Duke University engineers have developed a novel sensor for airport security scanners and collision avoidance systems. The researchers fabricated a unique metamaterial that acts as a “lens” to image scenes using fewer components than conventional detectors. Because of the properties of the...

A nanoscale coating repels the broadest range of liquids of any material in its class, causing them to bounce off the treated surface, according to the University of Michigan engineering researchers who developed it. In addition to stain-resistant clothes, the coating could lead to breathable garments to protect...

At this year's Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, Vuzix Smart Glasses won top honors in the Wireless Handset Accessories category. The technology, worn like ordinary glasses, features a built-in electronic display, allowing users to check email, watch movies, record video in real time, and load apps...

An assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering is using the teeth of a marine snail found off the coast of California to create less costly and more efficient nanoscale materials to improve solar cells and lithium-ion batteries.David Kisailus, an assistant...

MIT engineers have created a new polymer film that can generate electricity by drawing on a ubiquitous source: water vapor. The new material changes its shape after absorbing tiny amounts of evaporated water, allowing it to repeatedly curl up and down. Harnessing this continuous motion could drive...

During five days of operations, controllers from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency will use the space station's remotely operated Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or Dextre, robot to simulate robotic refueling in space. The team also will demonstrate tools, technologies and techniques that could one...

Two robots equipped with instruments designed to “listen” for the calls of baleen whales detected nine endangered North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of Maine last month. The robots reported the detections to shore-based researchers within hours of hearing the whales (i.e., in real time),...

Two University of Texas at Arlington researchers want to bridge the gap between what is known about exploding stars and the remnants left behind thousands of years later. So they’re trying something new – using SNSPH, a complex computer code developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Future sea level rise due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could be substantially larger than estimated, according to new research from the University of Bristol. The study is the first of its kind on ice sheet melting to use structured expert elicitation (EE)...

Hitoshi Goto, associate professor in Toyohashi Tech’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has helped develop and his lab is using original software-based tools to better understand a variety of physical, chemical, and biological phenomena at the molecular level.

This week's Question comes from INSIDER reader Ed Xavier Gonzalez: Should NASA Consider Capturing a Small Asteroid or Comet for Mining Purposes?

Ever since the Wright brothers, engineers have been working to develop bigger and better flying machines that maximize lift while minimizing drag. There has always been a need to efficiently carry more people and more cargo. And so the science and engineering of getting large aircraft off the...

America's next heavy-lift rocket needs a strong and reliable engine to launch humans beyond low Earth orbit. That's why engineers with NASA's Space Launch System program, managed at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, will use the proven RS-25, the space shuttle's main...

Harnessing laser light’s ability to gently push and pull microscopic particles, researchers have created the fiber-optic equivalent of the world’s smallest wrench. This virtual tool can precisely twist and turn the tiniest of particles, from living cells and DNA, to microscopic motors and...

A new way to study permafrost soil will lead to a better understanding of the Arctic ecosystem’s impact on the planet's climate. The new approach combines several remote-sensing tools to study the Arctic landscape—above and below ground—in high resolution and over large spatial scales.

A team of researchers has analyzed data on the impact of prolonged operational confinement on sleep, performance, and mood in astronauts from a groundbreaking international effort to simulate a 520-day space mission to Mars. The findings revealed alterations of life-sustaining sleep patterns and...

Stanford researchers, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have designed a robotic platform that could take space exploration to new heights. The mission proposed for the platform involves a mother spacecraft deploying...

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has found more than 2,300 potential planets since its March 2009 launch. Although astronomers have found a number of exoplanets that share one or two key traits with our planet, including size or inferred surface temperature, a true "alien Earth" has yet to be...

Researchers from MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) presented a p-type transistor with the highest “carrier mobility” yet measured. By that standard, the device is twice as fast as previous experimental p-type transistors and almost four times as fast as the best commercial...

In the woods of central Virginia around Fort Pickett, the Legged Squad Support System (LS3) four-legged robot has been showing off its capabilities during field testing. Working with the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, researchers from DARPA’s LS3 program demonstrated new advances in the...

Explosives along roadways remain an unrelenting hazard for deployed soldiers, so U.S. Army engineers have developed a system for detecting possible threats by identifying potential threat locations on unimproved roads. The Shadow Class Infrared Spectral Sensor-Ground, known as SCISSOR-G, could...

The Army has been given the green light to fully deploy a combat-proven intelligence system, called the Distributed Common Ground System – Army (DCGS-A), to globally network forces with mission-critical information. The system was approved for full deployment by the Defense acquisition executive...

The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator recently completed its first at-sea test phase aboard the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). The first aircraft of its kind aboard a Naval vessel, the X-47B was put through myriad trials designed to assess the viability...