Flat polymer sheets bend themselves into 3D shapes - just add water

Using a photolithography process, scientists have created flat polymer sheets that bend themselves into three-dimensional shapes when exposed to water

When the petal of a flower is being formed, its shape is achieved by cells in one area expanding more than cells in an adjacent area. This uneven expansion causes the material to buckle, creating the desired curves and creases. Scientists from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst have taken that same principle, and applied it to flat polymer gel sheets that fold themselves into three-dimensional shapes when exposed to water. Some day, such sheets could serve a number of useful purposes.

New software translates users' speech, using their own voice

New software developed by Microsoft is able to reproduce the user's speech in another language, using their own voice

For some time now, speech-recognition programs have existed that attempt to reproduce the user's spoken words in another language. Such "speech-to-speech" apps, however, provide their translations using a very flat, synthetic voice. Now, experimental new software developed by Microsoft is able not only to translate between 26 different languages, but it plays the translated speech back in the user's own voice - complete with the inflections they used when speaking in their own language. It looks like a real-life version of Star Trek's universal translator could soon be here.

Super accurate nuclear clock proposed

The Weltzeituhr (World Clock) at Alexanderplatz, Berlin, Germany isn't anywhere near as accurate as the nuclear clock proposed by researchers

The NIST-F1 atomic clock that currently serves as primary time and frequency standard for the U.S. is expected to neither gain nor lose a second in more than 100 million years. That might sound pretty accurate, but a proposed nuclear clock could make it look like a cheap digital wristwatch. It is claimed that the proposed clock would neither gain nor lose 1/20th of a second in 14 billion years. To put that in context, that’s the estimated age of the universe.