The New York Times recently reported on Egyptian programmers' attempts to train computers to recognize facial expressions and define human emotion. This emerging technology field called "affective programming" could be used in a variety of applications, such as providing better learning...

What amounts to serious scientific research could, at first glance, be mistaken for students at The University of Alabama in Huntsville letting off a little stress with radio-controlled helicopters.

The Naval Air Systems Command has developed a device that is doing for aircraft inspections what colonoscopies have done for cancer detection.

NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Ground Systems Development and Operations Program engineers in Florida are combining heritage technology and new innovations to design the crew access arm for the tower on the mobile launcher that will be used for NASA’s Orion spacecraft atop the Space...

Three West Point cadets spent part of their summer secluded in a locked research lab with its windows blackened. Their project involved a new piece of software that can identify the location of weapons caches in theater using a mathematical model, based on the research theory of...

Refueling U.S. Navy vessels, at sea and underway, is a costly endeavor in terms of logistics, time, fiscal constraints, and threats to national security and sailors at sea.

For airline passengers who dread bumpy rides to mountainous destinations, help may be on the way. A new turbulence avoidance system has, for the first time, been approved for use at a U.S. airport, and can be adapted for additional airports in rugged settings across the United States and...

The Army is refining an initial capabilities document for a new fixed-wing utility aircraft that is designed to replace more than 112 airframes with a common platform. The new platform should be able to perform a range of key mission sets and services.

The search for a “greener” way to prevent corrosion on the kind of aluminum used in jetliners, cars and other products has led scientists to an unlikely source, according to a report in ACS’ journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. It’s the juice of the...

A pioneering technology capable of atomic-level precision is now being developed to detect what so far has remained imperceptible: gravitational waves or ripples in space-time caused by cataclysmic events including even the Big Bang itself.

Goddard physicist Babak Saif, along with...

Eight billion years ago, rays of light from distant galaxies began their long journey to Earth. That ancient starlight has now found its way to a mountaintop in Chile, where the newly constructed Dark Energy Camera, the most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created,...

3D printing has been used in the health care field to make prosthetic limbs, custom hearing aids, dental fixtures, and other helpful tools for patients. The printing technology is now being used to create more complex structures, even human tissue. Bio-printers, for example, form human tissue...

Scientists at Harvard University, Texas A&M, and two Italian universities are reporting development of a revolutionary new lens — flat, distortion-free, and so small that more than 1,500 would fit across the width of a human hair — capable in the future of replacing lenses...

In the operating room, surgeons can see inside the human body in real time using advanced imaging techniques, but primary care physicians, the people who are on the front lines of diagnosing illnesses, haven't commonly had access to the same technology until now. Engineers...

Using a novel method of integrating video technology and familiar control devices, a research team from Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is developing a technique to simplify remote control of robotic devices.

NASA's first mobile application and software that models the behavior of earthquake faults to improve earthquake forecasting and the understanding of earthquake processes are co-winners of NASA's 2012 Software of the Year Award. The award recognizes innovative software technologies...

A new dynamic simulation method provides precise simulation of fluid materials. The technique distinguishes itself significantly from known simulation methods which use mesh structures where the vertices are locked in a fixed position.

In the new process, the mesh structure is replaced by a dynamic...

MIT chemists designed a new type of pencil lead consisting of carbon nanotubes, which can be drawn onto sheets of paper. The carbon nanotube sensors offer a powerful new way to detect harmful gases in the environment.

As part of the Navy's plan to convert at least 50% of its energy demands to alternative sources by 2020, the branch may cover part of Pearl Harbor with solar panels. The 4000-foot, unused runway in the center of Pearl Harbor's military base is a good location for the solar project and is "critically important to...

The U.S. Army has begun the final phase for manufacturing a microchip-sized prototype that will support efforts to provide highly accurate location and battlefield situational awareness for the dismounted soldier, even in the temporary absence of GPS capability.

University of Illinois researchers have a new low-cost method to carve delicate features onto semiconductor wafers using light – and watch as it happens. The team’s new technique can monitor a semiconductor’s surface as it is etched, in real time, with nanometer resolution. It...