Stories

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Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Bearing Sensor ABB (Zurich, Switzerland) introduced the ABB Ability™ smart sensor that enables health checks for bearings. The smart sensor technology provides an early indicator of potential problems by assessing the condition...
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Briefs: Transportation
Industrial machinery, agricultural equipment, transportation vessels, and home applications depend on lubricants; however, they leave a heavy environmental footprint. Common lubricants, oils,...
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Briefs: Test & Measurement
Technique Provides Rapid Assessment of Radiation Exposure
Researchers have developed a new technique that assesses radiation exposure in about an hour using an insulator material found in most modern electronics. The technique can be used to triage medical cases in the event of a radiological disaster.
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Thin, durable heating patches were created using intense pulses of light to fuse tiny silver wires with polyester. Their heating performance is nearly 70 percent higher than similar patches. The inexpensive patches...
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Q&A: Materials
Texas A&M professor Jaime Grunlan and his team are developing a new flame-retardant coating using renewable, nontoxic materials readily found in nature that could...
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Briefs: Software
A metal-organic framework (MOF) material was developed that exhibits a selective, fully reversible, and repeatable capability to remove nitrogen dioxide gas from the atmosphere in ambient...
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Briefs: Energy
Researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a new dielectric material based on barium titanate nanopowder processed via spark plasma sintering (SPS). The rapid and full...
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
A new type of oximeter — or blood-oxygen sensor — is made of organic electronics printed on bendable plastic that molds to the contours of the body. Unlike fingertip oximeters, it can detect...
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Briefs: Test & Measurement
Regional Hydrologic Extremes Assessment System (RHEAS) Software
Drought is Africa’s principal type of natural disaster and is at the core of serious threats to the livelihoods of millions of people and the natural resources on which they depend. The economies of many African countries are based on agricultural activities that are controlled...
Briefs: Motion Control
Recent technical advances have enabled flywheel energy storage systems (FESS) to become more compact and able to support higher-power applications. Due to their proven reliability,...
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Briefs: Imaging
Ordinary WiFi can easily detect weapons, bombs, and explosive chemicals in bags at museums, stadiums, theme parks, schools, and other public venues using a low-cost suspicious...
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Briefs: Medical
Wearable biosensors for health monitoring lack a lightweight, long-lasting power supply. A new method was developed for making a charge-storing system that is easily integrated into clothing...
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Flexible and wearable sensors measure and track body motion, a task made more complex by the human anatomy’s numerous potential contortions. For a wearable sensor to work properly, it...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Rechargeable, High-Temperature, Molten Salt Battery
Growing demand for electric vehicles and more sustainable forms of transport means finding new forms of energy storage such as batteries, supercapacitors, and fuel cells. Currently, a major challenge facing the industry is the poor performance quality of rechargeable batteries, which often lose...
Briefs: Materials
Plastic-Degrading Enzyme
Eight million metric tons of plastic waste, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, enter the oceans each year, creating huge manmade islands of garbage. Experts estimate that by 2050, there will be as much waste plastic in the ocean by mass as there are fish. A bacterium, Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, can...
Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Banner EngineeringPlymouth, MNwww.bannerengineering.com Sorting parcels and packages prior to delivery is an essential step in shipping and handling. Order fulfillment applications...
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Articles: Electronics & Computers
The first mass-produced electric vehicles (EVs) hit the road late in 2010 with the introduction of the Nissan Leaf, which remains the world’s top-selling,...
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Application Briefs: Electronics & Computers
RenishawWest Dundee, ILwww.renishaw.com HiETA develops metal additive manufacturing (AM) methods for the production of complex, lightweight structures for heat management applications. Parts...
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Briefs: Communications
Emergency situations such as trying to escape heavy smoke from fire could leave the sense of touch as the only way to find an exit. Rather than trying to look at a smartphone screen, a...
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Briefs: Materials
NASA Langley Research Center has developed new methods for fabricating hollow nanoparticles using dendrimer molecules. Dendrimers are used as templates to control the size, stability, and solubility of...
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Many applications in science and industry require an apparatus that creates a controlled amount of a fluid introduced into another fluid. For instance, some material corrosion testing applications require...
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Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
The traditional approach for wireless sensors involves interrogators that communicate with each other (i.e., the two boxes “talk” to each other). In contrast, surface acoustic wave...
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Facility Focus: Defense
Battelle Memorial Institute was founded in the early part of the 20th century as a charitable trust focused on research in metallurgy and allied industries. Founder Gordon Battelle studied metallurgy...
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5 Ws: Energy
Who Millions of people who rely on pacemakers, defibrillators, and other livesaving implantable devices powered by batteries that need to be replaced every five to 10 years.
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Briefs: Aerospace
NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a method in which a metal matrix composite (MMC) material is incorporated into a metallic structure during a one-step...
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Articles: Medical
This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.
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Application Briefs: Materials
ProtolabsMaple Plain, MNwww.protolabs.com Mankind first set foot on the Moon in 1969; nearly five decades have now passed. Today, NASA is developing the Orion spacecraft that will...
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
GPS signals do not penetrate very deeply or at all in water, soil, or building walls, and therefore can’t be used by submarines or in underground activities such as surveying mines. GPS also may...
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Briefs: Aerospace
System Enables Direct Data Transmission Between Underwater and Airborne Devices
Today, underwater sensors cannot share data with those on land, as both use different wireless signals that only work in their respective mediums. Radio signals that travel through air die very rapidly in water. Acoustic signals, or sonar, sent by underwater devices...

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