Microscopy plays a crucial role in hematology and diagnosis of infectious diseases worldwide. For malaria alone, more than 200 million slides are read by manual microscopists every year. High quality thin blood smears are essential for subsequent microscopy examinations including malaria microscopy, but are hard to make in field settings. Existing devices for assisting in making thin smears are available but are limited by cost or complexity for wider use. Here we present Inkwell, a portable mechanical device capable of making high quality thin blood smears in field settings. Inkwell is simple, low-cost, does not use electricity, and requires minimal training prior to use. By utilizing passive dissipative dynamics of a spiral spring coupled to an air dashpot with a tunable valve - we demonstrate a highly tunable mechanism for constant velocity smears at prescribed angle. Inkwell is capable of producing high quality blood smears of tunable cell density with more than 12 million individually distinguishable red blood cells on a single slide. The current design, which exploits precision manufacturing of a 17 cents plastic syringe and a spring, can be printed on a standard 3D printer w
This paper presents a coded-aperture reflector for indoor mmWave coverage enhancement in obstructed or blocked LoS settings. We model the reflecting aperture using an equivalent array-factor formulation, where each passive reflecting cell contributes a reradiated field with phase set by the incident and departure directions. Building on this model, we develop two fabrication-friendly passive synthesis methods: (i) binary (1-bit) spatial coding that enables deterministic non-specular beam formation and multibeam patterns by selecting cell participation on a dense λ/2 lattice via an ON/OFF metallization mask, and (ii) diffraction-order (periodic) steering that exploits aperture periodicity to place selected diffraction orders at prescribed angles. We analytically characterize the proposed cosine-threshold quantization rule, including its asymptotic activation ratio and a distribution-free lower bound on non-specular gain relative to ideal continuous-phase control. To validate the proposed designs, we fabricate and metallize low-cost prototypes in-house using a copper-backed 3D-printed "inkwell" substrate with stencil-guided conductive ink deposition. 60 GHz over-the-air measurements
The race to build data centers in space is gaining momentum as AI drives unprecedented demand for computing power。 Orbital facilities could tap into abundant solar energy and avoid many of the environmental challenges faced on Earth。 Yet space remains a harsh and expensive place to operate, with major hurdles including cooling, maintenance, radiati
Astronomers have finally cracked the mystery of the famous “Pink Planet,” a strange world 57 light-years away that has puzzled scientists for more than a decade。 Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers discovered that its atmosphere contains water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and something never directly confirmed before in su
The EU went after Google for the practice of bundling its search engine and browser with Android
A decades-old puzzle about water has finally been unraveled。 Researchers found that water trapped in tiny nanoscale spaces is not inherently more reactive。 Instead, the intense pressures created inside these microscopic gaps explain most of the effect, while the surrounding material can further enhance water's chemistry if it interacts with the rea
Ancient asteroid impacts may have done more than reshape Earth's surface—they could have helped spark life itself。 New computer models show the collisions created enormous underground hydrothermal systems by cracking the planet's crust and allowing hot water to flow through it。 These long-lasting, life-friendly environments may have covered much of
A surprisingly simple fuel modification could help tackle one of diesel engines’ biggest problems: pollution。 Researchers reviewing studies from around the world found that mixing small amounts of water into diesel fuel can dramatically reduce harmful emissions, including nitrogen oxides and soot, while maintaining or even improving engine efficien
What if consciousness isn’t limited to brains like ours。 Philosophers Eric Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober argue that consciousness could arise in many different forms of life, even in beings built from radically different materials than those found on Earth。 Drawing on the vastness of the universe and the likely existence of countless alien civiliza
An unusual gravitational wave signal has renewed hopes that primordial black holes, long considered purely theoretical, may finally be within reach of discovery。 If confirmed, they could solve one of astronomy's greatest mysteries by explaining the nature of dark matter
A newly proposed quantum sensing technique could make it much easier to identify one of physics’ newest and most intriguing classes of magnets: altermagnets。 These unusual materials, discovered only a few years ago, appear to combine the speed and efficiency of antiferromagnets with some of the useful electronic properties of traditional magnets, m
Researchers developed a Wordle-solving strategy that succeeds 99% of the time by focusing on information gain rather than likely answers。 The method uses Shannon entropy to identify guesses that reveal the most about the hidden word。 Each guess is designed to slash uncertainty and narrow the possibilities faster
Astronomers have released the largest gravitational wave catalog ever, revealing 161 new black hole collisions and pushing the total number of detections to 390。 Among the highlights are the clearest gravitational wave signal ever recorded, the most accurate location of a black hole merger, and growing evidence that some black holes are the product
A new technique could solve one of the biggest challenges in making future computer chips from ultrathin materials。 Researchers found that coating molybdenum disulfide with oxygen or fluorine lets manufacturers remove just the top layer of atoms much more safely during plasma processing。 The result is a cleaner, more controlled path toward smaller
A major breakthrough in quantum technology has turned magnons, tiny magnetic waves once considered too short-lived for practical use, into promising carriers of quantum information。 Researchers extended their lifetime by nearly 100 times, reaching up to 18 microseconds, and discovered that the main limitation is not a law of physics but the purity
A new SETI study suggests we may be overlooking alien signals not because they aren't there, but because their own stars are scrambling them before they escape into space。 Turbulent plasma and powerful stellar storms can spread an ultra-narrow radio transmission across a wider range of frequencies, making it much harder for traditional searches to
Two newly confirmed "super-puff" planets are so diffuse that they are less dense than cotton candy, despite being about the size of Jupiter。 Their rare orbital relationship and enormous, lightweight atmospheres could provide valuable clues about how some of the strangest planets in the galaxy come to exist