INSIDER

Big Plans to Save the Planet Depend on Nanoscopic Materials Improving Energy Storage

The challenge of building an energy future that preserves and improves the planet is a massive undertaking. Scientists and politicians have recognized the...

Highly Sensitive Diode, Converts Microwaves to Usable Electricity

A highly sensitive rectifying element in the form of a nanowire backward diode can convert low-power 100 nanowatt microwaves into usable electricity. The newly developed...

A New Concept for More Sustainable Batteries

A new concept for an aluminum battery has twice the energy density as previous versions, is made of abundant materials, and could lead to reduced production costs and environmental impact. The...

MIT Researchers Employ Low-Cost Sensors to Detect and Track the Origins of Air Pollutants in India.

At any moment in Delhi, India, a resident might start their car, releasing exhaust that floats into the atmosphere. In northwest India, a...

3D-Printed Plastics with High Performance Electrical Circuits

Rutgers engineers have embedded high performance electrical circuits inside 3D-printed plastics, which could lead to smaller and versatile drones and better-performing small...

Compact Depth Sensor Inspired by Spiders

Inspired by spiders, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), have developed a compact and efficient depth sensor that could be used onboard...

New Transistor Nanocrystals Are Smaller, Higher Quality, and More Efficient

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a new method for producing atomically thin semiconducting crystals that could one day enable more powerful and...

A Mechanical Gyroscope, Inspired by Insects

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory took inspiration from flying insects to create a miniaturized gyroscope, a special sensor used in...

System Helps Autonomous Cars Move Safely

MIT and Toyota researchers have designed a new model to help autonomous vehicles determine when it’s safe to merge into traffic at intersections with obstructed views. The model uses its own...

Vibration Isolator Steadies Telescope Optics

If you’ve ever tried to hold a camera steady for a long exposure in low light, you know exactly what happens: the camera shakes and the image blurs. The same can happen with images from...

New Metasurface Design Can Control Optical Fields in Three Dimensions

A team led by scientists at the University of Washington has designed and tested a 3D-printed metamaterial that can manipulate light with nanoscale precision. As...

Exposing Cathodes to Light Decreases Charge Time in Lithium-Ion Batteries

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have reported a new mechanism to speed up the charging of lithium-ion batteries for...

DESI Points 5,000 Robotic ‘Eyes’ at the Sky to Explore Dark Energy

A new instrument mounted on a telescope in Arizona aimed its robotic array of 5,000 fiber-optic “eyes” at the night sky on Oct. 22 to capture the first images...

“Pushy” Robots Learn How to Move Objects

MIT researchers have compiled a dataset that captures the detailed behavior of a robotic system physically pushing hundreds of different objects. Using the dataset, robots “learn” pushing...

A Battery-Free Sensor for Underwater Exploration

To investigate the vastly unexplored oceans covering most of our planet, researchers aim to build a submerged network of interconnected sensors that send data to the surface — an underwater...

Wearable Brain-Machine Interface Could Control a Wheelchair, Vehicle, or Computer

Combining new classes of nanomembrane electrodes with flexible electronics and a deep learning algorithm could help disabled people wirelessly control an...

Reconfigurable Electronics Show Promise for Wearable, Implantable Devices

Medical implants of the future may feature reconfigurable electronic platforms that can morph in shape and size dynamically as bodies change or even transform to...

Smaller, Cheaper, and More Dynamic Computer Chips

UCLA researchers at the Center for Heterogeneous Integration and Performance Scaling (CHIPS) say that computers powered by traditional integrated circuit chips are reaching their limits and a...

WiFi Measures Indoor Movement

Researchers from North Carolina State University developed a way to measure speed and distance in indoor environments. WiFi-assisted Inertial Odometry (WIO) uses WiFi as a velocity sensor to accurately track...

Shape-Shifting Robots Built from “Smarticles”

Researchers built robots entirely from smaller robots known as smarticles, unlocking the principles of a potentially new locomotion technique. The smarticles (smart active particles) can do...

Nanowire Arrays Could Improve Solar Cells

Transparent electrodes are a critical component of solar cells and electronic displays. To collect electricity in a solar cell or inject electricity for a display, you need a conductive contact,...

Conventional Imaging Lessons Let Scientists See Around Corners

Along with flying and invisibility, high on the list of every child’s aspirational superpowers is the ability to see through or around walls or other visual obstacles. That...

Nano-Particles Used to Increase Power, Improve Eye Safety of Fiber Lasers

Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have devised a new process for using nano-particles to build powerful lasers that are more efficient and safer for...

Sandia Helps Puerto Rico Grid Resilience with Microgrid Designs

The days and weeks following a natural disaster are a critical time for residents, emergency response teams, and government entities to recover and rebuild infrastructure....

Artificial Intelligence Could Help Data Centers Run Far More Efficiently

A novel system developed by MIT researchers automatically “learns” how to schedule data-processing operations across thousands of servers — a task traditionally...

New Power Supply Control Method Significantly Increases the Service Life of End Devices

From the charging unit for a smartphone to the power supply of a laptop or washing machine to LED lights or the charging station for an electric car —...

A New Electrolyte for Lithium-Metal Batteries

Improvements to a class of battery electrolyte first introduced in 2017 — liquefied gas electrolytes — could pave the way to a high-impact and long-sought advance for rechargeable batteries:...

Wearable Motion Sensors Could Save Unborn Babies

A technique was developed that could allow expectant parents to hear their baby’s heartbeat continuously at home with a non-invasive and safe device that is potentially more accurate than any...

Mini Stretchable Pump for Soft Robots

Most soft robots are actuated by rigid, noisy pumps that push fluids into the machines’ moving parts. Because they are connected to these bulky pumps by tubes, these robots have limited autonomy and...