Dr. Robert Okojie, Research Electronics Engineer at the NASA Glenn Research Center, develops harsh-environment microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Okojie currently processes, fabricates, tests, and packages silicon carbide pressure sensors,...

A project known as SIERRA (Surveillance for Intelligent Emergency Response Robotic Aircraft) integrates small, unmanned aircraft with global positioning systems, environmental data, video and fire-prediction software to give real-time information about where a fire is burning, and where...

Researchers at MIT have devised an algorithm that predicts when an oncoming car is likely to run a red light. Based on parameters such as the vehicle’s deceleration and its distance from a light, the group was able to determine which cars were potential “violators” — those likely to cross into an...

This week's Question: The Curiosity rover, NASA's biggest extraterrestrial explorer, was launched toward Mars last week. The mobile laboratory, 10 feet long by 9 feet wide, will search for evidence that the planet was...

A new video compiles 309 images taken by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, providing an historic record of a three-year trek that totaled about 13 miles across a Martian plain pocked with smaller craters.

While Opportunity was traveling from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater,...

Army paratroopers completed two of three test drops to certify a new water and fuel container system for airdrops in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Each drop of two Lifeliner container-unitized bulk equipment, or CUBEs, delivered hundreds of gallons of water safely to the ground under dual,...

A $35 "snubber" developed by the Air Force Research Lab’s Propulsion Directorate, is a vibration damper that will prevent cracks in the J-seal on the F-119's engine inlet case, a spoked, ring-like device that helps control the air going into the engine.

Select pilots early next year will begin testing new flight control software, funded in part by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), intended to facilitate aircraft landings on Navy carrier decks with unprecedented accuracy.

Pilots performing carrier landings today line...

To improve electronic devices, scientists are on the hunt for new semiconductor materials, which control the flow of electricity. A group of scientists were recently surprised to find the interface of two particular complex oxides — the polar lanthanum chromium oxide,...

Tiny wires could help engineers realize high-performance solar cells and other electronics, according to University of Illinois researchers. The research group, led by electrical and computer engineering professor Xiuling Li, developed a technique to integrate compound...

Creating a scientific field just out of societal and policy need is a bold concept. But Los Alamos National Laboratory and Indiana University researchers say that for the emerging field of sustainability science - sorting among theoretical and applied scientific disciplines, making sense of...

A team at Stanford’s School of Engineering has demonstrated an ultrafast nanoscale light-emitting diode (LED) that is orders of magnitude lower in power consumption than today’s laser-based systems and is able to transmit data at the rapid rate of 10 billion bits per second....

Arizona State University researchers have created a new compound crystal material, called erbium chloride silicate, that can be used to develop the next generation of computers, improve the capabilities of the Internet, increase the efficiency of silicon-based photovoltaic cells to...

This week's Question: As part of a five-year, $1.58 million research project named AudACiOus, a group of University of Nottingham scientists will attempt to program the genetic components of a cell to perform any desired function, without requiring extensive modification...

Using leftover high-speed electrons from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source, researchers have successfully generated intense pulses of light in a largely untapped part of the electromagnetic spectrum: the so-called terahertz gap.

Falling...

A mobile robot, designed with spider-like legs, can explore terrain that is beyond human reach. With a camera and measurement equipment on board, the robot will provide emergency responders with an image of the situation on the ground, along with any data about poisonous substances....

New research by engineers at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science demonstrates that nanomechanical resonators can operate at much higher amplitudes than previously thought. The results represent an advance in optomechanics, in which the force of light is used to control mechanical devices....