University of Campinas

Now you have an excuse to touch everything. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft Research have created OmniTouch, a wearable system that turns walls, arms, hands, table tops, paper, and just about everything else into interactive touch surfaces. What makes it all work is a depth-sensing camera that tracks finger movements. The system includes

Today’s world, rapidly changing because of “big data”, is encapsulated in trillions of tiny magnetic objects – magnetic bits – each of which stores one bit of data in magnetic disk drives.   A group of scientists from the Max Planck Institutes in Halle and Dresden have discovered a new kind of magnetic nano-object in a

  Householders may be able to stay warm without having to crank up the heating thanks to a new invention from Newcastle University. The device is called the ‘Radfan’ and works by distributing the heat horizontally across a room rather than letting it rise to the ceiling. The easy-to-use invention fits onto the top of

New drug-delivery approach holds potential for treating obesity Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed nanoparticles that can deliver antiobesity drugs directly to fat tissue. Overweight mice treated with these nanoparticles lost 10 percent of their body weight over 25 days, without showing any negative side effects. The drugs work by transforming

A new polymer-based solar-thermal device is the first to generate power from both heat and visible sunlight — an advance that could shave the cost of heating a home by as much as 40 percent. Geothermal add-ons for heat pumps on the market today collect heat from the air or the ground. This new device

Keep Your Kindle Safe, Powered and Illuminated   The first solar book cover for the Amazon Kindle e-reader takes an environmentally friendly approach to enhancing form and utility. The SolarKindle Lighted Cover is designed to look smart and feel great in your hands without being bulky or heavy. The form-fitted cover keeps your Kindle safe

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine report they have created a tiny, nanosize container that can slip inside cells and deliver protein-based medicines and gene therapies of any size — even hefty ones attached to the gene-editing tool called CRISPR. If their creation – constructed of a biodegradable polymer — passes more laboratory testing, it could

It sounds like something out of science fiction – a huge swathe of the moon covered with solar panels to beam captured energy back to Earth. But plans to turn the moon into a gigantic mirrorball manned by robots to provide all the Earth’s energy came a step closer to reality today when they were