national German small satellite mission are being…
The rapid advancement in photonic integrated circuits (PICs), whichcombine multiple optical devices and functionalities on a single chip, has revolutionized optical communications and computing systems. For decades, silicon-based PICs have…
Researchers from the University of Basel and the NCCR SPIN have achieved the first controllable interaction between two hole spin qubits in a conventional silicon transistor. The breakthrough opens up…