By Scott Michael Slone

You hear it humming and whirring, probably right next to you. It’s a small device that somehow takes your words and images and makes physical copies of them, all day long, and never stopping. It’s obviously your printer, but there’s a device coming around that would fit that description just the same, and yet has a much grander use. At the moment it exists as massive and expensive facilities, or centers and companies devoted to its use. It’s called nanofabrication, and researchers at Northwestern University are making it happen. Continue reading “Printing a Future”

By Scott Michael Slone

This article is by Scott Michael Slone, C2ST’s resident intern.

Robots are coming in from everywhere! By land, by sea, by air! Speaking of air, dozens of tiny robots known as quadrotors are making themselves visible! A quadrotor is a small flying robot that uses four propellers pointed upwards to fly. On their own they’re quite the acrobatic little fellas, and are capable of navigating themselves easily around their environment. The first video of this collection focuses on the swarm capabilities of the quadrotors being made at University of Pennsylvania. Continue reading “The Quadrotors are coming!”

By Scott Michael Slone

It has been nearly 36 years since the Voyager 1 was sent into space on its journey. Its purpose at the time: to take vivid and detailed pictures of the planets of our Solar System in a way that had never been attempted before. Eventually its primary mission was completed, giving breathtaking images of Saturn and Jupiter, as well as the famous picture of a “pale blue dot” known to some beings as Earth. Voyager 1 is still making its journey through the cosmos, and is now entering a region of space where the line between the Solar System and interstellar space is becoming more and more blurry. Continue reading “Voyager: Our Most Distant Explorer”

By Scott Michael Slone

The internet is abuzz with all sorts of videos on cool, weird, and interesting chemical reactions. I felt these were unique enough to share with you all, and thus compiled several of them. So here you have it, three reactions and three videos!

Continue reading “Mercury, Gallium, and Aluminum, oh my!”

By Scott Michael Slone

Greetings fellow members of C2ST, this article is by Scott Michael Slone, C2ST’s resident intern.

There has been a rapid surge in technological progress in recent years, especially miniaturized devices. These include medical implants, flying robots that mimic insects, as well as tiny microphones and cameras that can fit, say, on a pair of glasses or jewelry. It seems with all of this rapid progress that there is no end to our expansion. However, there is one issue that has been plaguing these devices: the power source. Continue reading “A Tiny Battery with a Huge Spark”