Solar energy has the potential to provide abundant power, but only if scientists solve two key issues: storing the energy for use at all hours, particularly at night, and making the technology more cost effective. Now an interdisciplinary team at Stanford has made significant strides toward solving the storage issue, demonstrating the most efficient means […]
Stanford Researchers Create New Special-Purpose Computer That May Someday Save Us Billions
The processing power of standard computers is likely to reach its maximum in the next 10 to 25 years. Even at this maximum power, traditional computers won’t be able to handle a particular class of problem that involves combining variables to come up with many possible answers, and looking for the best solution. Now, an […]
Brain-Sensing Technology Developed By Stanford Scientists Allows Typing At 12 Words Per Minute
It does not take an infinite number of monkeys to type a passage of Shakespeare. Instead, it takes a single monkey equipped with brain-sensing technology – and a cheat sheet. That technology, developed by Stanford Bio-X scientists Krishna Shenoy, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, and postdoctoral fellow Paul Nuyujukian, directly reads brain signals […]
Pop Science: Stanford Engineers Stop Soap Bubbles from Swirling
The spinning rainbow surface of a soap bubble is more than mesmerizing – it’s a lesson in fluid mechanics. Better understanding of these hypnotic flows could bring improvements in many areas, from longer lasting beer foam to life-saving lung treatments. The whirling on the surface of bubbles is caused in part by the Marangoni effect. […]
Stanford-led Team Reveals Nanoscale Secrets Rechargeable Batteries
Better batteries that charge quickly and last a long time are a brass ring for engineers. But despite decades of research and innovation, a fundamental understanding of exactly how batteries work at the smallest of scales has remained elusive. In a paper published this week in the journal Science, a team led by William Chueh, an assistant professor […]
Experiments Point Toward Memory Chips 1,000 Times Faster Than Today’s
Silicon memory chips come in two broad types: volatile memory, such as computer RAM that loses data when the power is turned off, and nonvolatile flash technologies that store information even after we shut off our smartphones. In general, volatile memory is much faster than nonvolatile storage, so engineers often balance speed and retention when […]
Girl Scouts Can Help Parents Make Energy-saving Decisions at Home
Adults get most of the credit for structuring and managing the world, but researchers are finding that children play a much bigger role in society than we often imagine. Using rigorous research designs, behavioral theory and approaches borrowed from public health, a team of Stanford researchers recently measured the effects of a youth energy-behavior program on […]
Stanford Research May Lead to More Durable Electronic Devices Such as Cellphones
Deep inside the electronic devices that proliferate in our world, from cell phones to solar cells, layer upon layer of almost unimaginably small transistors and delicate circuitry shuttle all-important electrons back and forth. It is now possible to cram 6 million or more transistors into a single layer of these chips. Designers include layers of […]
Stanford Researchers Find Way of Making Hydrogen Fuel from Water
A Stanford University research lab has developed new technologies to tackle two of the world’s biggest energy challenges – clean fuel for transportation and grid-scale energy storage. The researchers described their findings in two studies published this month in the journals Science Advances and Nature Communications. Hydrogen fuel Hydrogen fuel has long been touted as a clean alternative […]
Standford’s Social Robot ‘Jackrabbot’ Seeks to Understand Pedestrian Behavior
In order for robots to circulate on sidewalks and mingle with humans in other crowded places, they’ll have to understand the unwritten rules of pedestrian behavior. Stanford researchers have created a short, non-humanoid prototype of just such a moving, self-navigating machine. The robot is nicknamed “Jackrabbot” – after the jackrabbits often seen darting across the Stanford campus […]