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New Tests Cool Turbine Blades and Improve Engines

Iowa State University’s Hui Hu and Blake Johnsonare developing new technologies to accurately test and improve engine cooling strategies. Their current focus is to improve the turbine blades spun by the engine’s exhaust. Those blades at the back of the engine drive front blades that force...

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Army Collaboration Leads to New Rocket Propulsion Technology

A team of Army researchers developed a new gel-propellant engine called the vortex engine. Michael Nusca Ph.D., a researcher in Army Research Laboratory’s Propulsion Science Branch at Aberdeen Proving Ground, explained the new technology.

News
Astronomers Obtain Close-Up View of the Drama of Starbirth

Young stars are violent objects — ejecting material at speeds as high as one million kilometers per hour. When this material crashes into the surrounding gas it glows, creating what is called a Herbig-Haro object.

News: Energy
Rechargeable Battery Design Improves Energy Storage

MIT researchers have engineered a new rechargeable flow battery that does not rely on expensive membranes to generate and store electricity. The device, they say, may one day enable cheaper, large-scale energy storage.

News
Researchers Teleport Information by Electronic Circuit

Physicists at ETH Zurich have for the first time successfully teleported information in a solid state system. The researchers used a device similar to a conventional computer chip.

News
New Communication System: Wireless Devices Go Battery-Free

University of Washington engineers have created a new wireless communication system that allows devices to interact with each other without relying on batteries or wires for power.

News
Ambient Backscatter Technique Lets Wireless Devices Go Battery-Free

University of Washington engineers have created a new communication technique, called ambient backscatter, that takes advantage of ambient TV and cellular transmissions. Two devices communicate with each other by detecting, harnessing, and reflecting the existing RF signals to...

News
Optically Levitated, Glowing Diamonds for Nanoscale Research

University of Rochester researchers have measured for the first time light emitted by photoluminescence from a nanodiamond levitating in free space. The researchers used a laser to trap nanodiamonds in space and then, using another laser, caused the diamonds to emit light at given...

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Researchers Create Super-Strength Materials from Shock Waves

Using shock waves similar to those generated by meteorites striking the Earth, researchers at Purdue University have developed new super-strength materials.

News
NASA 'Fire Towers' Watch for Wildfires

For more than a decade, instruments on Terra and Aqua, two of NASA’s flagship Earth-observing satellites, have scanned the surface of our planet for fires. An instrument on both satellites, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), has revolutionized what scientists know about fire’s...

News
Self-Healing Solar Cells Mimic Nature

To understand how solar cells heal themselves, look no further than the nearest tree leaf or the back of your hand.

News
Simulations Aid Study of Earthquake Dampers for Structures

Researchers have demonstrated the reliability and efficiency of "real-time hybrid simulation" for testing a type of powerful damping system that might be installed in buildings and bridges to reduce structural damage and injuries during earthquakes.

News
Silent Underwater Propulsion System Resembles Octopus

Octopods, also known as octopuses or squid, are considered to be the most intelligent invertebrates. While they generally move along the ocean floor with their eight arms, they flee by swimming head-first, in line with the principles of propulsion.

News: Robotics, Automation & Control
Station Astronauts Remotely Control Planetary Rover From Space

Just as remotely operated vehicles help humans explore the depths of the ocean from above, NASA has begun studying how a similar approach may one day help astronauts explore other worlds. NASA tested the Surface Telerobotics exploration concept, in which an astronaut in an orbiting...

News
Researchers Create Devices from Water-Based Hydrogels

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating devices out of a water-based hydrogel material that can be patterned, folded, and used to manipulate objects. The technique holds promise for use in “soft robotics” and biomedical...

News
Bio-Inspired Coating Toughens Glass

A new transparent, bio-inspired coating makes ordinary glass tough, self-cleaning, and incredibly slippery. Researchers created the glass honeycomb-like structure with craters, coating it with a Teflon-like chemical that binds to the honeycomb cells to form a stable liquid film. The film repels droplets of...

News
Researchers Produce 'Electronic Ink'

University of Minnesota engineers have discovered novel technology for producing "electronic ink." The specialized type of ink is made from non-toxic, nanometer-sized crystals of silicon.

News
NASA Technologist Develops Automated Tool to Steer Spacecraft

A NASA technologist has developed a fully automated tool that gives mission planners a preliminary set of detailed directions for efficiently steering a spacecraft to hard-to-reach interplanetary destinations, such as Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and most comets and asteroids.

News
Controlling Robots With Your Thoughts

Angel Perez Garcia, a student at NTNU in Norway, uses the movements of his eyes, eyebrows, and other parts of his face to control a robot. "With my eyebrows, I can select which of the robot's joints I want to move," explains Angel. Facial grimaces generate major electrical activity (EEG signals) across our...

News
Sensor Helps Microphone Listen With Light

A sensor developed by scientists at SINTEF’s MiNaLab will help to make microphones hypersensitive. With technology of this sort, a microphone will be able to “see” where the sound comes from, pick up the voice of the person speaking, and filter out other sources of noise in the room.

The...

News
NASA Fit Check Sets Stage for Orion Recovery Test

Engineers and technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Langley Research Center in Virginia, and Lockheed Martin Space Operations in Denver, CO, prepared unique hardware that was used in a fit check of equipment that will recover Orion upon splashdown in the Pacific...

News
Heftier Unmanned Ground Vehicle Offers More Lifting, Hauling Strength

A small car can't pull a heavy trailer, and sports utility vehicles don't have a compact car's fuel efficiency. A perfect, one-size-fits-all vehicle doesn't exist, and the same goes for unmanned ground vehicles, known as UGVs.

Soldiers use UGVs – such as the 40-pound...

News
Custom-Made GPS Spoofing Device Coerces Superyacht Off Course

In June, a radio navigation research team from The University of Texas at Austin successfully coerced an $80 million, 213-foot yacht off its course using a custom-made GPS device.

News: Defense
New Software Tool Tests Weapon Lethality Against Moving Targets

Military analysts now have a tool that brings together unprecedented modeling and simulation features to help them better choose or build weapons to overpower future threats. Such features allow military researchers to analyze, for example, how a grenade, artillery round or any...

News: Materials
Army Develops Stronger, Lighter Composite Materials

In the future, Army aircraft may be made of all composite materials, and the Prototype Integration Facility Advanced Composites Laboratory is ready. Part of the Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center's (AMRDEC's) Engineering Directorate, the Prototype Integration...

News
NASA Uses GPS Signals to Measure Hurricane Winds

By figuring out how messed up GPS satellite signals get when bouncing around in a storm, NASA Langley researchers have found a way to do something completely different with GPS: measure and map the wind speeds of hurricanes.

News
Researchers Generate Invisible Tag for 3D-Printed Objects

The same 3D printing process used to produce an object can simultaneously generate an internal, invisible tag, say scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft Research.

News
Measuring Drivers’ Brain and Eye Activity Could Lead to Fewer Accidents

Latest advances in capturing data on brain activity and eye movement are being combined develop a system that can detect when drivers are in danger of falling asleep at the wheel. The technique combines high-speed eye tracking that records eye movements in unprecedented...

News
Imaging Method Makes Nanoscale Measurements of Plasmonic Materials

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland have shown how to make nanoscale measurements of critical properties of plasmonic nanomaterials — the specially engineered nanostructures that modify the interaction of...

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