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If the future's electric, why isn't the past? Think a little bit about that simple-sounding question and you'll understand what science is all about and why it matters so much to humankind. Consider this: the ancient Greeks knew some basic things about electricity over 2500 years ago, yet they didn't have electric cookers or fridges, computers or vacuum cleaners. How come? Electricity is just the same as it was back then: it works in exactly the same way. What's changed is that we understand how it works now and we've figured out effective ways to use it for our own...

While the Internet and the World Wide Web have certainly impacted the lives of many millions of people it is certainly not the greatest invention of the past millennium, in fact it might not even make the the top ten.

Nanotube wires self-assemble under the influence of a directed electric field from the Tesla coil. Credit: Jeff Fitlow ======================================================================================================== Scientists at Rice University have discovered that the strong force field emitted by a Tesla coil causes carbon nanotubes to self-assemble into long wires, a phenomenon they call "Teslaphoresis." The team led by Rice chemist Paul Cherukuri reported its results this week in ACS Nano. Cherukuri sees this research as setting a clear path toward scalable assembly of nanotubes from the bottom up. The system works by remotely oscillating positive and negative charges in each nanotube, causing them to chain together...

Small, battery-powered gadgets make powerful computing portable. Unfortunately, there's still a continual need to recharge the batteries of phones, laptops, cameras, and MP3 players by hooking them up to a tangle of wires. Now researchers at MIT have proposed a way to cut the cords by wirelessly supplying power to devices. "We are very good at transmitting information wirelessly," says Marin Soljačić, professor of physics at MIT. But, he says, historically, it's been much more difficult to transmit energy to power devices in the same way. Soljačić, who was a 2006 TR35 winner (see "2006 Young Innovator"), and MIT colleagues...

You may one day be able to recharge your laptop or mobile phone without having to plug it into the wall, says a US physicist. But others say there are many hurdles before such transfer of energy means we can say goodbye to wires. Assistant Professor Marin Soljacic, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will present his team's work at the American Institute of Physics forum in San Francisco this week. Today's wireless transfer of energy, such as the transfer of light energy from the Sun for solar power or the transfer of microwaves from transmitters for communication, involve relatively low...

Imagine a future in which wireless power transfer is feasible: cell phones, household robots, mp3 players, laptop computers and other portable electronics capable of charging themselves without ever being plugged in, freeing us from that final, ubiquitous power wire. Some of these devices might not even need their bulky batteries to operate. A team from MIT’s Department of Physics, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN) has experimentally demonstrated an important step toward accomplishing this vision of the future. The team members are Andre Kurs, Aristeidis Karalis, Robert Moffatt, Prof. Peter Fisher, and Prof....

Scientists have sounded the death knell for the plug and power lead. In a breakthrough that sounds like something out of Star Trek, they have discovered a way of 'beaming' power across a room into a light bulb, mobile phone or laptop computer without wires or cables. In the first successful trial of its kind, the team was able to illuminate a 60-watt light bulb 7ft away. The team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who call their invention 'WiTricity', believe it could change the way we use electricity and do away with the tangle of cables, plugs and chargers that...

It goes zero to 60 in about four seconds. Its top speed is 130 miles per hour. And it doesn't use an ounce of gasoline. It's the Tesla Roadster, a new car that's fueled entirely by electricity and could be hitting the lot just in time. Today the Energy Department reported that the average gallon of regular gasoline is now $3.10 -- a new nominal record price for the United States. Meet The New Electric Car! The Tesla Roadster is named after Nicola Tesla, the largely forgotten genius inventor of alternating current electricity, and it's the brainchild of Martin Eberhard,...