An expanded view of lightning around the globe is coming closer for scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), thanks to a repurposed measuring instrument.
Bin Zheng, OU electrical and computer engineering professor and Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Cancer Research Scholar, and his research team have developed image processing algorithms to generate quantitative image markers by analyzing multiple digital X-ray images and building statistical data learning-based prediction models. The goal is to develop a new quantitative image analysis method that better predicts cancer risk or cancer prognosis, which ultimately leads to help establish more effective personalized cancer screening and treatment strategies.
Meteorologists from The Weather Channel broadcast segments on the unique re-creation of the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado in the Cube at the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech.
Holographic video displays, featuring 3-D images, are about to "go large" and become a lot more affordable at the same time, thanks to the work of a team of Brigham Young University researchers and their collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sandia National Laboratories researchers have developed a single electroforming technique that tailored key factors to better thermoelectric performance: crystal orientation, crystal size and alloy uniformity. The work is outlined in a paper, “Using Galvanostatic Electroforming of Bi1-xSbx Nanowires to Control Composition, Crystallinity and Orientation,” in MRS Bulletin.
It’s about transforming corn stover, dried distillers grain solids and even native grasses into a product more than 1,000 times more valuable—graphene. Assistant professor Zhengrong Gu of the South Dakota State University agricultural and biosystems engineering department is converting biochar into graphene which he hopes can one day be used in place of expensive, activated carbon to coat the electrodes of supercapacitors.
Engineers have shone new light on an emerging family of solar-absorbing materials that could clear the way for cheaper and more efficient solar panels and LEDs. The materials, called perovskites, are particularly good at absorbing visible light, but had never been thoroughly studied in their purest form: as perfect single crystals. Using a new technique, researchers grew large, pure perovskite crystals and studied how electrons move through the material as light is converted to electricity.
Virginia Tech’s Pablo Tarazaga, an expert in the field of smart materials, has received a prestigious 2015 Air Force Young Investigator Award, valued at $449,600 over a three-year period. Tarazaga, a mechanical engineer, is one of only 57 scientists and engineers in the U.S. to receive this honor.
A new process that can sprout microscopic spikes on nearly any type of particle may lead to more environmentally friendly paints and a variety of other innovations.
New battery technology from the University of Michigan should be able to prevent the kind of fires that grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2013.
As nanomachine design advances, researchers are moving from wondering if the nanomachine works to how long it will work—an important question as there are so many potential applications, e.g., for medical uses including drug delivery and early diagnosis. Columbia Engineering Professor Henry Hess observed a molecular shuttle powered by kinesin motor proteins and found it to degrade when operating, marking the first time degradation has been studied in detail in an active, autonomous nanomachine.
Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory show that etching a nanoscale texture onto silicon creates an antireflective surface that works as well as state-of-the-art thin-film multilayer antireflective coatings for solar cells.
Empa and the University Hospital Zurich have joined forces to develop a sensor that gages the blood sugar through skin contact. And best of all: No blood samples are necessary, not even to calibrate the sensor. “Glucolight” is initially to be used in premature babies to avoid hypoglycemia and subsequent brain damage.
Manufacturers have begun experimenting with a new generation of “cobots” designed to work side-by-side with humans, and UW-Madison researchers are playing an important role in making these human-robot collaborations more natural and efficient. Bilge Mutlu, an assistant professor of computer sciences, is working with counterparts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to determine best practices for effectively integrating human-robot teams within manufacturing environments. Their research is funded by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of its National Robotics Initiative program.
Columbia Engineering professor Elizabeth Hillman has developed SCAPE, a new microscope that images living things in 3D at very high speeds. Her approach uses a simple, single-objective imaging geometry that requires no sample mounting or translation, making it possible to image freely moving living samples. SCAPE’s ability to perform real-time 3D imaging at cellular resolution in behaving organisms could be transformative for biomedical and neuroscience research. (Study published on Nature Photonics's website 1/19/2015.)
An international team of researchers says climate change, the loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, and altered biogeochemical cycles like phosphorus and nitrogen runoff have all passed beyond levels that put humanity in a “safe operating space.” Civilization has crossed four of nine so-called planetary boundaries as the result of human activity, according to a report published today in Science by the 18-member research team.
A group of University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers has provided new insights on hydrophobic interactions within complex systems. In a study published today in the journal Nature, the researchers show how the nearby presence of polar (water-attracted, or hydrophilic) substances can change the way the nonpolar hydrophobic groups want to stick to each other.
While researchers in ORNL’s buildings group focus on increasing energy efficiency using new foam insulation panels, the nanophase materials sector experiments with catalyst performance, revealing an oxidation discovery that could help reduce vehicle emissions. Additionally, ORNL researchers aim to reduce the size, weight and power for some particle accelerators with development of a new voltage supply. And by using water and nano-sized particles isolated from trees and plants, scientists explore low-cost and nontoxic metal oxides.
Michael McCawley, Ph.D., interim chair of the West Virginia University School of Public Health Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, plans to provide research data in real time from a dedicated scientific observation well being drilled in Morgantown.
Scientists at Stony Brook University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory are using pioneering x-ray techniques to map internal atomic transformations of the highly conductive silver matrix formation within lithium-based batteries that may lead to the design of more efficient batteries. Their findings are published online today in the journal Science.
Hydrogen fuel cells -- possibly the best option for emission-free vehicles -- require costly platinum. Nickel and other metals work but aren't nearly as efficient. Findings published in Nature Communications this week help pin down the basic mechanisms of the fuel-cell reaction on platinum, which will help researchers create alternative electrocatalysts.
A group of University of Delaware students and researchers spent New Year’s in an unconventional way -- installing sanitation systems in India. The systems employ breathable fabric, the sort you'd find in raincoats and tents, to contain waste and protect nearby groundwater from contamination.
Fire consumes wood ferociously, in a deadly blaze—but the substances used to treat wood to resist burning can also be noxious and toxic. A Stony Brook University Materials Science Professor guided an undergraduate and two Long Island high school students as they developed a patent-pending, environmentally sustainable way to render the wood used in construction flame retardant—and 5x stronger—using natural materials.
A team of NUS researchers led by Associate Professor S K Panda from the NUS Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, is currently putting the final touches to a robotic sea turtle that does not use a ballast system which is commonly used in underwater robots for diving or sinking functions. Without this ballast system, it is much smaller and lighter, enabling it to carry bigger payloads so that it can perform more complicated tasks such as surveillance, water quality monitoring in Singapore reservoir or energy harvesting for long endurance. The turtle robot, which can self-charge, is also able to do a dynamic dive or sink vertically, ie it can enter vertical tunnels or pipes in the seabed with very small diameters.
A Kansas State University engineering team has discovered some of graphene oxide's important properties that can improve sodium- and lithium-ion flexible batteries.
A team led by the University of Oklahoma professor who invented the interband cascade laser has reached a major milestone in the development of interband cascade lasers by creating a robust technology that operates at room temperature and works continuously—an important component for building practical systems.
Research led by Dr. Robert Gregg of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science enables powered prosthetics to dynamically respond to the wearer’s environment and help amputees walk. Wearers of the robotic leg could walk on a treadmill almost as fast as an able-bodied person.
A team of biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis, led by Lihong Wang, PhD, has developed the world’s fastest receive-only 2-D camera, a device that can capture events up to 100 billion frames per second.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Buck Rogers surely couldn’t have seen this one coming, but at NASA’s request, University of Florida researchers have figured out how to turn human waste – yes, that kind -- into rocket fuel.
Dan Giammar, PhD, is going deep into the earth to find a potential solution to store carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Who would've known human waste could be used to propel spacecraft from the moon back to Earth? UF/IFAS researchers responded to the call from NASA and came up with a process to convert waste to methane and propel spacecraft to Earth.
Although hummingbirds are much larger and stir up the air more violently as they move, the way that they fly is more closely related to flying insects than it is to other birds.
Energy storage devices and computer screens may seem worlds apart, but they’re not. When associate professor Qi Hua Fan of the South Dakota State University electrical engineering and computer science department set out to make a less expensive supercapacitor for storing renewable energy, he developed a new plasma technology that will streamline the production of display screens.
As hands come in left and right versions that are mirror images of each other, so do the amino acids and sugars within us. But unlike hands, only the left-oriented amino acids and the right-oriented sugars ever make into life as we know it.
University of Washington electrical engineers have developed a way to automatically track people across moving and still cameras by using an algorithm that trains the networked cameras to learn one another’s differences.
During World War II, the western Pacific was a hotbed for combat. Numerous aircraft were lost in the waters off Palau, submerged for decades with little closure for the families of fallen airmen. Researchers from the University of Delaware and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, working with the non-profit BentProp Project, are using underwater robotics technologies to find them.
Dr. Edward Sazonov, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at The University of Alabama, hopes to change that through development of a sensor worn around the ear that would automatically track diet, giving medical professionals and consumers accurate information that can be missed with self-reporting.
University of Utah engineers developed the first room-temperature fuel cell that uses enzymes to help jet fuel produce electricity without needing to ignite the fuel. These new fuel cells can be used to power portable electronics, off-grid power and sensors.
University of Utah engineers have developed a new type of carbon nanotube material for handheld sensors that will be quicker and better at sniffing out explosives, deadly gases and illegal drugs.
The rapid increase in mobile technology such as smart phones and watches, tablets and Google Glass, has resulted in the need for more research to ensure those devices work well. But, says Wichita State University assistant professor Jibo He, there are no good tools to properly test mobile devices. So He, along with WSU professor Barb Chaparro, invented a solution using the latest technology of Google Glass.
Iowa State's Song-Charng Kong is working with engineers at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to study the fundamental physics of diesel engines. Understanding the fundamentals could lead to better engine performance, fuel economy and power.
A researcher in Drexel’s College of Engineering is taking a closer look at aerosol formation involving an organic compound called limonene that provides the pleasant smell of cleaning products and air fresheners. His research will help to determine what byproducts these sweet-smelling compounds are adding to the air while we are using them to remove germs and odors.
Feeding the world’s energy appetite may take innovative approaches in the future. A book by Nilanjan Ray Chaudhuri, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Dakota State University, Fargo, is the first text of its kind to examine methods to bring offshore wind energy on shore to power industry, homes and businesses. “Multi-terminal Direct Current Grids: Modeling, Analysis, and Control,” is published by the Wiley-IEEE Press.
The syllabus of a recent Operations Research course taught by Dr. Ivan G. Guardiola at Missouri University of Science and Technology seems to have more in common with a script from the TV series “The Walking Dead” than with a typical upper-level class for engineering management majors.
Scientists have discovered exceptional properties in a garnet material that could enable development of higher-energy battery designs.
Developing invisible implantable medical sensor arrays, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers has overcome a major technological hurdle in researchers’ efforts to understand the brain. The team described its technology, which has applications in fields ranging from neuroscience to cardiac care and even contact lenses, in the Oct. 20 issue of the online journal Nature Communications.
In a first step toward future human therapies, researchers at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have shown that esophageal tissue can be grown in vivo from both human and mouse cells.
Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have shown a new way to reverse or eliminate loss by, ironically, adding loss to a laser system to actually reap energy gains.
Researchers from Columbia Engineering and the Georgia Institute of Technology report today that they have made the first experimental observation of piezoelectricity and the piezotronic effect in an atomically thin material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), resulting in a unique electric generator and mechanosensation devices that are optically transparent, extremely light, and very bendable and stretchable.
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