Gizmorama - December 14, 2015

Good Morning,

It may be small, but it sure is powerful. Researchers have develop a tiny wireless temperature sensor that has the ability to detect when a person is in a room and adjust the temperature for that very person. Smart, eh?

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

P.S. Did you miss an issue? You can read every issue from the Gophercentral library of newsletters on our exhaustive archives page. Thousands of issues, all of your favorite publications in chronological order. You can read AND comment. Just click GopherArchives

***
*-- World's tiniest temperature sensor can track movement from inside cement --*
EINDHOVEN, Netherlands - Researchers in the Netherlands have developed a tiny wireless temperature sensor powered by radio waves. The technology, still in its infancy, could one day power smart homes.

The sensor can detect temperature, but could be designed to sense a range of external variables. For example, sensors employed in smart homes could detect the presence of a person in the room and automatically switch on or off air condition and heat.

Because the new sensor is wireless, powered by a radio waves, the technology is eco-friendly. No batteries or wires are required. The sensor -- which measures just 2 square millimeters and weights only 1.6 milligrams -- can be embedded in a layer of paint or cement, making it deal for use in smart homes.

The sensors are powered by a router, which directs a small beam of radio waves. The combination uses very little energy. Once the sensor has absorbed enough energy, it powers on and reads the temperature. The recorded temperature data is beamed back to the router at a slightly different frequency, before the sensor briefly powers off. The technology could be used to measure movement, light or humidity.

Currently, the sensor is limited to a working range of just an inch. But lead researcher Hao Gao -- who is preparing to receive his PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology for his work with sensors -- says he and his colleagues hope to expand its reach to 40 inches within the next year, and further still in the future.

Research partner Peter Baltus, a professor of wireless technology at Eindhoven, said the sensor could also be used to power wireless payment systems or identification technology.


*- Study: Sun capable of destructive superflare -*
WARWICK, England - Researchers at University of Warwick located a solar superflare among stellar data collected by NASA's Kepler space telescope. The massive burst featured wave patterns similar to flares emitted by our own sun.

In a new paper on the discovery, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists suggest our own sun may be capable of a superflare -- a flare 1,000 times stronger than any previously recorded.

Superflares aren't exactly rare. They're ocassionally observed erupting from faraway stars. The latest was seen leaping from KIC9655129, a binary star system 1,500 light-years away. But nothing close to a superflare has ever been measured on our sun.

A solar flare packs the energy equivalent of 100 million megaton bombs; a stellar superflare is as power-packed as 100 billion megaton bombs.

The new observations, however, suggest superflares aren't structurally unique and that the same violent potential exists within the chaos of the sun's swirling electromagnetic fields.

"Our solar system is filled with plasma, or ionized gas, originating from the sun as a result of the solar wind and other more violent solar eruptions, such as solar flares," study author Chloe Pugh, a researcher at Warwick's Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, explained in a press release.

"Stars very similar to the sun have been observed to produce enormous flares, called superflares," Pugh continued. "To give us a better indication of whether the Sun could produce a catastrophic superflare, we need to determine whether the same physical processes are responsible for both stellar superflares and solar flares."

The study of solar flare patterns is called coronal seismology. Analysis of solar flare patterns show the phenomena are often marked by regular pulses that resemble waves. The wavelengths correspond with the region from which the flare is emitted.

Sometimes, solar flares feature multiple waves, called periodicities, superimposed on each other. A similar structure was observed in the recent superflare emitted by KIC9655129.

If the sun ever produced a superflare, it would likely prove devastating for Earth's communication systems.

But while the new study confirmed the possibility of a sun-born superflare, researchers say the stellar conditions that would precipitate such an event are extremely rare on the sun.

***
Missed an Issue? Visit the Gizmorama Archives