Smart Dust : Chemistry graduate student Jamie Link was working on a silicon chip at the University of California, San Diego. When the chip shattered, she discovered (with the help of her professor) that the tiny bits of the chip were still sending signals, operating as tiny sensors. They coined the term "smart dust" for the small, self-assembling particles.

Now, a team from the University of Michigan has built not just a very small microchip, but a whole functioning computer, and it’s less than a cubic millimeter in size. Called the Michigan Micro Mote, or M3, this tiny computer features processing, data storage, and wireless communication. Researcher Pabral Dutta thinks it will be the “next revolution in computing.” The chips are designed to necessarily work as a swarm

Earlier post on Smart Dust: https://plus.google.com/110884604033336753419/posts/46uNmEVrirc

Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust

Michigan Micro Mote M3 : http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155771-smart-dust-a-complete-computer-thats-smaller-than-a-grain-of-sand

Berkeley Project funded by DARPA: http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pister/SmartDust/

Smart dust on the Brain: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57594209-1/berkeley-scientists-have-smart-dust-on-the-brain/

Sources: Popular Mechanics, Smithsonianblog, Science Journal.

#science #scienceeveryday #smartdust #smart #motes #physics