Stories

Researchers have discovered a way to capture and harness energy transmitted by such sources as radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks, and satellite communications systems. By scavenging ambient energy from the air, a new device could power networks of wireless sensors,...

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found what astronomers believe to be the most distant object ever seen in the universe, 13.2 billion light years away. This places the object roughly 150 million light years more distant than the previous record holder. The dim object is a compact galaxy made of blue stars that...

For more than 150 years, spark plugs have powered internal combustion engines. Automakers are now one step closer to being able to replace this long-standing technology with laser igniters, which will enable cleaner, more efficient, and more economical vehicles.Equally significant, the new laser system is made from...

University of Illinois researchers have demonstrated an acoustic cloak, a technology that renders underwater objects invisible to sonar and other ultrasound waves.The cloak is made of metamaterial, a class of artificial materials that have enhanced properties as a result of their carefully engineered...

When a soldier in good mental health becomes homicidal or a government employee abuses access privileges to share classified information, we often wonder why no one saw it coming. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are collaborating with scientists from four other organizations...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices can scan the inside of the body in intricate detail, but they can be a long and uncomfortable experience for patients. Now this scan time could be cut to just 15 minutes, thanks to an algorithm developed at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics.

Anyone who uses multithreaded computer programs —the programs that power nearly all software applications including Office, Windows, MacOS, and Google Chrome Browser, and Web services like Google Search, Microsoft Bing, and iCloud — knows the frustration of computer crashes, bugs, and...

By integrating a complex, single-crystal material with piezoelectric properties onto silicon, University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers and physicists can fabricate low-voltage, near-nanoscale electromechanical devices that could lead to improvements in high-resolution 3-D imaging, signal...

Led by a group at the University of Maryland (UMd), a multi-institution team of researchers has combined modern materials research and an age-old metallurgy technique to produce an alloy that could be the basis for a new class of sensors and micromechanical devices controlled by magnetism. The alloy...

Move aside, flat computer chips of the past — researchers from Purdue and Harvard universities have developed a new type of transistor made from a material that could replace silicon and offer a 3D structure. This development could enable engineers to build faster, more compact, and...

Arizona State University researchers have devised a method for mechanically controlling the geometry of a single molecule, situated in a junction between a pair of gold electrodes that form a simple circuit. These manipulations produced over ten times greater conductivity. This development may...

Researchers at the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have released a technical report that documents a series of test procedures designed to enable engineers, designers, and utilities to evaluate the performance of various electric vehicles and...

This week's Question: A report released last week in London and addressed at the U.N. climate conference in South Africa said that reflecting a small amount of sunlight back into space before it strikes the Earth's surface would theoretically have an immediate effect on the...

Stanford researchers have developed a new battery electrode that employs crystalline nanoparticles of a copper compound. In laboratory tests, the electrode survived 40,000 cycles of charging and discharging, after which it could still be charged to more than 80 percent of its original charge...

The gallium nitride nanowires grown by NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory scientists measure only a few tenths of a micrometer in diameter, but they promise a very wide range of applications, from new light-emitting diodes and diode lasers to ultra-small resonators, chemical sensors, and highly...

Purdue University has developed a system to analyze the historic response of U.S. Coast Guard search-and-rescue operations in the Great Lakes and assess the potential risks associated with hypothetical changes in the allocation of resources in the region.The agency is required to stand...

A project known as SIERRA (Surveillance for Intelligent Emergency Response Robotic Aircraft) integrates small, unmanned aircraft with global positioning systems, environmental data, video and fire-prediction software to give real-time information about where a fire is burning, and where it...

Researchers at MIT have devised an algorithm that predicts when an oncoming car is likely to run a red light. Based on parameters such as the vehicle’s deceleration and its distance from a light, the group was able to determine which cars were potential “violators” — those likely to cross into an...

This week's Question: The Curiosity rover, NASA's biggest extraterrestrial explorer, was launched toward Mars last week. The mobile laboratory, 10 feet long by 9 feet wide, will search for evidence that the planet was...

Army paratroopers completed two of three test drops to certify a new water and fuel container system for airdrops in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Each drop of two Lifeliner container-unitized bulk equipment, or CUBEs, delivered hundreds of gallons of water safely to the ground under dual,...

A $35 "snubber" developed by the Air Force Research Lab’s Propulsion Directorate, is a vibration damper that will prevent cracks in the J-seal on the F-119's engine inlet case, a spoked, ring-like device that helps control the air going into the engine.