Extending Wi-Fi range for smart-home devices

A group of researchers has created a protocol that significantly extends the distance a Wi-Fi enabled device can send and receive signals. The engineering innovation requires no new hardware to enhance the signal range for 'Internet of things' devices, like a door sensor or motion detector, but can extend the distance these devices can be installed from a Wi-Fi access point by more than 60 meters, according to test results.

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New insights could help tame speedy ions in fusion plasmas

To create a practical fusion energy reactor, researchers need to control particles known as fast ions. These speedy ions, which are electrically charged hydrogen atoms, provide much of the self-heating ability of the reactor as they collide with other ions. But they can also quickly escape the powerful magnetic fields used to confine them and overheat the walls of the containment vessel, causing damage.

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Fusion: Fuel injection helps reduce magnetic island instabilities

Fusion is a non-carbon-based process for energy production, where lighter atoms fuse into heavier ones. Fusion reactors operate by confining a 'soup' of charged particles, known as a plasma, within powerful magnetic fields. But these magnetic fields must contain the plasma long enough that it can be heated to extreme temperatures — hotter than the sun — where fusion reactions can occur.

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Novel nanoprobes show promise for optical monitoring of neural activity

Researchers have developed ultrasensitive nanoscale optical probes to monitor the bioelectric activity of neurons and other excitable cells. This novel readout technology could enable scientists to study how neural circuits function at an unprecedented scale by monitoring large numbers of individual neurons simultaneously. It could also lead to high-bandwidth brain-machine interfaces with dramatically enhanced precision and functionality.

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Flexible, wearable supercapacitors based on porous nanocarbon nanocomposites

Evening gowns with interwoven LEDs may look extravagant, but the light sources need a constant power supply from devices that are as well wearable, durable, and lightweight. Chinese scientists have manufactured fibrous electrodes for wearable devices that are flexible and excel by their high energy density. A microfluidic technology was key for the preparation of the electrode material was a microfluidic technology, as shown in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

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Double layer of graphene helps to control spin currents

In order to make transistors that operate using the spin of electrons, rather than their charge, it is necessary to find a way of switching spin currents on and off. Furthermore, the lifetime of the spins should at least be equal to the time taken for these electrons to travel through a circuit. Scientists have now taken an important step forward by creating a device that meets both of these requirements.

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