Now, Control Your Smartphone, PC Using a Tattoo

Researchers have created a temporary metallic tattoo that can be used to control your computer, smartphone and other connected devices. These tattoos enable anyone to create interfaces directly on their skin. These temporary tattoos called DuoSkin use layers of gold leaf that act as a conductor and connect parts of a small, simple circuit. This new technology lets anyone create their own durable, customized gold metal leaf temporary tattoo that can be worn directly on the skin and used in several ways. Tattoos that act as an input device can convert skin into a track pad, letting users connect to a computer or smartphone and control apps by swiping on the tattoo itself. For example, one tattoo can change color based on your body temperature. Another can be paired with an app developed by researchers called “Couple Harmony” and lets partners visualize each other’s mood.

A Bubble That Does Not Move And it's a Big Deal

                It is a lesson learnt by generations of children who have had fun blowing bubbles – they wobble around all over the place and they never last long. But now scientists in France have managed to immobilize a tiny bubble in water in a surprising breakthrough that could help doctors treat blood clots. Normally bubbles in a liquid will naturally be pushed upwards, a phenomenon described by Archimedes in 250BC. “Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object,” the mathematician wrote. And Until now, no-one had found a way to stop this process from happening.

However, researchers found they could create micro-bubbles by running electricity through a tiny electrode in water. By changing the frequency of the electricity they discovered they could make the bubble stay a set distance from the electrode. So instead of slowly rising through the water, it would stay in a fixed position, and if they moved the electrode, the bubble went with it. The researchers demonstrated they could immobilize a micro-bubble created from water electrolysis as if the Archimedes’ buoyant force that would normally push it upwards didn’t exist. This new and surprising phenomenon could lead to application in medicine, the nuclear industry or micromanipulation technology.

Improved Cancer Drugs In The Offing

                Scientists have unveiled the inner workings of a group of proteins that help to switch critical genes on and off during blood-cell production, a finding that could lead to the development of new and improved cancer drugs. One of the proteins involved is linked to breast cancer, which is the most common form of cancer for women and kills more than half a million women globally each year. Existing breast cancer treatments do not target this protein specifically. The study could help explain how existing breast cancer drugs work inside human cells. There are treatments for breast cancer which are in use today that are effective but we still do not know how they work. This research shines a light on an important set of proteins that could be targeted by these drugs and superior treatments yet to be developed. The research seeks to understand the mechanisms for gene regulation, particularly in relation to disease such as cancer and blood disorders. Researchers described how a special group of proteins form into enzymes that turn genes on and off to produce essential elements such as blood cells and stem cells. The ongoing research will help scientists advance their knowledge of how genes are regulated. It also may lead to development of new and improved cancer drugs.

FB Takes Leap Towards Light-Based Net

                Scientists at Facebook’s Connectivity Lab have developed a new way to detect light signals travelling through the air, and advance that may lead to fast optical wireless networks capable of delivering internet service to remote places. High-speed wired communication networks today use lasers to carry information through optical fibers, but wireless networks are based on radio frequencies or microwaves. In the new study, the researchers demonstrated a method to use fluorescent materials instead of traditional optics to collect light and concentrate it onto a small photo-detector. They combined this light collector, which features 126 sqcm of surface that can collect light from any direction, with existing telecommunications technology to achieve data rates of achieve data rates of more than 2 gigabits-per-second (Gbps).