The X PRIZE Foundation and Google announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a $30 million prize. Private companies from around the world will compete to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including roaming the lunar surface for at least...

A system of electronic hardware and software that noninvasively tracks the direction of a person's gaze in real time has been developed by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. The system illuminates the eye with a low-power infrared LED; acquires video images of the pupil, iris, and cornea in the reflected...

Doctors rely on a dwindling arsenal of drugs to fight bacterial infections as the bugs keep finding ways to survive. These "superbugs" may be brought to their knees with the discovery by Boston University biomedical engineers of a previously unknown chain of events occurring in bacteria when they are fed antibiotics. The three...

A company seeks technology for casting ophthalmic lenses with a refractive index of at least 1.67, and Abbe of at least 37. Operating parameters would be to cast lenses at ambient conditions with low odor. Thermal or radiation cure is acceptable for polymerization of lens material, with radiation cure preferred. Click here to...

Scientists have identified two proteins that pair up at the precise location in the ear where sound vibrations are turned into electrical signals. The finding may eventually help researchers develop more precise treatments for hearing loss, a condition that affects more than 32 million people in the United States. When a car horn...

NASA Tech Briefs' 2007 National Nano Engineering Conference (NNEC), November 14-15 at the Marriott Boston Copley Place, is the premier event focused on current and future developments in engineering innovations at the nanoscale, as well as the commercialization of nanotechnology. The event also includes the...

The 2007 Create the Future Design Contest, presented by SolidWorks Corp. and NASA Tech Briefs, is open for entries in these categories: Machinery, Equipment, and Component Technology; Consumer Products; Medical; Safety and Security; Transportation; and Sustainable Technologies. The contest is co-sponsored by COMSOL...

This year's Software Tech Briefs supplement to NASA Tech Briefs is now available for downloading from the NTB Web site. Sponsored by COMSOL, Software Tech Briefs includes 58 new software programs, developed by NASA and industry, for applications in all areas of design, simulation, and analysis. COMSOL is the maker of COMSOL...

NASA's Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) provides technology for NASA's mission directorates, programs, and projects through investment and technology partnerships with industry, academia, government agencies, and national labs. NASA Tech Briefs spoke with Doug Comstock, Director of NASA's Innovative Partnerships Program,...

PharmaDur™ is a polymer-based technology that provides benefits over conventional forms of transdermal drug delivery. Also used for transmucosal and ophthalmic applications, it is a topical application that yields an invisible and imperceptible hydrogel film that creates a monolithic reservoir from which drug substances are...

A biomedical engineer at Purdue University has developed a new method to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) that promises to be more effective than standard CPR. The new method increases bloodflow through the heart by 25 percent over the current method, which has a success rate of only 5 to 10 percent. Leslie Geddes of Purdue's...

NASA Tech Briefs' 2007 National Nano Engineering Conference (NNEC), November 14-15 at the Marriott Boston Copley Place, is the premier event focused on current and future developments in engineering innovations at the nanoscale, as well as the commercialization of nanotechnology. The event also includes the...

The 2007 Create the Future Design Contest, presented by SolidWorks Corp. and NASA Tech Briefs, is open for entries in these categories: Machinery, Equipment, and Component Technology; Consumer Products; Medical; Safety and Security; Transportation; and Sustainable Technologies.

The Phantom® V7.3 digital high-speed camera from Vision Research (Wayne, NJ) has been named NASA Tech Briefs' Product of the Month for September. The upgraded version of the camera captures 500,000 pictures per second and features two operating modes: In standard mode, users can capture images between 6,700 and 190,000 frames...

A company seeks a range of environmentally and economically driven technologies in high-volume metal packaging with an emphasis on the reduction of packaging materials (including those that are recycled from the waste stream). Technologies should enhance the physical performance characteristics such as tensile strength and...

Engineers at the University of Washington are working with doctors at the Harborview Medical Center to create a Star Trek-like "tricorder" device using high-intensity focused ultrasound rays to seal punctured lungs. A lung is essentially a collection of air sacs, and air blocks transmission of ultrasound. But experiments show...

Your unique invention could win you $20,000 or other great prizes. Enter your design idea in the 2007 Create the Future Design Contest, presented by SolidWorks Corp. and NASA Tech Briefs. Entries are being accepted in six categories: Machinery, Equipment, and Component Technology; Consumer Products; Medical; Safety and Security;...

This monthly review lets you "meet" the new advertisers appearing in Embedded Technology. Here's a sneak peek at the products, services, and offers available from September's first-time advertiser: Quadros Systems (Houston, TX) offers a suite of RTOS-agnostic stacks, class drivers, and device drivers for USB development in...

Embedded Technology (ET) magazine features board-level electronics and COTS solutions for design engineers, as well as a variety of product offerings. In medical imaging, data samples are taken from devices such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computer tomography (CT) scanners and translated into 2D, 3D, or 4D images....

This innersole/liner increases foot stability and comfort, and decreases certain sport-specific injuries including plantar fasciitis, calcaneal apophysitis, and inversion - lateral/ankle - sprains. It decreases pronation and is designed to be included with and enhance an athletic shoe. Click here to respond to this Tech Need.

A new roof and attic system being developed by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) could reduce homeowners' utility bills by eight percent or more. Active thermal mass components, reflective pigments and coatings, subventing, radiant barriers, and other techniques are all being tested by ORNL's...

Bearing Analysis Tool (BAT) is a computer program for designing rolling-element bearings for cryogenic turbomachines. BAT provides a graphical user interface (GUI) that guides the entry of data to develop mathematical models of bearings. The GUI breaks model data into logical subsets that are entered through...

Darts++ is a computer program for solving the equations of motion of a multibody system or of a multibody model of a dynamic system. It is intended especially for use in dynamical simulations performed in designing and analyzing, and developing software for the control of, complex mechanical systems. Darts++...

A numerical framework for analysis of complex valve systems supports testing of propulsive systems by simulating key valve and control system components in the test loop. In particular, it is designed to enhance the analysis capability in terms of identifying system transients and quantifying the valve...

A suite of computer programs has been developed for special test equipment (STE) that is used in verification testing of the Health Management Computer Integrated Rack Assembly (HMC-IRA), a ground- based system of analog and digital electronic hardware and software for "flight-like" testing for...