The drive to replace the gasoline economy with better batteries might be accelerated thanks to unique battery testing capabilities at Cornell, and a new testing and prototyping center that the university helped to establish.
A new TV documentary airing 3 times in May follows a team of mechanical engineering students from Michigan Technological University as they build a better handcycle for wounded veteran athletes, with support from GM,.
Each helmet model’s ability to reduce concussion risk is assessed through 120 impact tests that are analyzed using the STAR Evaluation System, with each test weighted based on how often that impact condition occurs on the field.
A simple new technique to form interlocking beads of water in ambient conditions could prove valuable for applications in biological sensing, membrane research and harvesting water from fog.
One interdisciplinary team of Kansas State University students and faculty placed first and another team received honorable mention in the site design category in the EPA's second annual Campus RainWorks Challenge competition.
Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego are asking what might be possible if semiconductor materials were flexible and stretchable without sacrificing electronic function?
University of Washington electrical engineers have developed telerobotics technology that could make disaster response faster and more efficient. They are working with a team of eight other organizations as part of the SmartAmerica Challenge, an initiative to encourage new technologies that help society in our increasingly connected world.
Significant funding from NIBIB has enabled researchers to develop a unique technology to help physicians perform ultrasound-guided procedures involving needle placement such as needle biopsies, central line insertion, and local anesthesia.
Virginia Tech Unmanned Aircraft System researchers will be available for interviews May 12 through May 15 at the 2014 Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference in Orlando.
Light-weight garage doors can be the weak link to allowing high winds and pressure changes from a tornado into a home that can lead to the removal of the roof and collapsed walls.
Technion researchers have developed an underwater imaging system that allows submariners to view objects above the water's surface - without a periscope. Researchers at Israel's Technion have developed an underwater imaging system that allows submariners to view objects above the water's surface - without a periscope.
Iowa State University engineers and plant scientists are working together to study and develop better crops. The research team has organized an International Workshop on Engineered Crops April 28-29 in Des Moines, Iowa.
An ASU team has performed the first virtual implantation of a pioneering artificial heart, led by engineer David Frakes, with Phoenix Children's Hospital.
It all comes down to bridging a gap.
The J. Lohr Structures Laboratory helps companies develop new materials and products—self-consolidating concrete columns and prestressed concrete bridge girders-- that bridge a physical gap. Many of those newly developed products are used in public works projects funded by federal, state and local governments, thus bridging a commercial gap.
Wayne State University, in partnership with the University of Michigan and Drexel University, has launched a two-and-a-half-year study of the imagination — or l'imaginaire — of high-speed rail (HSR) in America. The study is part of a larger comparative international study piloted by Dr. Max Bergman at the University of Basel and led by French, American, South African, Indian and Chinese research teams that is exploring the role of the “imaginaries” in choices relative to train and rail infrastructures. In other words, the study will examine what motivates decision makers (both leaders and users) in regard to championing or using trains both in and of themselves and within the context of the future of transportation as a whole.
There was a time when no one thought about light bulbs—one blew, you screwed another one in. Nowadays, it’s more complicated, as energy efficiency concerns have given rise to a slew of options, including incandescent, compact fluorescent lights, and light emitting diodes.
A unique and low cost method to coat materials is the subject of a pending international patent. Ranga Pitchumani of Virginia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering Department and Atieh Haghdoost, a recent doctoral graduate from Pitchumani’s Advanced Materials and Technologies Laboratory developed the process.
A credit-card-sized anthrax detection cartridge developed at Sandia National Laboratories and recently licensed to a small business makes testing safer, easier, faster and cheaper.
A Kansas State University engineer has developed a patented technique that improves military security and remotely detects improvised explosive devices. The same technique could help police during drug searches.
Newswise hosts the first live, interactive virtual event for major research finding for journalists. Newswise and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center are collaborating to offer direct access to the investigator via Newswise Live, an interactive virtual event.
Can modern engineers learn best practices from ancient road builders? Christine Fiori, who has led the first formal engineering study of the Inca Road, thinks so.
Milwaukee engineers have created a cement composite that is durable, water-resistant and malleable with such a high level of “crack control” that the researchers estimate it has a service life of 120 years or more.
Researchers are asking whether there is a "right" size for the U.S. power grid; they believe that smaller grids would reduce the likelihood of severe outages, such as the 2003 Northeast blackout, likening the grid behavior to sandpiles: “Sandpiles are stable until you get to a certain height. Then you add one more grain and the whole thing starts to avalanche.”
A University of California, San Diego research team led by bioengineer Gert Cauwenberghs is working to understand how the brain circuitry controls how we move. The goal is to develop new technologies to help patients with Parkinson's disease and other debilitating medical conditions navigate the world on their own. Their research is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Emerging Frontiers of Research and Innovation program.
Researchers from the University of California, San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, in collaboration with materials scientists, engineers and neurobiologists, have discovered a new mechanism for using light to activate drug-delivering nanoparticles and other targeted therapeutic substances inside the body.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Joint BioEnergy Institute have engineered a bacterium to synthesize pinene, a hydrocarbon produced by trees that could potentially replace high-energy fuels, such as JP-10, in missiles and other aerospace applications.
Iowa State University's Liang Dong is leading a research team that's developing an accessible instrument with the scale, flexibility and resolution needed to study how genes and environmental conditions affect plant traits.
University of Utah electrical engineers fabricated the smallest plasma transistors that can withstand high temperatures and ionizing radiation found in a nuclear reactor. Such transistors someday might enable smartphones that take and collect medical X-rays on a battlefield, and devices to measure air quality in real time.
Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) nearly doubled in 2013, but most won’t take you farther than 100 miles on one charge. To boost their range toward a tantalizing 300 miles or more, researchers are reporting progress on a “breathing” battery that has the potential to one day replace the lithium-ion technology of today’s EVs. They presented their work at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
Imagine powering your cell phone by simply walking around your office or rubbing it with the palm of your hand. Rather than plugging it into the wall, you become the power source. Researchers at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, presented these commercial possibilities and a unique vision for green energy. To see a video of the team’s work, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVhJ4G-7na4.
While Mother Nature continues to challenge drivers across the country, a team of traffic engineers is working hard on a new way to make rush-hour commutes safer and faster in any weather.
“We can’t do much about snow falling, but we can do something about road capacity and congestion,” said Joseph Hummer, traffic engineering expert and Wayne State University College of Engineering chair of civil and environmental engineering.
By thoroughly mapping a single specialized tissue involved in wood formation, scientists at North Carolina State University have developed the equivalent of turn-by-turn directions for future plant research.
Virginia Tech engineers sprung into action when more than 10,000 gallons of a chemical mixture leaked from a storage tank near Charleston, W.Va., and entered a river upstream of a water-treatment plant in January.
A new type of biomolecular tweezers could help researchers study how mechanical forces affect the biochemical activity of cells and proteins. The devices use opposing magnetic and electrophoretic forces to precisely stretch the cells and molecules.
Using an inexpensive inkjet printer, University of Utah electrical engineers produced microscopic structures that use light in metals to carry information. This new technique, which controls electrical conductivity within such microstructures, could be used to rapidly fabricate superfast components in electronic devices, make wireless technology faster or print magnetic materials.
The University of Washington's Center for Engineering Learning & Teaching has received a $4.4 million grant from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to develop and promote teaching practices that help undergraduate engineering students reflect on their experiences. The award establishes the Consortium to Promote Reflection in Engineering Education that focuses on first- and second-year undergraduates who want to be engineers, especially those from underrepresented populations.
Surgical plates and screws made of silk protein may improve bone remodeling after injury and also be absorbed by the body, eliminating the need for removal. In vitro and rodent studies showed the devices to be robust, readily implanted, and easily sterilized. They could also deliver therapeutics to support healing.
New research, titled “Lift and Wakes of Flying Snakes," appears March 4 in the journal Physics of Fluids. This work is the first to study the lift of a snake's cross-section computationally.
Iowa State's Suraj Kothari is leading researchers from Iowa State University and Ames, Iowa-based EnSoft Corp. who are developing ways to secure smartphone software for the Defense Department.
Shale, the source of the United States’ current natural gas boom, could help solve another energy problem: what to do with radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. The unique properties of the sedimentary rock and related clay-rich rocks make it ideal for storing the potentially dangerous spent fuel for millennia, according to a geologist studying possible storage sites. He presented his research today at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Brain sensors and electronic tags that dissolve. Boosting the potential of renewable energy sources. These are examples of the latest research from two pioneering scientists selected as this year’s Kavli lecturers at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
Animal fat from chicken, pork, beef and even alligators could give an economical, ecofriendly boost to the biofuel industry, according to researchers who reported a new method for biofuel production here today. The report, following up on their earlier study on the potential use of gator fat as a source of biodiesel fuel, was part of the 247th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
Advances in renewable and sustainable energy, including mimicking photosynthesis and optimizing lithium-ion batteries, are the topics of three plenary talks at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, taking place here through Thursday. The presentations will be held on Sunday, March 16, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Ballroom A of the Dallas Convention Center.
For people whose hands shake uncontrollably due to a medical condition, just eating can be a frustrating and embarrassing ordeal – enough to keep them from sharing a meal with others. But a small new study suggests that a new handheld electronic device can help such patients overcome the hand shakes caused by essential tremor.
Using an inexpensive 3-D printer, biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis and around the world have developed a custom-fitted, implantable device with embedded sensors that could transform treatment and prediction of cardiac disorders.
Engineered tissues like the ones used to create artificial skin need a scaffold for cells to grow on. Now a team led by Michigan Technological University’s Feng Zhao has coaxed cells called fibroblasts into creating a scaffold that mimics the body’s own internal matrix, and in early tests, cells seem happy to set up residence.