Plans begin decades in advance for a tremendous effort such as the first manned mission to Mars. The details are as fine – and essential – as how astronauts will breathe and eat and track their health.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have engineered a potentially game-changing solar cell that cheaply and efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide directly into usable hydrocarbon fuel, using only sunlight for energy.
The use of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) will allow for monitoring and assessing the safety of temporary structures used on construction sites, according to research being completed in Penn State’s Department of Architectural Engineering.
Undergrad engineers have designed a low-cost, low-tech device to make it easier for combat medics to create an artificial airway and pump air into the lungs of wounded soldiers.
Igor Danilov, researcher at the Laboratory of Intelligent Robotic Systems of Innopolis University is working on a project on autonomous battery swapping in drones without human intervention.
Video surveillance is the most effective method for detecting animals flying around solar power towers, according to a study of various techniques by the U.S. Geological Survey and its partners at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System facility in southeastern California.
A study of the the first clean cookstove intervention in India financed through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism found expected benefits from newer, more "efficient" stoves — based on their performance in lab tests — did not materialize in the field.
With a unique approach that draws on 3-D printing technologies, a team of University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers is developing new tools for understanding how ovarian cancer develops in women.
Sunil Puria, Ph.D., recently joined Massachusetts Eye and Ear as the second Amelia Peabody Scientist in the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories. Dr. Puria, an electrical engineer who trained as a postdoctoral researcher at Mass. Eye and Ear from 1991 to 1997, brings more than 20 years of experience in mathematical modeling and hearing research in both academia and industry settings back to Mass. Eye and Ear, where he will direct the OtoBiomechanics Group.
A new wrinkle on an old technology – solid-state thermophotovoltaics (TPV) – could provide a high-efficiency alternative for directly converting high-temperature heat from concentrated solar thermal to utility-scale electricity.
A top engineer from the city of Los Angeles visited Cornell University this month as researchers tested a new earthquake-resilient pipeline designed to better protect southern California’s water utility network from natural disasters. The test mimicked a fault rupture that can occur during an earthquake when global plates begin to slip past each other, causing the ground to shift and deform.
Researchers have nearly doubled the continuous output power of a type of laser, called a terahertz quantum cascade laser, with potential applications in medical imaging, airport security and more. Increasing the continuous output power of these lasers is an important step toward increasing the range of practical applications. The researchers report their results in the journal AIP Advances.
Wayne State University has received a $1.7 million grant from the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII) — an institute of the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) — for a project that will advance Resistance Spot Welding (RSW) weldability qualification environments. The project, VRWP: Virtually Guided RSW Weldability Prediction, will allow original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers to rapidly converge to feasible welded assembly designs during the early stages of new product development.
The American Concrete Institute announces the availability of two important new documents for concrete industry professionals: ACI 301-16 Specifications for Structural Concrete, and the ACI Field Reference Manual. ACI 301-16 complements the completely reorganized ACI 318-14 Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete
Hematology researchers have developed a novel genetically engineered clotting factor that can control bleeding in animal models. If the factor proves effective and safe in humans, it may provide a quick-acting countermeasure for surgery patients and others vulnerable to serious bleeding as a result of new blood-thinning drugs.
The National Science Foundation has awarded more than $2.5 million in research funding to Wireless@Virginia Tech, aligning with the recently announced White House initiative on advanced wireless research in efforts to provide faster wireless networks.
The National Science Foundation is providing $2 million to support the creation of a new curriculum model to prepare a diverse range of students to become adaptive engineers ready to solve 21st century problems.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Ames Laboratory have discovered an unusual property of purple bronze that may point to new ways to achieve high temperature superconductivity.
Festo features at AACC 2016, July 31- Aug. 4 in Philadelphia, the company’s automation solutions for clinical diagnostic equipment. Festo automation lowers manufacturer engineering costs and boosts diagnostic speed and overall performance. (Festo AACC Booth #3939)
University of Utah Distinguished Professor Gerald Stringfellow, a former dean of the U’s College of Engineering and a pioneer in LED technology, has been awarded a top research prize for his career-long work in the process for making light-emitting diodes, an important milestone for LED TVs, cellphone screens, high-efficiency solar cells, computer monitors and a new wave of LED light bulbs.
The Orange County branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers today released its 2016 Orange County Infrastructure Report Card, giving the county a C+ average in 12 categories. The report card was developed in collaboration with the UC Irvine Civil & Environmental Engineering Affiliates, an advisory group to the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering in UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering.
Building lab instruments for chemistry and biology experiments used to be an expensive, time consuming process only done by scientists with specialized training.
A 3D printed, Lego-like system of blocks designed by a UC Riverside team is changing that.
As well as real research applications, the system can be used for STEM education, where students gain both an engineering experience by building the instruments and a science experience as they use them.
On a route through some of the nation’s most wild and scenic places, the University of Michigan Solar Car Team hopes to bring back its sixth consecutive victory in the American Solar Challenge.
University of Utah School of Computing professor Sneha Kumar Kasera and his team of researchers are tasked with creating a system that allows cellphone and laptop users to help detect and locate someone who is stealing bandwidth on radio frequency waves.
Fungal secretomes, those collections of all molecules secreted by a cell, contain enzymes that could help cost-effectively convert plant mass into sustainable transportation fuels. In a July 19, 2016 study in Plos ONE, a comparative analysis of four fungal secretomes revealed more about the variety of pathways employed to break down carbon compounds.
Researchers from the University of Houston have reported the first explanation for how a class of materials changes during production to more efficiently absorb light, a critical step toward the large-scale manufacture of better and less-expensive solar panels.
Columbia Engineering, Disney Research, and MIT researchers have developed a method to control sound waves, using a computational approach to inversely design acoustic filters that fit within an arbitrary 3D shape while achieving target sound filtering properties. They designed acoustic voxels, small, hollow, cube-shaped chambers through which sound enters and exits, as a modular system. Like LEGOs, the voxels can be connected to form a complex structure and can modify the structure’s acoustic filtering property.
Columbia Engineering, Disney Research, and MIT researchers have developed a method to control sound waves, using a computational approach to inversely design acoustic filters that fit within an arbitrary 3D shape while achieving target sound filtering properties. They designed acoustic voxels, small, hollow, cube-shaped chambers through which sound enters and exits, as a modular system. Like LEGOs, the voxels can be connected to form a complex structure and can modify the structure’s acoustic filtering property.
The Orange County branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers will release the 2016 Orange County Infrastructure Report Card. Now in its fourth issuance, the report card provides an overall grade for the county’s infrastructure as well as breakdown evaluations in aviation, electrical power, flood control, ground transportation, natural gas, oil, parks, recreation & environment, school facilities, surface water quality, solid waste, wastewater and water supply. It was developed in collaboration with the UCI Civil & Environmental Engineering Affiliates, an advisory group to the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering in UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering.
A novel three-dimensional solar cell design will soon get its first testing in space aboard the International Space Station. An experimental module containing 18 test cells was launched to the ISS on July 18, and will be installed on the exterior of the station to study the cells’ performance and their ability to withstand the rigors of space.
For the first time, researchers led by Tufts University engineers have integrated nano-scale sensors, electronics and microfluidics into threads – ranging from simple cotton to sophisticated synthetics – that can be sutured through multiple layers of tissue to gather diagnostic data wirelessly.
Scientists at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have made an object disappear by using a composite material with nano-size particles that can enhance specific properties on the object's surface.
Concrete deep beams are commonly used when designing transfer girders or bridge bents. These elements are exposed to aggressive environments in northern climates, which causes the steel bars to corrode. Researchers examined the use of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) instead
of steel as internal reinforcement in deep beams
No single assessment tool is able to consistently determine driving ability in people with Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment, a St. Michael's Hospital research review has found.
Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) have created a new type of tissue chip that can be more widely used for drug testing. Engineering the chips as a silk gel circumvents many of the problems with existing devices and could potentially be an implantable treatment itself.
Academic and industrial researchers have begun working side-by-side at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility, using some of the world’s most advanced tools to exploit the atomic and molecular properties of matter for emerging applications in science and technology.
A new $2 million wind tunnel system at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) is ready to undertake supersonic flow research with Mach numbers up to 3.
The College of Environmental Design welcomes landscape designer, urbanist and researcher Danika Cooper to the department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Design.
Ransomware – what hackers use to encrypt your computer files and demand money in exchange for freeing those contents – is an exploding global problem with few solutions, but a team of University of Florida researchers says it has developed a way to stop it dead in its tracks.
A new study shows that the unique properties of graphene and graphene foam could one day be used to regenerate 3-dimensional tissues and organs for implantation into the human body.
Imagine a material lighter than steel, longer-lasting than lumber and strong enough to support 120-ton locomotives. Now imagine that material is made from milk containers, coffee cups and other plastics that we recycle. It’s called structural plastic lumber, and the ingenious, nontoxic material was invented by Thomas Nosker, an assistant research professor at Rutgers University. The late Richard W. Renfree, Nosker’s graduate student who later became a Rutgers professor, helped invent the revolutionary material.
A pair of University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) researchers aim to explore fundamental properties of infrasonic optical sensors that could make them more sensitive and accurate over long distances.
Two Sandia National Laboratories employees have been named recipients of 2016 Outstanding Service Awards from the New Mexico Office of African American Affairs (OAAA).