Technology spotlight Advances in technology

NEWS

TECHNOLOGYSPOTLIGHT

Advances in technology across industry

The Audi urban concept – a completely new kind of concept car

The Audi urban concept is a 1+1-seat, ultralight car for congested urban spaces that does not fit under any of the conventional categories – the Audi urban concept combines elements of a racing car, a fun car and an urban car into one radical new concept.

The Audi urban concept is not based on any previous model – its development is solely oriented on the strict principles of lightweight construction, efficiency and reduction. The result is a concept car with no unnecessary weight, and one that concentrates on the pure essence of sporty motion. The Audi urban concept has a sleek body. The wheels are free-standing, their surrounding protective plates feature blinking strips of LED lights.

On board there is room for two people, their position slightly staggered and at a sporty, low level. All controls and materials are subject to the dictates of ultra-lightweight construction in order to ensure they convey a completely unique, sensory allure. The driver can adjust the steering wheel and pedals to his own body measurements. Entry to the car is via the tailgate. The roof is designed to be manoeuvrable and slides to the rear to open. The cockpit consists of carbon fibre-reinforced polymer, which integrates the undercarriage of both seats. Two e-tron electric motors provide the propulsion – providing the ultra-light Audi urban concept with the ability to accelerate powerfully. A lithium-ion battery supplies the energy – ideal for extended city tours. Visit: www.audi.com

Engineered bacteria mop up mercury spills

Thousands of tonnes of toxic mercury are released into the environment every year. Much of this collects in sediment where it is converted into toxic methyl mercury, and enters the food chain ending up in the fish we eat. New research, published in BioMed Central’s open access journal BMC Biotechnology, showcases genetically engineered bacteria which are not only able to withstand high levels of mercury but are also able to mop up mercury from their surroundings.

These mercury-resistant bacteria, developed by researchers from Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Bayamon Campus, contained either the mouse gene for metallothionein or the bacterial gene for polyphosphate kinase. Both strains of bacteria were able to grow in very high concentrations (120µM) of mercury, and when the bacteria containing metallothionein were grown in a solution containing 24 times the dose of mercury which would kill non-resistant bacteria, they were able to remove more than 80% of it from the solution in five days.

Dr Ruiz, who led the research, said, “The inclusion of heavy metal scavenging molecules in bacteria provides a viable technology for mercury bioremediation. This method not only would allow us to clean up mercury spills from the environment but the high accumulation of mercury within the transgenic bacteria also provides the possibility of recycling it for further industrial applications.” Visit: www.biomedcentral.com

When atoms are surfing on optical waves

Researchers at the University of Tübingen are working on next generation’s computer: They made cold atoms interact with miniature gold wires as small as a thousandth of a millimeter. Illuminating the wires with laser light in a special way, the physicists concentrated the light field at the surface of the wires and, by that, generated so-called surface plasmons. These are bound light fields which might enable the construction of devices for optical computing and for quantum information. Circuits based on these devices would be much faster and more efficient than present technologies.

In order to build an optical computing device the surface plasmons, which are useful for data transfer, must be coupled to data storage elements, such as atoms. This is what the research team lead by Dr Sebastian Slama is working on. It has developed techniques which are crucial for positioning cold atoms very close to surfaces such that they can interact with bound light waves. For that atomic gases are cooled in a vacuum chamber down to temperatures as low as a few hundred Nanokelvin.

At such low temperature the atoms no longer behave as a classical gas. They form a so-called Bose-Einstein condensate, in which all atoms are in the same quantum state. The condensate can be regarded as a single huge super-atom and can be shifted by external magnetic fields to the surface, where it feels the influence of the plasmon. “We can generate plasmons which attract the atoms and others which repel them. By structuring the surface we can tailor almost arbitrary potential landscapes for the atoms,” says Dr Slama. Visit: www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v5/n8/ full/nphoton.2011.159.html