sound waves

Imaging an unborn fetus and and spotting a lurking submarine could both become much easier with the world's first acoustic hyperlens. The device manipulates imaging sound waves to provide an eightfold increase in the magnification power of technologies such as ultrasound and sonar.

Thanks to a new approach to one of microfluidics' biggest challenges -- how do you propel fluid in a number of directions simultaneously without the clutter of myriad electromechanical valves and pumps? -- we could be closer to seeing our smartphones double as home flu kits. Credit goes to a team of chemical engineers at the University of Michigan for coming up with the innovative system, which uses music to control the fluid.

A new material created by researchers can refocus sound around certain objects and effectively render them sonically invisible to sonar. No natural material can do this, so man-made “metamaterials” must be created in order to toy with the laws of physics to essentially bend sound back on itself. Mind blown yet?