Long hailed as windows to the soul, the eyes also might provide insight for researchers at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM), who are evaluating and working to improve methods for detecting traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) in soldiers while they are still...

Engineers have fired the Navy’s first industry-built electromagnetic railgun (EM Railgun) prototype launcher at a test facility, beginning an evaluation that is an important intermediate step toward a future tactical weapon for ships. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is evaluating the first...

A new approach to motion capture technology is offering fresh insights into tennis injuries – and orthopedic injuries in general. Researchers from Ohio State University studied three types of tennis serves, and identified one in particular, called a “kick” serve, which creates the...

Researchers at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) and Michigan-based REL, Inc. are creating a next-generation aluminum composite brake rotor potentially weighing 60 percent less than today’s cast iron rotors with triple the life expectancy. The...

MIT engineers created the “buckliball,” a hollow, spherical object made of soft rubber containing no moving parts, but fashioned with 24 carefully spaced dimples. When the air is sucked out of a buckliball with a syringe, the thin ligaments forming columns between lateral dimples...

Pioneering engineers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are developing an innovative technique, based on lasers, that could radically change asteroid deflection technology.The research has unearthed the possibility of using a swarm of relatively small satellites flying in formation and...

 A recent event called the "Day of Unplugging" kicked off last week, challenging people to go without their cell phones and technology for 24 hours. The "digital detox" idea encourages everyone to step away from their computers and smartphones. Some people are opposed to the idea and see no need to unplug from...

A team of researchers from Columbia Engineering and the University of Pennsylvania has figured out a way to measure nanopores — tiny holes in a thin membrane that can detect single biological molecules such as DNA and proteins — with less error than can be achieved with...

Bitumen and heavy oil are difficult to extract from reservoirs because they are thick and do not flow easily. There are several methods of extraction, one of which uses carbon dioxide-rich gas injections which helps liquify the bitumen for easier extraction, while presenting opportunities for...

Spread by mosquitoes, malaria is caused by a tiny parasite that infects human red blood cells. University of British Columbia researcher Hongshen Ma and his team designed a lab-on-a-chip device to better understand the changes in red blood cells caused by Plasmodium falciparum, the most...

A new imaging system could use opaque walls, doors, or floors as 'mirrors' to gather information about a given scene. The camera produced recognizable 3-D images of a wooden figurine and of foam cutouts outside of the device’s line of sight.The principle behind the system is essentially that of the...

Engineers from the NRL Spacecraft Engineering Department (SED) successfully demonstrated the robotic fluids transfer from a stationary platform to an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) in wave heights greater than three feet. The Rapid Autonomous Fuel Transfer (RAFT) project exhibits the ability to...

Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and futurist, said to more than 3,000 attendees at the South by Southwest Interactive conference last week: "We are a human-machine civilization. Everybody has been enhanced with computer technology," noting how smartphones and other mobile devices and technologies have become a...

Researchers at UCLA have used a standard LightScribe DVD optical drive to produce electrodes that not only maintain high conductivity but also provide higher and more accessible surface area than conventional ECs that use activated carbon electrodes.The process is based on coating a DVD...

Researchers at MIT are working on a system that would enable robot planes to follow standard hand gestures. The team recorded a series of videos in which several people performed a set of 24 gestures commonly used by aircraft-carrier deck personnel.The MIT researchers’ software represented the contents of...

Propulsion by a novel jet engine is the innovation behind a University of Colorado Boulder-developed aircraft that’s accelerating toward commercialization. Jet engine technology can be small, fuel-efficient, and cost-effective, at least with Assistant Professor Ryan...

NASA scientists are making progress in their preparations to mount a detailed research campaign aimed at solving a modern-day aviation mystery involving the unlikely combination of fire and ice inside a running jet engine. The investigation deals with the seemingly strange notion that ice...

Tomorrow's aircraft could contribute to their power needs by harnessing energy from the wheel rotation of their landing gear to generate electricity. They could use this to power their taxiing to and from airport buildings, reducing the need to use their jet engines. This would save on...