Biological Transistors Bioengineers Are Applying the Concepts of Electrical Engineering to Control Genes More Precisely and Flexibly
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THE MAGAZINE OF TECHNOLOGY INSIDERS SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG 3.11 BIOLOGICAL TRANSISTORS BIOENGINEERS ARE APPLYING THE CONCEPTS OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TO CONTROL GENES MORE PRECISELY AND FLEXIBLY SUPERCONDUCTIVITY’S FIRST CENTURY SUPERSTRONG MAGNETS ARE NICE, BUT WHAT’S NEXT? REPACKAGING THE CHIP NEW DESIGNS ARE MAKING SMARTPHONES SMARTER 3.Cover.NA.INT.indd 2 2/18/11 9:28 AM Think of Us as The innovaTors Behind The innovaTors. Today more than ever, creativity defines your field. Innovation is your focus. For over 20 years, The Hartford has facilitated innovation through business insurance dedicated to Technology and Life Science. We provide property and casualty, errors and omissions coverage, management liability, benefit solutions and more to companies of all sizes. And, we’ll grow with you as your business evolves. To learn more about how The Hartford can insure your company’s innovation, go to thehartford.com/info/technology. With The Hartford behind you, achieve what’s ahead of you.® Insurance is provided by the property and casualty insurance companies of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., Hartford, CT 03a.Cov2.NA.indd 2 2/17/11 1:24 PM CLIENT / Hartford (HFG CO) PROD MGR / Cheryl Sparks PUBS / IEEE Spectrum Prepared by AD# / P00329-D1 TRAFFIC / Kathy Goebel Electronic Design TITLE / “Innovators” DIG ART / Evan Willnow MEDIA / 4-color Magazine ART DIR / Chad Stierwalt SIZE / 7.875" x 10.5" trim WRITER / Tom Townsend 7.75" x 10.625" trim ACCT MGR / Chace MacMullen ©2010. All rights reserved. 314.436.9960 7" x 10" live PREPARED / 12/22/2010 8.125" x 10.875" bleed URL / thehartford.com/info/technology volume 48 number 3 north american 3.11 30 38 50 cov Er Story 30 a memory of webs past The Web is vast and constantly changing. It’s also 38 the hunt for the most important resource we could bequeath to the biological future historians. Preserving it properly is an enor- transistor mous technical challenge. By Ariel Bleicher 44 good things in Genetic engineers trying to small packages build new functionality into Innovations in semiconductor packaging tech- COVER: nology are key to mobile gizmos that do more anatOmy cells can’t just mix and match bluE without getting bigger or using more power. t his pagE, tOp: phOtO, dan standardized components and By Pushkar Apte, W.R. Bottoms, William Chen saElingER; pROp stylist, lauRiE & George Scalise Raab/hallEy expect them to work together REsOuRCEs; makEup and correctly, the way electrical haiR stylist, 50 superconductivity’s gREg ClaRk/ hallEy engineers can. The new first century REsOuRCEs; tOp Right: Since the discovery of superconductivity in 1911, bibliOthèquE discipline of synthetic biology natiOnalE many possible applications have emerged, but dE FRanCE; bOttOm Right: hopes to change that. By Julius only one has really taken off. By Pradeep Haldar pEtER gintER/ gEtty imagEs B. Lucks & Adam P. Arkin & Pier Abetti spectrum.ieee.org March 2011 • IEEE SpEctruM • Na 1 03.Contents.NA.indd 1 2/17/11 1:44 PM 03a.p2.NA.indd 2 2/17/11 1:30 PM volume 48 number 3 north american 3.11 spectrum.ieee.org available 1 march Introducing the IEEE Spectrum Mobile Web Site When you navigate to our Web site from any phone, you’ll now be automatically redirected to our new mobile site. In addition to being easier 0018 to navigate, the new mobile site should load much more quickly on bandwidth- u pdate departments limited phones. We built the new 11 TEaChIng MaChInes 4 baCk SToRy version with the help of Mobify, a aboUT Madness an IEEE Spectrum edi- unique service that makes it easy to Machine-learning tricks tor finds the creator of transform an existing Web site. Try it QuickBooks among his are letting computers on your phone today, and let us know diagnose mental illnesses. grapevines and olive trees. By Samuel K. Moore what you think! Send feedback to 6 ConTRIbUTors [email protected]. 13 TIdE TURnS foR 22 handS on TIdal PowER a philadelphia-based electrical engineer has 14 ChIP-SCalE ieee.org/theinstitute designed a kit that lets you ParticlE aCCElERaToR available 7 march type on an old-fashioned 16 CloUd-bRaInEd typewriter—to your ipad. Augmenting Your reAlitY online tutoriAls RoboTS By Paul Wallich IEEE Member Blair MacIntyre, director get mAkeover of Georgia tech’s augmented Envi- IEEE Expert Now, which houses 18 STEPS TowaRd 23 PRofIlE ronment Lab, has spent more than IEEE’s online courses, has been SIlICon qUanTUM Life recipe: take equal a decade working on applications for renamed and given an overhaul. Computers parts software, wine, and augmented reality. Learn about his Now called IEEE eLearning Library, olive oil. Mix well. lab’s work on ar for smartphones the site has a new interface, more 20 ThE bIg PICTURE By Tekla S. Perry and games. features, and offers 200 courses animatronic love birds and webinars. dance in Singapore. 24 CaREERS Since 1991 there have been free ieee press e-book 1600 For Dummies titles check out a selection of titles opinion and 1300 complete Idiot’s available from the IEEE eBook Guides. how hard can it classics collection. topics include 8 SPECTRal lInes be to write one? information technology, digital the u.S. Department of By Mark Anderson transmissions, data mining, and homeland Security’s biomedical telemetry. oft-criticized SBInet 26 bookS project is finally Is there a harder topic for canceled, but SBInet II an idiot’s guide than string looms on the horizon. theory? yet two books have ONLINE webinars & resources covered it successfully. aL v I aBLE at Changing the Direction of 29 REflECTIonS By Mark Anderson http://spectrum.ieee.org/webinar embedded Design Many of today’s gadgets can’t be tinkered with— 28 gEEk lIfE 8 march: effectively managing reduce the Costs of Developing Do178b some won’t even let you only the geekiest of geeks Autostar Development Certifiables oftware With Automation would apply social network- change the battery. 24 march: A smart Approach ing to the problem of bad Capability vs. Complexity: What’s an engineer to do? to maximizing roi in Consumer building smarter products By Robert W. Lucky dates. By Susan Karlin electronics innovation integrated electronics Cooling solution 72 ThE daTa 29 march: best practices for Delivering hundreds of billions of value through Quality management dollars are being spent free white papers by intel: http:// 31 march: kinetis Arm Cortex-m4 spectrum.ieee.org/intel-resource-library around the world on mCus: the inside story high-speed rail—some of it Design resource library by texas ClOCkwisE from lEFt: Wong mayE-E/ even in the united States. rf and microwave Heating instruments: http://spectrum.ieee.org/ ap phOtO; applE; Georgia Tech By Steven Cherry static/ti-resource-library IEEE SPECTRUM (ISSN 0018-9235) is published monthly by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. all rights reserved. © 2011 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 park avenue, New york, Ny 10016-5997, u.S.a. the e ditorial content of IEEE Spectrum magazine does not represent official positions of the IEEE or its organizational units. canadian post International publications Mail (canadian Distribution) Sales agreement No. 40013087. return undeliverable canadian addresses to: circulation Department, IEEE Spectrum, Box 1051, Fort Erie, oN L2a 6c7. cable address: ItrIpLEE. 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For more information, visit http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/whatis/policies/p9-26.html. spectrum.ieee.org March 2011 • IEEE SpEctruM • Na 3 03.Contents.NA.indd 3 2/17/11 1:44 PM back story E ditoriAl Editor in chiEf Susan hassler, [email protected] Ex EcutivE Editor Glenn Zorpette, [email protected] Editorial dirEctor, diGital harry Goldstein, [email protected] Manan Gi G Editor Elizabeth a. Bretz, [email protected] S Enior EditorS Jean Kumagai, [email protected]; Samuel K. Moore (news), [email protected]; tekla S. Perry, t.perry@ ieee.org; Philip E. ross, [email protected]; david Schneider, [email protected] S Enior aSSociatE EditorS Steven cherry (resources), [email protected]; Erico Guizzo, [email protected] Ass ociatE Editor Joshua J. romero (online), [email protected] Ass iStant Editor Willie d. 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