Stories

For decades, academic and industry researchers have been working on control algorithms for autonomous helicopters — robotic helicopters that pilot themselves, rather than requiring remote human guidance. Dozens of research teams have competed in a series of autonomous-helicopter challenges posed...

NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission will be a complex one for the pilots flying NASA's Global Hawk aircraft from the ground. The mission will be the first deployment for the unmanned aircraft away from their regular base of operations at the Dryden Flight...

At the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, scientists and engineers have been studying how they can make higher-performance materials for soldiers at lighter weights. The challenge has led to the ARL Enterprise for Multiscale Research of Materials, made up of in-house research and most...

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne master’s student Thibault Kuntzer has focused his efforts on an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope – the most distant photo of the universe ever taken. As part of a semester project, he tested and increased the efficiency of an...

Mikel Abasolo, a researcher of the University of the Basque Country, has built a simplified simulation model for wind turbines. All one has to do is enter the characteristics that the tower and its parts will have, and in a matter of seconds, the model predicts the load that has to be given to each...

A team of experts in mechanics, materials science, and tissue engineering at Harvard has created an extremely stretchy and tough gel that has potential as a replacement for damaged cartilage in human joints.

A team of engineers at Stanford has demonstrated the feasibility of a super-small, implantable cardiac device that gets its power not from batteries but from radio waves transmitted from a small power device on the surface of the body.

Many wireless-monitor products today track daily activity, including a person's steps and calories burned. Wearable sensors, and even internal ones, however, may also be used to monitor one's specific biological processes. "Stretchable electronics," for example,...

Scientists working at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source have captured the first single-shot X-ray microscope image of a magnetic nanostructure and shown that it can be done without damaging the material.This result not only demonstrates the success of a powerful new X-ray technique, but it...

NASA's Mars Curiosity has debuted the first recorded human voice that traveled from Earth to another planet and back. The voice playback was released along with new telephoto camera views of the varied Martian landscape during a news conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The...

By modifying the rate at which chemical reactions take place, nanoparticle catalysts fulfill myriad roles in industry, the biomedical arena, and everyday life. They may be used for the production of polymers and biofuels, improving pollution and emission control devices,...

Applied physicists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created an ultrathin, flat lens that focuses light without imparting the distortions of conventional lenses. At 60 nanometers thick, the flat lens is essentially two-dimensional, yet its focusing power...

Using smartphones' GPS and imaging capabilities, University of Missouri researchers have developed new software that determines the exact location of distant objects, as well as monitors the speed and direction of moving objects. The software could eventually allow smartphone-armed soldiers...

With a whistle and a roar, the "Mighty Eagle," a NASA robotic prototype lander, sailed to an altitude of 100 feet. During the 35-second run, the vehicle was "open loop," navigating autonomously without the command of the onboard camera and flying on a preprogrammed flight profile.Once it reached the...

PML researchers have devised a novel source of portable sunlight that may fill an urgent need in renewable energy research – namely, light sources that generate a near-perfect solar spectrum to be used in testing the performance and efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) materials.The team’s...

The first commercially licensed grid-connected wave-energy device in the United States, designed by the New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies, is in its final weeks of testing before a planned launch in October. The computer-equipped buoy captures the energy created by a wave, which is fueled by the...

A smart filter with a shape-shifting surface can separate oil and water using gravity alone, an advancement that could be useful in cleaning up environmental oil spills, among other applications. The researchers created a filter coating that repels oil but attracts water, bucking conventional...

Scientists at MIT and the University of Pennsylvania are taking more than inspiration from nature — they’re taking ingredients. The group has genetically engineered muscle cells to flex in response to light, and is using the light-sensitive tissue to build highly articulated robots. This...

Smartphone capabilities have extended, even to the wristwatch. Companies like Apple, Nike, Sony, as well as other startups, have created new wrist devices that connect to an individual’s smartphone. Most display the time, but the bands also provide information that keeps users from having to take out their...

A multi-university research team led by North Carolina State University will be developing methods to create two-dimensional (2-D) materials capable of folding themselves into three-dimensional (3-D) objects when exposed to light. The effort, which is funded by a grant from the National...

Sandia National Laboratories wind energy researchers are re-evaluating vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) to help solve some of the problems of generating energy from offshore breezes. Though VAWTs have been around since the earliest days of wind energy research at Sandia and...

A significant milestone for remotely piloted aircraft was ushered in with the first student sortie in an innovative T-6 Texan II simulator. The new setup has dramatically increased the ability to train remotely piloted aircraft pilots, and the ingenuity behind the new...

Researchers at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) are testing new technologies it created for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that could give commercial and military maintenance programs earlier warning of problems. Condition-based maintenance, known as CBM, will get safer aircraft...

The remotely piloted X-48C aircraft successfully flew for the first time on August 7 at Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert.

As the school season arrives, an increasing number of students will be studying through Internet-based systems. An NYC-based company called Knewton, for example, uses an adaptive learning technique that tracks learners' progress and shadows their online activities as they work....