Feature Channels: Technology

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Sunil Agrawal, professor of mechanical engineering and of rehabilitation and regenerative medicine at Columbia Engineering, working with Movement Disorders faculty from the department of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center, find that a single session of perturbation-based training, using their Tethered Pelvic Assist Device, increased stability of patients during walking while exposed to unexpected perturbations. (Scientific Reports)

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A dark exciton can store information in its spin state, analogous to how a regular, classical bit stores information in its off or on state, but dark excitons do not emit light, making it hard to determine their spins and use them for quantum information processing. In new experiments, however, researchers can read the spin states of dark excitons, and do it more efficiently than before. Their demonstration, described in APL Photonics, can help researchers scale up dark exciton systems to build larger devices for quantum computing.

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In today’s “internet of things,” devices connect primarily over short ranges at high speeds, an environment in which surface acoustic wave devices have shown promise for years. To obtain faster speeds, however, SAW devices need to operate at higher frequencies, limiting output power and overall performance. Researchers have demonstrated a new device that can achieve frequencies six times higher than most current devices. Their results are published this week in Applied Physics Letters.

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Recently, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced $20 million in funding for 15 projects that will develop a new class of sensor systems to enable significant energy savings via reduced demand for heating and cooling in residential and commercial buildings.

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It’s hard to say which sounded sweeter to Professor Paul Nissenson, the cacophony of his students’ voices as they worked together solving engineering problems or the audience’s applause when he and six other Cal Poly Pomona faculty members received the Online Learning Consortium’s Digital Innovation Award in Orlando, Florida.

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The University of Delaware and Nuvve Corporation will partner on developing technology that drives vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology forward and breaks new ground in producing clean energy and efficient, responsible transportation systems.

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UVA Darden Adjunct Lecturer Alex Cowan discusses how corporations can identify disruptive new ideas that drive organic growth and keep organizations relevant in this era of change. The first of two parts, this installment details how to find “the next big thing.”

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To make modern-day fuel cells less expensive and more powerful, a team led by John Hopkins chemical engineers has drawn inspiration from the ancient Egyptian tradition of gilding.

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In new research, scientists at the University of Minnesota used a first-of-its-kind device to demonstrate a way to control the direction of electrical current generated by light, called photocurrent, without deploying an electric voltage.

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Energy and sustainability are among the grand challenges facing humanity. Faculty research in electric power engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has led to groundbreaking discoveries and innovative contributions in all aspects of generation, transmission, distribution, and utilization of electric energy. Especially today, the ongoing research contributions of three faculty in the broad electric power engineering program at Rensselaer has the potential to make power systems more resilient.

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Offshore wind is becoming a reality in the United States, especially in the northeast states. To support this development, the Center for Future Energy System (CFES) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will present a webinar titled “Turbine and Transmission System Technologies for Offshore Wind (OSW) Power Plants.” The program will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 20, from 2 to 4 p.m. Advance registration is required.

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Accelerator experts at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are developing ways to make the most powerful X-ray laser better than ever. They have created the world’s shortest X-ray pulses for capturing the motions of electrons, as well as ultra-high-speed trains of X-ray pulses for “filming” atomic motion, and have developed “smart” computer programs that maximize precious experimental time.

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A pilot project by DHS S&T resulted in the successful remediation of potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities in mobile applications (apps) used by the nation’s public-safety professionals, supporting the creation of an on-going mobile app-testing program.

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A team of researchers has isolated the characteristics of bots on Twitter through an examination of bot activity related to Russian political discussions.

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UPTON, NY— As scientists have explored the structure and properties of matter at ever deeper levels they’ve discovered many exotic new materials, including superconductors that carry electric current with no resistance, liquid crystals that align to produce brilliant dynamic displays, and materials exhibiting various forms of magnetism.

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The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 on Dec. 14 to overturn the net neutrality rule that was put in place in 2015 by the then-FCC. What does it mean for different stakeholders, including consumers, companies and communities?

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Knowing that individuals with insomnia are also unlikely to change their ways, researchers from Columbia University Medical Center tested a method to reduce the adverse effects of evening ambient light exposure, while still allowing use of blue light-emitting devices. Their findings will be published in the January issue of Journal of Psychiatric Research.

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Microscopes enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) could help clinical microbiologists diagnose potentially deadly blood infections and improve patients’ odds of survival, according to microbiologists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).

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Chemical Engineering Prof Daniel Esposito has developed a novel photovoltaic-powered electrolysis device that can operate as a stand-alone platform that floats on open water. His floating PV-electrolyzer can be thought of as a “solar fuels rig” that bears some resemblance to deep-sea oil rigs--but it would produce hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water instead of extracting petroleum from beneath the sea floor. (International Journal of Hydrogen Energy)

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In mid-November, the DHS S&T and Canada's DRDC CSS tested and demonstrated that seamless communication is possible between first responders from both sides of the border during a major emergency.

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Drug discovery could be significantly accelerated thanks to a new high precision machine-learning model, developed by an international collaboration of researchers, including the University of Warwick.

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While engineers have had success building tiny, insect-like robots, programming them to behave autonomously like real insects continues to present technical challenges. A group of Cornell University engineers has been experimenting with a new type of programming that mimics the way an insect’s brain works, which could soon have people wondering if that fly on the wall is actually a fly.

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Scientists at Johns Hopkins have used supercomputers to create an atomic scale map that tracks how the signaling chemical glutamate binds to a neuron in the brain. The findings, say the scientists, shed light on the dynamic physics of the chemical’s pathway, as well as the speed of nerve cell communications.

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Boeing is providing the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center with a $85,000 grant in support of Green Means Grow, a centerpiece of the Danforth Center’s STEM education and outreach program.

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Cornell University engineers have demonstrated a method for gathering blood pressure, heart rate and breath rate using a cheap and covert system of radio-frequency signals and microchip “tags,” similar to the anti-theft tags department stores place on clothing and electronics.

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Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have received two grant awards, in partnership with investigators from other institutions, from the National Institutes of Health to conduct major studies on Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of memory loss and other forms of dementia in older persons.

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St. Mary’s College of Maryland has been listed among the Top 25 Hidden Gems for Women in STEM by CollegeRaptor.com, a higher education planning tool that offers side-by-side comparisons of colleges.

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While human-made devices inspired by gecko feet have emerged in recent years, enabling their wearers to slowly scale a glass wall, the possible applications of gecko-adhesion technology go far beyond Spiderman-esque antics.

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Vector polarizers are a light filtering technology hidden behind the operation of many optical systems. They can be found, for instance, in sunglasses, LCD screens, microscopes, microprocessors, laser machining and more. Optical physicists published details of their new vector polarizer design this week in APL Photonics. The newly proposed design is a major advance in polarization technology because it enables flexible filtering of a wide range of light sources and generation of new light states.

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Many people don’t worry about the security of their personal information until it’s too late. And protecting data is even more important for military personnel, whose lives could be in danger if some types of information were to get into the wrong hands. Now, one group reports in ACS Nano a new way to protect data, especially when it is subjected to extreme environmental conditions.

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A University at Buffalo-led team of researchers has discovered how to identify smartphones by examining just one photo taken by the device. The advancement opens the possibility of using smartphones — instead of body parts — as a form of identification to deter cybercrime.

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During its Annual Meeting, the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) announced the addition of five new Council members and the rise of Professor Terje Aven, Ph.D., University of Stavanger, Norway, as the new President of its 2018 Council. Aven succeeds Margaret MacDonell, Ph.D., Argonne National Laboratories, who has completed her term and will continue to serve on the Council as past president. Other officers elected include Katherine McComas, Cornell University as president-elect and Henry Willis, RAND, as treasurer-elect.

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Scientists have come up with a way to massively speed up the ordering process for self-assembling materials. The resulting ultra-small, well-ordered patterns could be used in the fabrication of microelectronics, antireflective surfaces, magnetic data storage systems, and fluid-flow devices.

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The Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has reached a new cell efficiency milestone in the development of its low-cost screen-printed bifacial monoPoly silicon solar cell technology, recording an average cell efficiency of 21.5% in pilot-scale production using commercially available large-area Cz-Si wafers.

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Australian research scientists and industry are joining together to develop and commercialise new tools using cutting-edge digital technologies including machine learning that they say will be a game-changer for mining and exploration.

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The L3-HAPLS advanced petawatt laser system was installed last week at the ELI Beamlines Research Center in Dolní Břežany, Czech Republic. L3-HAPLS – the world’s most advanced and highest average power, diode-pumped petawatt laser system -- was designed, developed and constructed in only three years by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) NIF and Photon Science (NIF&PS) Directorate and delivered to ELI Beamlines in June 2017.

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The Science of Consciousness ('TSC') is an interdisciplinary conference emphasizing broad and rigorous approaches to all aspects of the study and understanding of conscious awareness. Topical areas include neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, language, biology, quantum physics, meditation, altered states, machine consciousness, the nature of reality, culture and experiential phenomenology.

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It's beginning to look a lot like the holiday season in this Hubble Space Telescope image of a blizzard of stars, which resembles a swirling snowstorm in a snow globe. The stars are residents of the globular star cluster Messier 79 (also known as M79 or NGC 1904), located 41,000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Lepus.

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LIVERMORE, Calif. – Research at Sandia National Laboratories has identified a major obstacle to advancing solid-state lithium-ion battery performance in small electronics: the flow of lithium ions across battery interfaces.Sandia’s three-year Laboratory Directed Research and Development project investigated the nanoscale chemistry of solid-state batteries, focusing on the region where electrodes and electrolytes make contact.

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Neuroscientists can now explore a beta version of the new Neurodata Without Borders: Neurophysiology (NWB:N 2.0) software and offer input to developers before it is fully released next year.

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Jeffery Kelly, Ph.D., co-chair of the Department of Molecular Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), has been named a fellow of the esteemed National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the organization announced today.

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Using light-emitting nanoparticles, Rutgers University-New Brunswick scientists have invented a highly effective method to detect tiny tumors and track their spread, potentially leading to earlier cancer detection and more precise treatment. The technology, announced today, could improve patient cure rates and survival times.

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New York University Professor Bhubaneswar “Bud” Mishra has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the organization announced today.

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Mark A. Griswold, PhD, a professor in the Department of Radiology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, has been elected to the National Academy of Inventors 2017 Fellows Program, the highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors.

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Autopsy, an open-source platform, supports all types of criminal investigations—from fraud to terrorism to child exploitation. It boasts thousands of users around the world and is downloaded an average of 4,000 times each week.

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