Stories

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...

This week's Question: In January, the Federal Aviation Administration plans to outline new rules for the use of small drones, a first step in allowing police departments, farmers, and other agencies to employ the technology. The drones could be used for air support to spot...

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...