Laser tweezers build super-fast computers more easily

October 5th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Those small and inconvenient sticky labels in illegible print on consumer items like fruits are likely to be replaced by laser 'tattoo' technology, which is currently undergoing tests. Called laser etching, the new technology puts a tattoo on grapefruit and other produce so it can be identified at the supermarket checkout lines.

September 12th, 2009 LONDON - Soon, the Airborne Laser (ABL), built into a customized Boeing 747, is ready for flight tests, in which it will try to shoot a ballistic missile. According to a report in New Scientist, the US Department of Defense's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has developed the ABL.

September 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, scientists have determined that the technique of laser cooling could be used to create "exotic" states of matter. According to a report in National Geographic News, in a new technique, Martin Weitz and Ulrich Vogl of the University of Bonn in Germany used a laser to bring the temperature of dense rubidium gas far below the normal point at which the gas becomes a solid.

September 8th, 2009 LONDON - A British defence manufacturer has designed a laser gun that can be used to dazzle pirates, leaving them incapacitated, thus becoming the perfect weapon to fight Somali pirates. According to a report in the Telegraph, known as the 'Laser Dazzle System, the device is powerful enough to incapacitate pirates up to 1,000 yards away, while leaving them physically unscathed.

September 6th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The United States Naval Research Laboratory is working on a new technology that uses flashes of laser light to remotely create underwater sound. Researchers behind the project say that the new technology has the potential to expand and improve both Naval and commercial underwater acoustic applications, including undersea communications, navigation, and acoustic imaging.

September 5th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists has developed a new laser technology that has made it possible to turn light into sound. Developed by scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory, US, the technology has the potential to expand and improve both Naval and commercial underwater acoustic applications, including undersea communications, navigation and acoustic imaging.

August 31st, 2009 LONDON - The dentist's dreaded drill may soon be a thing of past, thanks to the laser tests University of Sydney scientists have developed to identify weaknesses in dental enamel. Currently, X-rays and metal probes are used to check cavities, but they fail to detect weaknesses in the enamel in time to repair the surface.

August 29th, 2009 WASHINGTON - While it gets quite difficult to manipulate tiny objects like single cells or nanosized beads via relatively large, unwieldy equipment, Penn State engineers have now designed a new system that uses sound as a pair of tiny tweezers that are small enough to place infinitesimal objects on a chip. While optical tweezers are large and expensive, acoustic tweezers are smaller than a dime, small enough to fabricate on a chip using standard chip manufacturing techniques.

July 23rd, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - By opting for the free and open software platform (FOSS) for the state-sponsored IT@School project, Kerala's General Education Department has saved Rs.11 crore. The project's Executive Director K.

July 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists is using laser light technology to create new forms of metal and enhance aircraft performance. The laser light technology is being used by AFOSR (Air Force Office of Scientific Research) funded researchers at the University of Rochester to help the military create new forms of metal that may guide, attract and repel liquids and cool small electronic devices.

July 2nd, 2009 LONDON - Swiss researchers have made an optical transistor that uses one laser beam to control another, an instrument that could form the heart of a future generation of ultrafast light-based computers. Conventional computers are based on transistors, which allow one electrode to control the current moving through the device and are combined to form logic gates and processors.

June 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Trees draw vast amounts of water from their roots up to their leaves hundreds of feet above the ground through capillary action. But now University of Rochester scientists have created a simple slab of metal that lifts liquid using the same principle, but at a much faster speed.

May 31st, 2009 World's strongest laser unveiled at California labLIVERMORE, Calif. — The world's most powerful laser, created to help keep tabs on the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile while also studying the heavens, has been unveiled.

May 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Optics researchers at the University of Rochester, US, have developed an ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers. The process could make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper and radiating a more pleasant light than a fluorescent bulb can.

May 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An ultra-powerful laser not only doubles the brightness of light bulbs filaments but also slashes their power consumption, according to a new study. "We've been experimenting with the way ultra-fast lasers change metals, and we wondered what would happen if we trained the laser on a filament," said Chunlei Guo, associate professor of optics at the University of Rochester, who led the research.