Alignment of two-element telescopes is a classic problem. During recent integration and test of the Space Interferometry Mission’s (SIM’s) Astrometric Beam Combiner (ABC), the innovators were faced with aligning two such telescope subsystems in the presence...

A document describes a new way to integrate thermal protection materials on external surfaces of vehicles that experience the severe heating environments of atmospheric entry from space. Cured blocks of thermal protection materials are bonded into...

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at MIT and in Spain has found a new mathematical approach to simulating the electronic behavior of noncrystalline materials, which may eventually play an important part in new devices including solar cells, organic LED lights, and printable, flexible...

Consisting of 16,000 computer processors, an "unsupervised," self-learning neural network from Google is capable of hierarchically arranging data, removing duplicate similar features, and grouping certain images together. The network, which simulates the human brain, was...

By synchronizing 98 tiny cameras in a single device, electrical engineers from Duke University and the University of Arizona have developed a prototype camera that can create images with unprecedented detail.The camera’s resolution is five times better than 20/20 human vision over a 120 degree...

Maximum load capacity with minimal consumption of materials – this is how supporting structures in construction should be today. Researchers from the University of Stuttgart and Bosch Rexroth have now come a great deal closer to achieving this goal. They have constructed a wooden...

Traveling 300 million miles to Mars is difficult, but successfully landing there is even harder. During the first four minutes of entry, friction with the atmosphere slows a spacecraft considerably. But at the end of this phase, the vehicle is still traveling at over 1,000 mph with...

Beginning this summer, and over the next several years, NASA will be sending unmanned aircraft dubbed "severe storm sentinels" above stormy skies to help researchers and forecasters uncover information about hurricane formation and intensity changes. The Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3)...

A multiyear collaboration among Stanford engineering departments uses some of the world's fastest supercomputers to model the complexities of hypersonic flight. Someday, their work may lead to planes that fly at many times the speed of sound.

Aeronautical innovators at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia are one step closer to confidently crafting a viable commercial airliner that can fly faster than the speed of sound, yet produce a sonic boom that is quiet enough not to bother anyone on the ground below. Wind tunnel tests of...

A robot was equipped with a new type of tactile sensor built to mimic the human fingertip. Imitating human strategies, it also used a newly designed algorithm to make decisions about how to explore the outside world.Capable of other human sensations, the sensor can also tell where and in which direction forces...

Sealing cracks in roadways ensures a road’s structural integrity and extends the time between major repaving projects, but conventional manual crack sealing operations expose workers to dangerous traffic and cover a limited amount of roadway each day.To address these challenges, the...

Creators of an experimental bracelet, the Galvanic Skin Response monitor, want to use their device to assess student engagement in the classroom, and then use that information to inform teaching methods. The wireless-sensor technology, worn by a student, analyzes...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering have developed a technique that enables metallic nanocrystals to self-assemble into larger, complex materials for next-generation antennas and lenses. The metal nanocrystals are cube-shaped and,...

University of Utah physicists have developed an inexpensive, highly accurate magnetic field sensor for scientific and possibly consumer uses. The magnetic-sensing thin film, an organic semiconductor polymer named MEH-PPV, measures magnetic fields accurately with a drop of "plastic...

You’ve no doubt heard about fantasy camps that give ordinary, everyday people the opportunity to step out of their routine 9-to-5 lives and live out their dreams for a few days in the company of those who have done it – and in some cases are still doing it – at the professional level. There are baseball fantasy...