Think you've got a bad commute? IBM feels your pain. The tech giant surveyed over 8,000 commuters in 20 cities around the world to find the city with the unenviable title of having the worst commute on Earth:

According to IBM, the cities with the most "commuter pain"--hours spent in traffic, high price of gas, high stress, etc.--include Shenzen, Beijing, and Nairobi. The least painful commutes take place in Chicago, London, and Montreal. Overall, there has been a decrease in traffic since IBM first conducted its survey four years ago, largely because of high fuel prices and weak economies.

Link

Take a look at the image above and tell us what do you see. A field of mushrooms? A series of tubes a la Super Mario Bros.? Actually they’re a crop of silicon nanowires, grown by IBM researcher Frances Ross. The gray columns are the wires and the black blob are liquid droplets that catalyze the growth of the nanowires.

One day, these mushroom-shaped wires just may replace today’s transistors:

In Dr. Ross’s laboratory at I.B.M., researchers are concentrating on more near-term technology. They are exploring the idea of constructing FinFET switches in a radical new process that breaks away from photo etching. It is a kind of nanofarming. Dr. Ross sprinkles gold particles as small as 10 nanometers in diameter on a substrate and then suffuses them in a silicon gas at a temperature of about 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. This causes the particles to become “supersaturated” with silicon from the gas, which will then precipitate into a solid, forming a wire that grows vertically.

I.B.M. is pressing aggressively to develop this technology, which could be available commercially by 2012, she said. At the same time she acknowledged that significant challenges remain in perfecting nanowire technology. The mushroom-shaped wires in her laboratory now look a little bit like bonsai trees. To offer the kind of switching performances chipmakers require, the researchers must learn to make them so that their surfaces are perfectly regular. Moreover, techniques must be developed to make them behave like semiconductors.

John Markoff of The New York Times has the fascinating story: Link – via Make

Why would people get excited about this blury picture?  The pentacene molecule pictured is commonly used in solar cells and has five benzene rings.  There is only .14 namometers between rings, which is one million times smaller than a grain of sand!

Credit for this nifty picture goes to IBM Research Zurich who used an Atomic Force Microscope.  This is the first time all of the atoms in a molecule have been imaged.

‘If you think about how a doctor uses an X-ray to image bones and organs inside the human body, we are using the atomic force microscope to image the atomic structures that are the backbones of individual molecules,’ said IBM researcher Gerhard Meyer.

The team from IBM Research Zurich said the results could have a huge impact of the field of nanotechnology, which seeks to understand and control some of the smallest objects known to mankind.

The AFM uses a sharp metal tip that acts like a tuning fork to measure the tiny forces between the tip and the molecule. This requires great precision as the tip moves within a nanometer of the sample.

‘Above the skeleton of the molecular backbone (of the pentacene) you get a different detuning than above the surface the molecule is lying on,’ Mr Gross said.

This detuning is then measured and converted into an image.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by OddNumber.

IBM has filed for a patent on technology that would heighten reflexes, making it possible to actually dodge bullets. This body armor continuously scans the area for incoming projectviles. When one is detected the system delivers a shock to the body’s muscles, thus creating a reflexive movement away from the incoming bullet.

The present invention relates generally to the protection of an individual against a projectile propelled from a firearm. More particularly, the present invention relates to a body armor system and its method of use that is capable of detecting a projectile propelled from a firearm, computing the trajectory of the projectile, and moving the individual out of the path of the projectile to avoid being hit.

Link – via gizmodo

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Gukbe2000.