Existing fiber optic cables can monitor whales

A new study demonstrates for the first time that the same undersea fiber optic cables used for internet and cable television can be repurposed to tune in to marine life at unprecedented scales, potentially transforming critical ...

Controlling light with a material three atoms thick

Most of us control light all the time without even thinking about it, usually in mundane ways: we don a pair of sunglasses and put on sunscreen, and close—or open—our window blinds.

Using deep-sea fiber optic cables to detect earthquakes

Seismologists at Caltech working with optics experts at Google have developed a method to use existing underwater telecommunication cables to detect earthquakes. The technique could lead to improved earthquake and tsunami ...

Capturing free-space optical light for high-speed Wi-Fi

Visible and infrared light can carry more data than radio waves, but has always been confined to a hard-wired, fiber-optic cable. Working with Facebook's Connectivity Lab, a Duke research team has now made a major advance ...

Quantum exciton found in magnetic van der Waals material

Things can always be done faster, but can anything beat light? Computing with light instead of electricity is seen as a breakthrough to boost computer speeds. Transistors, the building blocks of data circuits, are required ...

Underwater telecom cables make superb seismic network

Fiber-optic cables that constitute a global undersea telecommunications network could one day help scientists study offshore earthquakes and the geologic structures hidden deep beneath the ocean surface.

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