Stories

NASA engineers will be tossing crayons and cereal into jet engines in a test of new aircraft engine health monitoring technology designed to provide early warning of engine problems, including the destructive effect of volcanic ash.

A carbon nanotube sponge developed with help from ORNL researchers holds potential as an aid for oil spill cleanup. Simulations at ORNL explained how the addition of boron atoms encouraged the formation of so-called "elbow" junctions that help the nanotubes grow into a 3-D network.The material's...

This week's INSIDER story demonstrated a Star Trek-like, human-scale 3D videoconferencing pod  that allows people in different locations to video conference as if they are standing in front of each other.

Today‘s cars are increasingly custom-built. One customer might want electric windows and heated door mirrors, while another is satisfied with the minimum basic equipment. The situation with aircraft is no different: each airline is looking for different interior finishes. Yet the...

What happens when you put a fully equipped five-story building — which includes an intensive care unit, a surgery suite, piping and air conditioning, fire barriers, and even a working elevator — through a series of high-intensity earthquakes?

An air sampler the size of an earplug is expected to cheaply and easily collect atmospheric samples to improve computer climate models. Developed by Sandia National Laboratories, the design employs a commonly used alloy to house an inexpensive microvalve situated above the sample chamber.

A Queen's University researcher has created a Star Trek-like human-scale 3D videoconferencing pod that allows people in different locations to video conference as if they are standing in front of each other. Two people simply stand in front of their own life-size cylindrical pods and talk to...

A doorknob that knows whether to lock or unlock based on how it is grasped, a smartphone that silences itself if the user holds a finger to her lips and a chair that adjusts room lighting based on recognizing if a user is reclining or leaning forward are among the many...

Last week, a space startup called Planetary Resources announced its plan for the future: asteroid mining. With diminishing resources on Earth, the company's founders believe that space offers the next logical frontier. They will use small satellites to scan near-Earth asteroids for rare materials, perhaps...

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany have developed new software that can be used to analyze and optimize transport grids for electricity, gas, and water, even at the planning stage, based on numerical simulations. This can lighten the tasks of retrofitting and expansion, save energy...

All over the country, millions of Americans still live behind dams or levees, and if these were to fail and unleash catastrophic flooding, as some did in New Orleans in 2005, property and life might once again pay the price. Answers to at least some of the problem are now on the way,...

The earlier a problem is detected, the easier it can be solved. Before implementing complex programs in a time-consuming process, computer scientists also want to know whether they will reach the desired performance. The PALLADIO simulation tool, developed by Professor Ralf Reussner at the Karlsruhe...

A gas sensor could one day be used to detect chemical weapon vapors or indicators of disease more precisely than current models do. The device also consumes less power, which is crucial for stretching battery life in a mineshaft or an isolated clinic.A pump and compressor collect gas from the first...

Scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have directed the first self-assembly of nanoparticles into device-ready materials. Through a technique based on blending nanoparticles with block co-polymer...

Most people know me as the editor of high-tech engineering magazines such as Defense Tech Briefs, Embedded Technology, Photonics Tech Briefs, and Lighting Technology. What they don’t know is that for the past 39 years I’ve maintained an exciting part-time career as an auto racing writer and photographer. In that time I’ve...

Radio signals reach pilots on board an aircraft through the “radar dome,“ the rounded nose of the aircraft. But the errors that occur during the production of this nose — tiny foreign particles, drops of water or air bubbles — can impede radio traffic. In the future, a non-destructive...

A new way of creating surface textures on glass, developed by researchers at MIT, virtually eliminates reflections, producing glass that is almost unrecognizable because of its absence of glare — and whose surface causes water droplets to bounce right offThrough a process involving thin layers of material...

The first prototype of a new, ultra-compact motor that will allow small satellites to journey beyond Earth’s orbit has been developed by École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. The goal of the micro motor is to drastically reduce the cost of space...

NASA's Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) experiment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has demonstrated remotely controlled robots and specialized tools can perform precise satellite-servicing tasks in space. The project marks a milestone in the use of the space station as a technology...

Wireless networks today are able to brake just one bike, but in the future, they could regulate entire trains. Computer scientists at Saarland University in Germany are designing mathematical calculations to check such systems automatically. Professor Holger Hermanns, whose group developed the...

As the number of mobile electronic devices from smart phones to e-bikes increases steadily worldwide, so does the demand for small, lightweight, and powerful batteries. Experts are looking at lithium-sulfur batteries as the next step in energy storage.

Multi-hop wireless networks can provide data access for large and unconventional spaces, but they face significant limits on the amount of data they can transmit. North Carolina State University researchers have developed a more efficient data transmission approach that can boost the amount...

A new form of microscope that can produce results in seconds rather than hours -- dramatically speeding up the process of drug development -- is being developed at the University of Strathclyde in the UK. Scientists are creating the Mesolens -- a lens that will be capable of showing...

Last December, MIT Media Lab researchers caused a stir by releasing a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a plastic bottle. But the experimental setup that enabled that video was designed for a much different application: a camera that can see around corners.

With more than 15 million endoscope procedures done on patients each year in the US alone, scientists report evidence that a new version of these flexible instruments for diagnosing and treating disease shows promise for helping surgeons more completely remove cancerous...