The blood-thinning drug heparin is highly effective when used to prevent and treat blood clots in veins, arteries, and lungs, but contaminated heparin products recently caused serious allergic reactions that led to many deaths. Now, University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated a simple, inexpensive method for...

Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston are developing an imaging system that will essentially light up and color cancerous tumors, enabling surgeons to evaluate whether they've resected an entire diseased area. The system, called fluorescence- assisted resection and exploration - or FLARE - is...

A National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) study is tackling the issue of spatial disorientation, which is responsible for up to 10 percent of general aviation accidents in the United States and is a major concern for astronaut pilots. The project involves specially designed software that monitors the...

Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed a strong, flexible bio-material that may be used someday to close wounds with minimal scarring and rejection by the immune system. Spun from a common blood protein, the material could be used to make the thin threads needed for wound sutures, larger...

A team of scientists studying the human brain at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Chieti, Italy, report that a simple decision-making task does not involve the frontal lobes, where many of the higher aspects of human cognition, including self-awareness, are thought to originate. Instead, they...

Researchers have developed a new type of small-scale electric power generator able to produce alternating current through the cyclical stretching and releasing of zinc oxide wires encapsulated in a flexible plastic substrate with two ends bonded. When the modules are mechanically stretched and then released, because of the...

Scientists at Stanford University and Japan's National Institute of Informatics have created a new highly sensitive infrared spectrometer. The device converts light from the infrared part of the spectrum to the visible part, where the availability of superior optical detectors results in strongly improved sensing capabilities....

Clemson physics professor Apparao Rao and his team are developing nano-scale cantilevers that have the potential to read and alert us to toxic chemicals or gases in the air. Putting them into small handheld devices could lead to real-time chemical alerts in battle, industry, health care, and even at home. In addition to simultaneously...

University of California at San Diego computer scientists have designed a software program that can perform key duplication without having the key, instead relying on a photograph of the key.

Drivers worldwide soon will be able to navigate dangerous road conditions more safely, thanks to sensor technology developed by researchers at the University of California at Irvine. The researchers have designed a 1.7 millimeter-wide device that helps stabilize automobiles, allowing them to pass safely through...

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the U.S. ITER Project Office have developed a new cast stainless steel that is 70 percent stronger than comparable steel and is being evaluated for use in the huge shield modules required by the ITER fusion device. ITER is a multibillion-dollar international research...

Scientists are on the hunt for evidence of antimatter left over from the very early Universe. Unfortunately, new results using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory suggest the search may have just become even more difficult. Antimatter is made up of elementary particles, each of which has...

An untreated silicon solar cell absorbs only 67.4 percent of sunlight shone upon it, and the remaining unharvested light is a major barrier hampering the widespread adoption of solar power. However, a silicon surface treated with a new reflective coating developed by researchers at Rensselaer absorbs 96.21 percent of sunlight....

Register today for NASA Tech Briefs' National Nano Engineering Conference (NNEC), the premier event focused on current and future developments in engineering innovations at the nanoscale. The event returns to Boston this year on November 12-13 at the Boston Colonnade Hotel, featuring the fourth annual Nano 50...

Clemson University scientists have made a practical optical fiber with a silicon core, employing the same methods that are used to develop all-glass fibers. The development could make silicon fibers viable alternatives to glass fibers, and help increase efficiency and decrease power consumption in computers and other systems...

By marrying a sensitive detector able to distinguish hundreds of different chemical compounds with a pattern-recognition module that mimics the way animals recognize odors, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers have created a new approach for "electronic noses." The detector could be a potent tool for...

As products become more feature-rich, manufacturers are looking at ways to improve the human-computer interface (HCI). Touchscreens, with intuitive operation and software flexibility, and screen-printed touch surfaces, with refined aesthetics and better sealing, have become extremely popular. But what these touch-input devices do...

As computer processor chips grow faster and more complex, they are likely to make it to market with more design bugs. But that may be OK, according to University of Michigan researchers who have devised a new system that lets chips work around all functional bugs, even those that haven't been detected. Normally CPU manufacturers...

Researchers at Ohio State University have created a new material that overcomes two of the major obstacles to solar power: it absorbs all the energy contained in sunlight, and it generates electrons in a way that makes them easier to capture. The new hybrid material was created by combining electrically conductive plastic with...

Many technical systems work with air or water - air compression systems and water pipes are just two examples. Sensors constantly monitor the pressure of such systems to keep costly fault-related losses to a minimum. At present, these sensors are either battery-driven or connected up by complex technical wiring, making it difficult...

A prototype of an advanced robotic vision system both (1) measures its own motion with respect to a stationary background and (2) detects other moving objects and estimates their motions, all by use of visual cues. Like some prior robotic and other optoelectronic vision systems, this...

A wide-band penetrating radar system for measuring the thickness of sea ice is under development. The need for this or a similar system arises as follows: Spatial and temporal variations in the thickness of sea ice are important indicators of heat fluxes between the ocean and atmosphere and, hence,...

A proposed device for combining or switching electromagnetic beams would have three ports, would not contain any moving parts, and would be switchable among three operating states:

This design allows broadband power combining with high isolation between the H port and E port, and achieves a lower insertion loss than any other broadband planar magic-T. Passive micro wave/millimeter-wave signal power is combined both in-phase and out-of-phase at the ports, with the phase error being less than...

The Next Generation Flight Controller Trainer (NGFCT) is a relatively inexpensive system of hardware and software that provides high- fidelity training for space-shuttle flight controllers. NGFCT provides simulations into which are integrated the behaviors of emulated space-shuttle vehicle onboard...

A quasi-optical transmission line (QOTL) has been developed as a low-loss transmission line for a spaceborne cloud-observing radar instrument that operates at a nominal frequency of 94 GHz. This QOTL could also readily be redesigned for use in terrestrial millimeter- wave radar systems and...