Stories

Despite uncertainty, automakers are still making a big push for electric vehicles in 2012. Ford, for example, will have five such cars by the end the year, including the 2013 Ford Fusion hybrid and 2013 Ford Fusion Energi plug-in electric, which were both shown at last...

The Army-led science and technology Joint Multi-Role (JMR) Demonstrator effort to design a next-generation vertical-lift aircraft by 2030 is heavily focused on leveraging advanced electronic and avionics capabilities. Sensors, electronics, avionics and cutting-edge mission and...

Dr. Jen-Ping Chen, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at The Ohio State University, is working to improve the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software that engineers use to simulate and evaluate the operation of turbomachinery. Chen was the chief architect...

Improved safety, operational effectiveness and efficiency are a few reasons Air Force Air Mobility Command (AMC) officials are looking into using tablet devices such as electronic flight bags (EFBs) for aircrew members’ reference materials in the cockpit during in-flight...

A University of Oklahoma interdisciplinary research team will field test a newly developed ‘quad porosity model’ for shale gas reservoirs in the next few months. The three-year, $1.5 million project was funded by the Research for Partnership to Secure Energy for America and a consortium of nine oil...

Graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, slows down an object sliding across its surface. New software from the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) simulates the tip of an atomic force microscope moving across a stack of graphene sheets. Research using this software indicates that...

According to a seismologist investigating regional earthquakes, a northeast Ohio well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drilling almost certainly caused a series of 11 minor quakes. Some environmentalists are already critical of the drilling method known as hydraulic...

New technology from North Carolina State University and West Virginia University can reduce air pollutant emissions from some chicken and swine barns while also reducing their energy use by recovering and possibly generating heat. A proof-of-concept unit incorporates a biofilter and a heat exchanger to reduce...

Leaping lizards and agile dinosaurs may have used their tails as stabilizers, a technique that UC Berkeley biologists and researchers are studying in hopes of developing robots with increased capabilities.The interdisciplinary team focused on testing the value of a tail. In the lab, lizards were...

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have usedthe capabilities of the Rensselaer Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI) supercomputer touncover the properties of a promising form of graphene, known as graphenenanowiggles. The graphitic nanoribbons can be segmented into several...

An online toolkit developed at MIT and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been designed to make it easier for researchers to find materials with specific properties. The Web site, the Materials Project, allows users to explore an ever-growing database of more than 18,000 chemical...

Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory are looking into a novel approach that could some day aid scientific space and planetary research without the need for power-intense options often used today. Integrating the NRL-developed technologies in microrobotics, microbial fuel cells, and low...

Engineers at the University of Southampton have designed and flown the world's first "printed" aircraft, which could revolutionize the economics of aircraft design. The wings, integral control surfaces, and access hatches of the unmanned air vehicle (UAV) were printed on an EOS EOSINT P730 nylon...

Lawrence Livermore researchers have developed a nanosensor that relies on semiconductor nanowires rather than traditional batteries as a power source. The device overcomes the power requirement of traditional sensors and is simple, highly sensitive, and can detect various molecules...

A new antibody-based biosensor developed by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science processes samples in less than 10 minutes and detects pollutants at levels as low as just a few parts per billion, at the cost of pennies per sample. The device is small and sturdy enough to be...

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed a lightweight, inexpensive alternative to existing batteries for electric vehicles and the power grid. The new battery relies on an architecture called a semi-solid flow cell, in which solid particles are suspended in a...

Scientists at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) developed a composite material based on graphite that is as thin as paper and 10 times stronger than steel. This material has the potential to revolutionize the automotive, aviation, electrical, and optical industries.Graphite paper is a...

Today, we're pleased to have a guest blog from Lindsey Christensen, Marketing Project Manager at PTC, which delivers Product Lifecycle Management and design software solutions. Most people don’t think about the complexity behind the electricity that’s supplied to their home or work. We flick a...