New Atlas

Electronics Audio available

Bluetooth metal detector uses your smartphone to do its thinking

Ben Coxworth April 2, 2019

Although smartphones perform many tasks on their own, they're also able to make devices such as drones, robots and cameras cheaper and/or more capable by acting as their "brains." One of the latest gadgets to receive such a treatment is the humble – and potentially treasure-finding – metal detector.

The Air Metal Detector is currently on Kickstarter

Physics

Handheld muon detector catches ghostly cosmic ray particles

Michael Irving November 22, 2017

Cosmic rays are raining down over Earth every day, but you’d never know unless you had the right tools. Those tools mostly take the form of bulky, expensive lab equipment, but thanks to an MIT team, you can now build your own detector for US$100 – small enough to take on a plane or the subway.

An MIT team has designed CosmicWatch, a pocket-sized, affordable muon detector

Wearables

High-tech ring detects explosives and more

Ben Coxworth October 11, 2017

Joseph Wang and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego have created a ring with a difference. It detects chemical and biological threats in the wearer's environment.

The prototype ring currently detects explosives and nerve agents, but it could reportedly be adapted to ...

Science

Mile-deep experiment narrows the search for dark matter particles

Dario Borghino July 21, 2016

A 20-month experiment conducted a mile underground has failed to detect dark matter particles directly, but the results are still giving scientists important clues on the nature of this elusive substance.

Science

Inexpensive 3D-printed lens gives terahertz imaging a boost

Colin Jeffrey April 30, 2016

Researchers have developed a lens that operates at terahertz frequencies that are not only simple and inexpensive, but are claimed to produce near-flawless images which could vastly improve biomedical imaging as well as biological and explosive security scanning.

A projection micro-stereo-lithography process like that used to inexpensively produce terahertz frequency lenses

Space

New gamma-ray spectroscope would reveal what lies within for asteroid miners

David Szondy November 24, 2015

To help find out if its worth going to a particular asteroid, scientists from Vanderbilt and Fisk Universities are developing a new gamma-ray spectroscope that's capable of scanning asteroids for valuable minerals.

The new gamma ray spectroscope could be fitted to asteroid surveying spacecraft

Around The Home

Halo WX warns of smoke, fire ... and tornadoes

Dave LeClair May 25, 2015

Halo WX, a new smoke detector just hitting the market, features all of the smoke and carbon monoxide detection one would expect, while also adding in alerts for natural disasters.

Halo is a smoke detector that also alerts homeowners of natural disasters

Electronics

Graphene device makes ultrafast light to energy conversion possible

Colin Jeffrey April 15, 2015

Researchers from the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Spain claim to have created a graphene-based photodetector that converts light into electricity in under 50 quadrillionths of a second. This may give rise to a new range of super-efficient, ultrafast electronic components.

Using layers of graphene, scientists claim to have created a photodetector that converts light to energy ...

Electronics

GE RFID tech turns stickers into explosives detectors

David Szondy February 24, 2015

With more goods passing through the world's shipping terminals and airports than ever before, hunting explosives is a bottleneck. To help US counterterrorism efforts, GE has developed RFID stickers that act as wireless, battery-free explosives detectors that can be placed almost anywhere.

Example of a wireless, battery-free RFID sensor tag for detection of chemicals such as explosives and ...

Marine

Automatic whale detectors keep track of migration

David Szondy February 16, 2015

Tracking migrating pods of gray whales is a major undertaking. In hopes of making binoculars and clipboards a thing of the past, NOAA has installed a new generation of whale detectors to keep an electronic eye on the passing leviathans.

The detectors will help track the annual gray whale migration (Photo: NOAA)