Scotch research?

Evaporated whisky inspires new type of coating technique

Clean with nanoparticles

Nanoparticle-coated textiles clean themselves with sunlight

Better batting

Cricket players more successful when batting the 'wrong' way

MEMS galore

Status of the MEMS Industry 2015

Sun dried electricity

New study identifies tomato waste as source of electricity

Breaking wafers

In situ high-speed crack propagation within silicon wafers under thermal stress has been imaged simultaneously in direct transmission and diffraction X-ray imaging.

Top speed in Moscow

Moscow scientists have proposed a new, faster, version of superconducting memory architecture.

LEDS are go!

LED lighting is predicted as being the biggest driver of growth for the next few years in the industrial semiconductor market.

Patently leaders?

Which organisation do you think tops the Reuters list of Top 25 Global Innovators, Government - a list that ranks the publicly funded institutions doing the most to advance science and technology? Based on a methodology that looks at patents, papers and article citations and impact, the accolade goes to France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. On a country basis, the United States leads the list with six organizations ranked, France and Japan each have four, and Germany has three.

Enhance XPS surface analysis capabilities with UV photoelectron spectroscopy

Next Thermo Scientific Advanced Materials Science Research Webinar: Enhance XPS surface analysis capabilities with UV photoelectron spectroscopy.

Gone

Are we amazed or concerned by AlphaGo’s 4-1 win over Go grandmaster Lee Se-Dol? Two neural networks operating in tandem give AlphaGo the edge.The first network reduces the effective depth of the search by estimating how likely a given board position will lead to a win without chasing down every node of the search tree. The second reduces the breadth of the game, limiting the number of moves for a particular board position by learning to chose the best moves for that position.  So the first network generates possible moves that the second judges their likelihood to beat the opponent.
 
Personally, I will only be impressed when it beats Barry Cryer at Mornington Crescent.

Correlated XPS and Raman

Thermo Scientific launch XPS-Raman (see the seminar "Elemental Analysis of Advanced Materials" from Pittcon)

John's ramblings

Last month I visited the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The collections of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings are truly impressive. Sadly and bizarrely, many fellow visitors spend almost no time admiring and appreciating these masterpieces on canvas. Technology and human behaviour seem to have, for many, reduced museum and gallery visits to a series of tablet and mobile phone picture taking and ‘selfie’ opportunities. We can all learn from the greats, but it can take the investment of some time.

The German philosopher Schopenhauer said: Treat a work of art like a Prince. Let it speak to you first. Obviously, he did not have an iPhone.

Fax return?