US university first 1000-processor chip

                Scientists have designed the world’s first microchip containing 1,000 independent programmable processors, that can compute upto 1.78 trillion instructions per second and is thought to be the fastest ever designed at a university. The energy-efficient “KiloCore” chip contains 621 million transistors.

                “To the best of our knowledge, it is the world’s first 1,000-processor chip and it is the highest clock-rate processor ever designed in a university,” said Bevan Baas, professor at the University of California, Davis, who led the team that designed the chip architecture.

                While other multiple-processor chips have been created, none exceed about 3000 processors, researchers said. Most were created for research purposes. Since each processor is independently clocked, it can shut itself down to further save energy when not needed. The chip is the most energy-efficient “many-core” processor ever reported.

Qora, indigenous faecal incontinence management device, launched

                On 20 May 2016, the Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Y.S. Chowdary launched Qora. It is an indigenously developed faecal incontinence (FI) management system. The affordable device is primarily aimed at patients outside the intensive care Unit. Qora was developed by the Department of Biotechnology in partnership with AIIMS and IIT Delhi. The international partners of the programme include Stanford University, US, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and Tottori University, Japan.

What is faecal incontinence?

•          FI is a medical condition marked by inability to control one’s bowel movements.
•          It causes stools (faeces) to leak unexpectedly from the rectum. It affects nearly 100 million bed-ridden patients worldwide.
•          As per an estimate, 58 percent of patients in hospital intensive care units suffer from this condition, as well as another 27 million patients who live at home and are cared for by their families.

Way to produce clean Hydrogen Fuel using Sunlight

                Stanford scientists have developed a new way to produce hydrogen fuel using sunlight, in an effort to tackle one of the world’s biggest energy challenges – clean fuel for transportation. Hydrogen fuel has long been touted as a clean alternative to gasoline. “Millions of cars could be powered by clean hydrogen fuel if it were cheap and widely available,” said Yi Cui, an associate professor at Stanford University.

                Unlike gasoline-powered vehicles, hydrogen cars themselves are emissions free. However, making most hydrogen fuel involves natural gas in a process that releases CO₂ into the atmosphere. To address the problem, researchers focused on photovoltaic water splitting which consists of a solar-powered electrode immersed in water.

                When sunlight hits the electrode, it generates an electric current that splits the water into its constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen. Conventional solar electrodes made of silicon quickly corrode when exposed to oxygen, a key byproduct of water splitting. Researchers presented a new approach using bismuth vanadate, an inexpensive compound that absorbs sunlight and generates modest amounts of electricity.

A portable Ultrasound scanner is coming

                A portable ultrasound scanner being developed by British scientists could save the lives of wounded soldiers on the front line by quickly detecting injuries like bleeding on the brain. The portable ultrasound scanner will use new brain scanning software. The device – much smaller than an MRI scanner – would create a 3D model of the brain on location and it could then be used for swift diagnosis.