ScienceDaily: Computers & Math News

Smartphones that don't scratch or shatter. Metal-free pacemakers. Electronics for space and other harsh environments. These could all be made possible thanks to a new ceramic welding technology. The process works in ambient conditions and uses less than 50 watts of laser power, making it more practical than current ceramic welding methods that require heating the parts in a furnace.

Polymer chemists and materials scientists have achieved some notable advances that mimic Nature, but one of the most common and practical features of cells has so far been out of reach -- intracellular compartmentalization. Now researchers tell how they take advantage of differences in electrical charge to create an 'all aqueous,' water-in-water construct that achieves compartmentalization in a synthetic system.

A new computer model that captures the dynamics of the red blood cell sickling process could help in evaluating drugs for treating sickle cell disease.

Stellarators, twisty machines that house fusion reactions, rely on complex magnetic coils that are challenging to design and build. Now, a physicist has developed a mathematical technique to help simplify the design of the coils.

The research explains how random fluctuations affect the operation of microscopic machines like this tiny motor. In the future, such devices could be incorporated into other technologies to recycle waste heat and thus improve energy efficiency.