East China Normal University (ECNU)

Let’s say computers come for most of our jobs. This may not seem likely at the moment; computer scientists and economists offer wildly varying ideas for how deeply automation will affect future employment. But for the sake of argument, imagine that within two or three decades we’ll have morphed into the Robotic States of America.

They’re one step closer. In a new paper in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Kenneth Hanson and his team have introduced a new strategy for generating more efficient solar cells. The team is composed of post-doctoral researcher Tanmay Banerjee and graduate students Sean Hill and Tristan Dilbeck. “We’re

Facebook just made a potentially game-changing announcement. It got less fanfare thanTuesday’s announcementthat it is going into the social search business, but this other announcement may have bigger long-term implications for the technology industry. Put simply, some of the world’s biggest computing systems just got a little cheaper, and a lot easier to configure. As

  An international team of scientists has developed crop models to better forecast food production to feed a growing population – projected to reach 9 billion by mid-century – in the face of climate change. In a paper appearing in Nature Climate Change, members of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project unveiled an all-encompassing

Scientists have sent a pulse of bright light in a particularly sensitive quantum state through 1.6 kilometers of air. This quantum state, which they call squeezed, was maintained, which is something many physicists thought to be impossible. Eavesdropping on a message protected by quantum cryptography cannot be done without being noticed. It could be difficult

The microneedles painlessly pierce the top layer of skin Microneedles continue to show promise as a replacement – in at least some applications – for the hypodermic needle. Typically, a sheet containing an array of the tiny needles is adhered to the patient’s skin, like a bandage. The microneedles painlessly pierce the top layer of

Kickstarter backers who stump up more than US$500 will be the first to get their hands on one It took Deep Thought (the supercomputer from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) seven and a half million years to calculate that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything was 42. South Dakota’s