Stories

A new study led by Jun Zhang, a Professor at NYU's Courant Institute, determined that hovering in mid-air might actually depend more on weight distribution than once thought. The researchers used pyramid-shaped paper "bugs," which were kept afloat in a stream of blown air. Contrary to...

Recent earthquake damage has exposed the vulnerability of existing structures to strong ground movement. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, researchers are analyzing shape-memory alloys for their potential use in constructing seismic-resistant structures.Georgia Tech researchers have developed...

The Army has identified physical overburden as one of its top five science and technology challenges. To help alleviate physical weight on troops, DARPA is developing a highly mobile, semi-autonomous legged robot, the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), to integrate with a squad of Marines or...

A Stanford University research team has designed a high-efficiency charging system that uses magnetic fields to wirelessly transmit large electric currents between metal coils placed several feet apart. The long-term goal of the research is to develop an all-electric highway that...

New circuitry is able to monitor and deliver electrical impulses into living tissue. The elastic electronics are made of tiny, wavy silicon structures containing circuits that are thinner than a human hair, and bend and stretch with the body. The elastic technology attempts to bridge the gap from...

A team of researchers from Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in Canada has focused on making soft versions of multitouch screens, batteries, microchip transistors, and other electronics. Those technologies could lead to "smart clothing" that, for example, monitors a person's health signs, or even...

A technique for inducing nanorods – rod-shaped semiconductor nanocrystals – to self-assemble into one-, two-, and three-dimensional macroscopic structures will enable more effective use of nanorods in solar cells, magnetic storage devices, and sensors. The development should also help boost the...

A research team led by investigators at Mayo Clinic in Florida has found that a small device worn on a patient's brow can be useful in monitoring stroke patients in the hospital. The device measures blood oxygen, similar to a pulse oximeter, which is clipped onto a finger.The tool, known as frontal near-infrared...

An international team of researchers has developed a process that improves the efficiency of generating electric power using molecular structures extracted from plants. The system taps into photosynthetic processes to produce efficient and inexpensive energy.

Check out the newly redesigned Jan/Feb issue of Lighting Technology. Cutting-edge research news, industrial lighting application stories, feature articles, products, and new technologies for license help bring in the new year.

One day in 2010, a Rutgers physicist watched a store employee showcase a kitchen gadget that vacuum-seals food in plastic. The simple concept – an airtight seal around pieces of food – just might apply to his research: developing flexible electronics using lightweight organic semiconductors for...

A low-cost smart paint detects microscopic faults in wind turbines, mines, and bridges before structural damage occurs. The environmentally-friendly paint uses nanotechnology to detect movement in large structures, and could shape the future of safety monitoring.The paint is formed using a recycled waste...

According to a New York Times article, a band of astronomers recently restarted the search for extraterrestrial life, after an appeal for financing. Last spring, the University of California’s Hat Creek observatory, a collection of radio telescopes that listen for radio broadcasts of...

In the microgravity environment of the International Space Station (ISS), telling the difference between an actual fire and a false alarm may not be simple. To understand how to detect smoke in space, researchers from NASA's Glenn Research Center flew the Smoke Aerosol Measurement Experiment (SAME) aboard the...

A team of scientists from the University of Nevada, Reno, installed fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing equipment to conduct long-term monitoring of climate change effects on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica and its potential for collapse. The equipment continually...

A Battery Management System (BMS) manages Lithium-Ion (Li-ion) batteries in a storage system for pulsed power weapons aboard Naval vessels. The system charges the batteries with a buck converter and uses analog equipment to measure signals. It then digitally converts signals for...

A recent partnership between the University of Southern California Viterbi’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies (CATT) and Audi’s Electronics Research Lab has provided USC with an Audi A8 fully equipped with a broad sensor suite that includes radar, lidar (for light detection...

UT Arlington engineers working with Army surgeons are developing a pliable, polymer mask embedded with electrical, mechanical, and biological components that can speed healing from disfiguring facial burns and help rebuild the faces of injured soldiers.The Biomask will be embedded with arrays of...

Scientists from the University of Bristol have developed a soap, composed of iron rich salts dissolved in water, that responds to a magnetic field when placed in solution. The soap’s magnetic properties were proved with neutrons at the Institut Laue-Langevin, which result from tiny iron-rich clumps...

The majority of all-terrain, search-and-rescue robots require large amounts of energy and are prone to overheating. Georgia Tech researchers have designed a new machine by studying the locomotion of a certain type of flexible, efficient animal. “By using their scales to control frictional...

Senate and House leaders announced last week that they are postponing work on two controversial anti-piracy bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the (PIPA) Protect IP Act, in the wake of large online protests that spurred some...