Stories

Strain-Sensing Smart Skin Ready to Deploy

A strain-sensing smart skin developed at Rice University uses very small carbon nanotube structures to monitor and detect damage in large structures. The “strain paint” uses the fluorescent...

Glow-in-the-Dark Algae May Be Ideal for Soft Robots

Engineers developed soft devices containing algae that glow when under mechanical stress —perfect for building soft robots.

How Much Do You Know About Computer History?

How did this computer revolution happen? Who were some of the pioneers? How long has it taken to get here?

Scientists Stick Hydrogen Where the Sun Doesn’t Shine

One method for keeping removed carbon out of the atmosphere long-term involves injecting CO2 into rock formations deep underground.

Smart Microrobots Walk Autonomously

A collaborative effort has installed electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots that are 100 to 250 micrometers in size — smaller than an ant’s head — so that they can walk autonomously without...

NIST is Calibrating Gear Artifacts

Gears are sophisticated parts that play a vital role in cars, airplanes, construction and mining equipment, food processing, clock making, and more. And, companies are still trying to make them better —...

Teaching Package-Handling Robots to Navigate Using Visual Cues

We humans are adept at using audio and visual cues for communication while carrying out collaborative tasks. Now researchers are aiming to implement gestural interaction in a networked system of robots.

Eyes on Self-Driving Cars Reduce Accidents

Robotic eyes on autonomous vehicles could improve pedestrian safety, according to a new study at the University of Tokyo. Participants played out scenarios in virtual reality (VR) and had to decide...

A Motorless Sailplane to Explore Mars’ Atmosphere

The UA team aims to design a motorless sailplane that can soar over the Martian surface for days at a time, using only wind for propulsion.

How Much Do You Know About Humanoid Robots?

How much do you know about humanoid robots?

Light-Sensing 3D-Printed Device Could Help People with Lupus

A team of engineers and doctors at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have designed a unique 3D-printed light-sensing medical device that is placed directly on the skin and...

Advanced Microscope Techniques Could Improve Computer Memories

Anyone who has watched steam billow up from a boiling kettle or seen ice crystals form on a wet window in winter has observed what scientists call a phase transition. Phase...

Thin Device Triggers One of Quantum Mechanics’ Strangest Phenomena

An ultrathin invention could make future computing, sensing and encryption technologies remarkably smaller and more powerful by helping scientists control a strange but...

New Products

High-Speed InGaAs Photodiodes OSI Optoelectronics (Hawthorne, CA) has introduced infrared-sensitive, pigtail-packaged High-Speed InGaAs Photodiodes with active areas of 75 µm and 120 µm. The single/multi-mode fiber is optically...

How Much Do You Know About Electric Aircraft Advances?

How much do you know about the advances regarding to electric aircraft?

Electronic Warfare Combat Training Pod

Using mPOD, “adversary” pilots can emulate enemy jamming techniques accurately, conditioning aircrews to evolving threat scenarios and better preparing them for real combat.

A Silky-Smooth Alternative to Microplastics

The EU has already declared that the nonbiodegradable microplastics must be eliminated by 2025, but a team of MIT scientists has perhaps expedited that timeline.

Highly Conductive Aluminum Can Equal Copper

A first-ever simulation of aluminum conductivity offers a recipe for an inexpensive substitute for copper.

Model Predicts Seasonal Variability of Solar and Wind Power

Researchers at Columbia University, supported in part by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, conducted a study that modeled the seasonal variability of solar and...

New Perovskite Solar Cell Has a Commercially Viable Lifetime

Princeton Engineering researchers have developed the first perovskite solar cell with a commercially viable lifetime, marking a major milestone for an emerging class of renewable...

The Battery Powering a Truly Green Revolution in Personal Electronics

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced that they have figured out how to engineer a biofilm that harvests the energy in evaporation and...

What’s the Future of Lunar Exploration?

Many countries are aiming to reach the Moon in 2024 and 2025. How much do you know about these upcoming Moon missions? Take this quiz to find out.

A New, Low-Cost Aluminum-Sulfur Battery

MIT researchers have developed a new kind of battery, made entirely from abundant, inexpensive materials.

Tiny Limbs and Long Bodies: Coordinating Lizard Locomotion

Using biological experiments, robot models, and a geometric theory of locomotion, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology investigated how and why intermediate lizard...

Powertrain System Improves Wind, Water Turbine Efficiency and Environmental Impact

Purdue University engineers have designed a low-speed, high-torque powertrain system to reduce the operation costs, maintenance costs, and environmental...

Interuniversity Project to Design Wave-Powered Autonomous Robot

With the perpetual motion of its waves and tides, the Earth's ocean represents a highly predictable, theoretically limitless source of kinetic energy.

Walking Feeds Pressure to Pneumatic Robots That Could Help Those with Disabilities

Mechanical engineers at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering have built a handy extra limb able to grasp objects and go, powered only by...

Think Twice About Wasting Waste

A treatment for floc sludge transforms it to an electrode material usable for high-performance capacitors.

Image Sensor Improvements for Enhanced Machine Vision

These latest nanostructured components, integrated on image sensor chips, are most likely to have the biggest impact in multimodal imaging.