News

A new nanomaterial could extend the lifespan of lithium-sulfur batteries, and therefore the driving range of electric vehicles.Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers added the powder to the battery's cathode to capture problematic polysulfides that usually cause lithium-sulfur...

University of Sheffield engineers have developed a way of making hundreds — or even thousands — of tiny robots cluster to carry out tasks. The robots do not require memory or processing power. Each robot uses just one sensor that indicates the presence of another nearby robot. Based on the sensor's...

A house window that doubles as a solar panel could be on the horizon, thanks to recent quantum-dot work by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers in collaboration with scientists from University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB), Italy. Their project demonstrates that superior light-emitting properties of...

A tabletop display features personal screens made from a curtain of mist. Users can move images around, push through the fog-screens, and place them onto the interface.The technology allows a range of customizations and interactions, such as presenting 2D personal content on the screen, placing 3D...

A team at MIT and Harvard University has created a material that absorbs the sun’s heat and stores that energy in chemical form, ready to be released again on demand.The technology provides an opportunity for the expansion of solar power into new realms, specifically applications where heat is...

On March 28, residents of Greater Los Angeles experienced the largest earthquake to strike the region since 2008. The magnitude 5.1 quake was centered near La Habra in northwestern Orange County about 21 miles (33 kilometers) east-southeast of Los Angeles, and was widely felt throughout Southern...

In a recent advance in solar energy, researchers have discovered a way to tap the sun not only as a source of power, but also to directly produce solar energy materials.This breakthrough by chemical engineers at Oregon State University could soon reduce the cost of solar energy, speed production...

An Iowa State research team led by Reza Montazami is developing "transient materials" and "transient electronics" that can quickly and completely melt away when a trigger is activated. The development could mean that one day you might be able to send out a signal to destroy a lost credit card.To...

A research team at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has developed a small electronic sensing device that can alert users wirelessly to the presence of chemical vapors in the atmosphere. The technology, which could be manufactured using familiar aerosol-jet printing techniques, is aimed at myriad...

Researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered that fragmented carbon nanotube films can serve as adhesive conductors in lithium-ion batteries.“The problem with the current technology is that the binders impair the electrochemical performance of the battery because of their...

A new robotic system at Georgia Tech’s Center for Chemical Evolution could soon let scientists better simulate and analyze the chemical reactions of early Earth on the surface of real rocks.In a proof-of-concept study, scientists selected a region for analysis using a 3-D camera on a robotic arm,...

NASA's Z-2 Suit is the newest prototype in its next-generation spacesuit platform, the Z-series. The surface-specific planetary mobility suit is the first to be tested in full vacuum. The prototype used 3D human laser scans and 3D-printed hardware for suit development and sizing. The suit-port concept is...

By designing a new GPS system aboard airplanes, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego researchers will improve weather models and hurricane forecasting by detecting precise conditions in the atmosphere.Current measurement systems that use GPS satellite signals as a source to probe the...

A revolutionary University of Colorado Boulder toilet, fueled by the sun, will assist some of the 2.5 billion people around the world lacking safe and sustainable sanitation. The technology will be unveiled in India this month. The self-contained, waterless toilet, designed and built using a...

Using little more than a few perforated sheets of plastic and a staggering amount of number crunching, Duke engineers have demonstrated a three-dimensional acoustic cloak. The new device reroutes sound waves to create the impression that both the cloak and anything beneath it are not there.The acoustic...

Researchers from Empa and ETH Zurich have produced a material prototype that damps vibrations completely and specifically conducts certain frequencies. The working model consists of a one-meter by one-centimeter aluminum plate that is one millimeter thick. The sheet-metal strip vibrates at different...

A handheld radiation camera developed by University of Michigan engineering researchers offers nuclear plant operators a faster way to find potentially dangerous hot spots and leaky fuel rods.The new 'Polaris-H' detector lays a gamma-ray map over an image of a room, pinpointing radiation sources with...

Researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute have developed a method to carry out large-scale manufacturing of everyday objects — from cell phones to food containers and toys — using a fully degradable bioplastic isolated from shrimp shells. The objects exhibit many of the same properties as...