Most of the objects we see are colored by pigments, but using pigments has disadvantages: such colors can fade, industrial pigments are often toxic, and certain color effects are impossible to achieve. The natural world, however, also exhibits structural coloration, where the microstructure of an object causes various colors to appear. Peacock feathers, for instance,…
Interactive Software Tool Makes Complex Mold Design Simple
Most of the plastic objects we see are created using injection molding, but designing such molds is a difficult task, usually requiring experts. Now, computer scientists from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), the University of Tokyo, and CONICET have created an interactive design tool that allows non-experts to create molds for…
New Interactive Machine Learning Tool Makes Car Designs More Aerodynamic
When engineers or designers want to test the aerodynamic properties of the newly designed shape of a car, airplane, or other object, they would normally model the flow of air around the object by having a computer solve a complex set of equations–a procedure that usually takes hours or even an entire day. Nobuyuki Umetani…
First Machine Learning Method Capable of Accurate Extrapolation
Understanding how a robot will react under different conditions is essential to guaranteeing its safe operation. But how do you know what will break a robot without actually damaging it? A new method developed by scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI…
New Approach can Save up to 95 Percent of Energy Used for Pipelines
Until now it had been assumed that, once a flow of a fluid has become turbulent, turbulence would persist. Researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) including Professor Björn Hof and co-first authors Jakob Kühnen and Baofang Song have now shown that this is not the case. In their experiments, which…
More Complex Biological Systems Evolve More Freely
Our genes (aka. the genotype) determine our characteristics (aka. the phenotype). Evolution acts on changes in the phenotype, which occur when mutations change the underlying genotype. But what changes to the phenotype can be produced by mutations is not without bounds – ants cannot suddenly grow a trunk, or become the size of an elephant.…
Making Waves
Quantum Phase Transition Observed for the First Time
A group of scientists led by Johannes Fink from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) reported the first experimental observation of a first-order phase transition in a dissipative quantum system. Phase transitions are something we often encounter in everyday life when we watch the change of the state of matter, for example…
New Algorithm for Optimized Stability of Planar-Rod Objects
During the annual top conference of the Special Interest Group for Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), which took place in Anaheim, USA, IST Austria Professor Bernd Bickel and his group present an algorithm that allows improved technical modelling of planar-rod structures consisting of interlocking wires. After designing an aesthetically pleasing…