News

By synchronizing 98 tiny cameras in a single device, electrical engineers from Duke University and the University of Arizona have developed a prototype camera that can create images with unprecedented detail.The camera’s resolution is five times better than 20/20 human vision over a 120 degree...

Maximum load capacity with minimal consumption of materials – this is how supporting structures in construction should be today. Researchers from the University of Stuttgart and Bosch Rexroth have now come a great deal closer to achieving this goal. They have constructed a wooden...

Traveling 300 million miles to Mars is difficult, but successfully landing there is even harder. During the first four minutes of entry, friction with the atmosphere slows a spacecraft considerably. But at the end of this phase, the vehicle is still traveling at over 1,000 mph with...

Beginning this summer, and over the next several years, NASA will be sending unmanned aircraft dubbed "severe storm sentinels" above stormy skies to help researchers and forecasters uncover information about hurricane formation and intensity changes. The Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3)...

A multiyear collaboration among Stanford engineering departments uses some of the world's fastest supercomputers to model the complexities of hypersonic flight. Someday, their work may lead to planes that fly at many times the speed of sound.

Aeronautical innovators at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia are one step closer to confidently crafting a viable commercial airliner that can fly faster than the speed of sound, yet produce a sonic boom that is quiet enough not to bother anyone on the ground below. Wind tunnel tests of...

A robot was equipped with a new type of tactile sensor built to mimic the human fingertip. Imitating human strategies, it also used a newly designed algorithm to make decisions about how to explore the outside world.Capable of other human sensations, the sensor can also tell where and in which direction forces...

Sealing cracks in roadways ensures a road’s structural integrity and extends the time between major repaving projects, but conventional manual crack sealing operations expose workers to dangerous traffic and cover a limited amount of roadway each day.To address these challenges, the...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering have developed a technique that enables metallic nanocrystals to self-assemble into larger, complex materials for next-generation antennas and lenses. The metal nanocrystals are cube-shaped and,...

University of Utah physicists have developed an inexpensive, highly accurate magnetic field sensor for scientific and possibly consumer uses. The magnetic-sensing thin film, an organic semiconductor polymer named MEH-PPV, measures magnetic fields accurately with a drop of "plastic...

MIT researchers have devised an algorithm that enables a robot to quickly learn an individual’s preference for a certain task, and adapt accordingly to help complete the task. The group is using the algorithm in simulations to train robots and humans to work together.The researchers say...

Researchers at Rice University have created a tiny coaxial cable that is about a thousand times smaller than a human hair, and has higher capacitance than previously reported microcapacitors. The nanocable could be used to build next-generation energy-storage systems. It could also find use in wiring...

Harnessing the energy of sunlight can be as simple as tuning the optical and electronic properties of metal oxides at the atomic level by making an artificial crystal or super-lattice “sandwich,” according to Binghamton University researcher Louis Piper. “Metal oxides are cheap, abundant, and...

With the age of the incandescent light bulb fading rapidly, the holy grail of the lighting industry is to develop a highly efficient form of solid-state lighting that produces high-quality white light. One of the few alternative technologies that produce pure white light is white-light quantum dots –...

Team CADET at Rice University have developed a slingshot-driven device that stops high-velocity projectiles without destroying them. Currently, the Air Force simulates deceleration by firing cannons into walls. The strategy is expensive and the sensor module and target are typically destroyed...

Engineers from the University of California, Berkeley, sent a fleet of 100 smartphone-equipped floating robots down the Sacramento River to demonstrate the next generation of water monitoring technology, promising to transform the way government agencies monitor one of the state’s most...

As far as the design of the basic hand grenade goes, "The basic technology is almost 100 years old," said Richard Lauch, a Picatinny Arsenal engineer. Lauch, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, has been on a mission to modernize the hand grenade so that it is safer as well as easier to use and cheaper to...

Soldiers stationed in remote combat outposts face logistics and safety challenges to power their radios, laptops and GPS units. U.S. Army scientists are researching methods to harness the Sun and wind to ease the burdens associated with transporting fossil fuels to dangerous areas

Thanks to a group of University of Houston students, the hearing impaired may soon have an easier time communicating with those who do not understand sign language. During the past semester, students in UH’s engineering technology and industrial design programs teamed up to develop the concept and...

MotivePro, which has been dubbed the “Vibrating Suit,” has been developed by the Birmingham City University in the UK. The suit helps athletes and other users to improve their memory of physical technique. The device has been tested by Olympic hopeful Mimi Cesar, the UK’s third-ranking...

When Cornell University engineers developed a new type of robot hand that could pick up oddly shaped objects it presented a challenge: It was easy for a human operator to choose the best place to take hold of an object, but an autonomous robotwould need a new kind of programming. So they developed an...

University of Nevada, Reno computer science engineers have combined human-computer interaction and motion-planning research to build a low-cost, accessible navigation system for people with visual impairments. Called Navatar, the system can run on a standard smartphone.