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A hybrid automobile or $20,000 in cash is the Grand Prize in Emhart Teknologies' and NASA Tech Briefs' fifth annual "Create the Future" Design Contest. Engineers, students, and the general public are encouraged to submit their ideas. View the official entry form and contest rules here. Categories are Everyday Products,...

There is only one day left to submit your original design idea to the fifth annual Emhart Teknologies "Create the Future" Design Contest. Enter your unique idea in one of four categories -- Everyday Products, Safety, Transportation, and Medical -- and you could win a 2007 hybrid car, $20,000 in cash, a 42" plasma TV,...

Researchers at the University of Manchester (Manchester, UK) have devised an experimental method of virtual reality for the treatment of phantom limb pain (PLP) experienced by some amputees. Using headsets, data gloves, and other sensors, amputees used their remaining physical limbs to control the movements of a...

A laboratory method has been conceived to enable the enumeration of: Cultivable bacteria and bacterial spores that are, variously, airborne by themselves or carried by, parts of, or otherwise associated with, other airborne particles; and Spore-forming bacteria among all of the...

A report proposes the development of a system to collect volatile elements and compounds from Lunar soil for use in supporting habitation and processing into rocket fuel. Prior exploratory missions revealed that H2, He, and N2 are present in Lunar soil and there are some indications that water ice may...

A report proposes to use electrostriction to manipulate the ullage in a tank containing a dielectric liquid in a microgravitational environment. In the original intended application, the liquid would be a spacecraft propellant and the goal would be to force the ullage (comprising bubbles...

Electrolytes comprising, variously, LiPF6 or LiPF6 plus LiBF4 dissolved at various concentrations in mixtures of alkyl carbonates and alkyl esters have been found to afford improved low-temperature performance in rechargeable lithium-ion electrochemical cells. These and other...

A miniature electrostatic ion thruster is proposed that, with one exception, would be based on the same principles as those of the device described in the previous article, “Miniature Bipolar Electrostatic Ion Thruster” (NPO-21057). The exceptional feature of this thruster would be that, in...

A miniature electrostatic ion thruster is proposed for maneuvering small spacecraft. In a thruster based on this concept, one or more propellant gases would be introduced into an ionizer based on the same principles as those of the device described in the earlier article, “Miniature Bipolar...

A proposed miniature device for ionizing the oxygen (or other oxidizing gas) in a fuel cell would consist mostly of a membrane ionizer using the same principles as those of the device described in the earlier article, “Miniature Bipolar Electrostatic Ion Thruster” (NPO-21057). The oxidizing gas would...

An improved promoted-combustion system has been developed for studying the effects of elevated temperatures on the flammability of metals in pure oxygen. In prior promoted-combustion chambers, initial temperatures of metal specimens in experiments have been limited to the temperatures of gas...

Several improved techniques for connecting superconducting thin films on substrates have been developed. The techniques afford some versatility for tailoring the electronic and mechanical characteristics of junctions between superconductors in experimental electronic devices. The techniques are...

Quantum resonance would be exploited in a proposed quantum-computing approach to the solution of combinatorial optimization problems. In quantum computing in general, one takes advantage of the fact that an algorithm cannot be decoupled from the physical effects available to implement it....

Architecture Adaptive Computing Environment (aCe) is a software system that includes a language, compiler, and run-time library for parallel computing. aCe was developed to enable programmers to write programs, more easily than was previously possible, for a variety of parallel computing architectures....

A proposed apparatus would apply controlled cyclic forces to both feet for the purpose of preventing the loss of bone density in a human subject whose bones are not subjected daily to the mechanical loads of normal activity in normal Earth gravitation. The apparatus was conceived for use by...

A proposed compact, portable instrument would sample micron-sized airborne particles, would discriminate between biological ones (e.g., bacteria) and nonbiological ones (e.g., dust particles), and would collect the detected biological particles for further analysis. The instrument is intended...

A phase sensor has been developed for use in aligning a segmented telescope mirror to within a fraction of a wavelength in piston. (As used here, "piston" signifies displacement of a mirror segment along the optical axis of the telescope.) Such precise alignment is necessary in order to realize...