Feature Channels: Engineering

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In a paper just published in the journal Advanced Materials, a team of scientists from Northwestern University and Brookhaven National Laboratory describe the previously hidden sub-nanoscale origins of exceptional thermoelectric properties in silver gallium telluride. The discovery reveals a quantum mechanical twist on what drives the emergence of these properties—and opens up a completely new direction for searching for new high-performance thermoelectrics.

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Over the past decade, just as the invention of the silicon microchip revolutionized electronics, crystalline minerals called perovskites have helped researchers discover new, innovative electronics and energy technologies. Now, at Idaho National Laboratory, researchers are using perovskites for different energy applications: converting fuel into electricity or producing valuable chemicals such as ethylene, hydrogen or ammonia.

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Imagine being able to measure your blood sugar levels, know if you’ve had too much to drink, and track your fatigue during a workout, all in one small device worn on your skin. UC San Diego engineers developed a prototype of such a wearable that continuously monitors several health stats at once.

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A team of energy researchers led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have invented a groundbreaking device that electronically converts one metal into behaving like another to use as a catalyst for speeding chemical reactions. The invention opens the door for new catalytic technologies using non-precious metal catalysts for important applications such as storing renewable energy, making renewable fuels, and manufacturing sustainable materials.

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Researchers say the material have great potential for applications such as in advanced electronics and high-capacity batteries.

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Marek Urban and his research group at Clemson University have developed a self-repairing hose to dispense hydrogen as part of the nation's effort to diversify its fuel supply in the face of increasingly dire warnings about climate change.

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Tufts engineers create a glowing sensor made from a silk gel that can be implanted under the skin to detect blood oxygen levels in real time. The sensor provides proof of concept for detecting other blood components, such as glucose

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As medicine continues to embrace machine learning, a new study suggests how scientists may use artificial intelligence to predict how cancer may affect the probability of fractures along the spinal column.

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Models that predict traffic volume for specific times and places inform everything from traffic-light patterns to apps that tell you how to get from Point A to Point B. Researchers have now demonstrated a method that makes these models more efficient.

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To slow down the accelerating pace of climate change, scientists are working on radical geoengineering technologies like space mirrors, ocean iron fertilization, and cirrus cloud thinning to tweak the earth’s climate system. But a new study published in the journal Risk Analysis finds that none of these human interventions are risk free. Instead, “they merely shift risk or redistribute it,” says lead author Benjamin Sovacool, professor of energy policy at the University of Sussex Business School and a professor at Aarhus University and Boston University. “These risk tradeoffs must be evaluated if some of the more radical geoengineering technologies are to be deployed.”

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The San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego partners on a multimillion-dollar NSF grant to provide structures and services to the national research community.

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Forklifts are most often used for moving goods and materials, but a new Forklift Learning Studio at Cornell will be used to elevate engineering education, turning the vehicles into interactive tools for studying thermofluids, modeling structural mechanics, and experimenting with control dynamics.

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Scientists have developed a groundbreaking AI-based algorithm for modeling the properties of materials at the atomic and molecular scale. It should greatly speed up materials discovery.

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Research to propel microsatellites and CubeSats with ionized plasma from a micro-electrical engine will take a University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) doctoral student in aerospace engineering to Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico this fall.

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Armed with keyboards, ones and zeros, a squad of West Virginia University students were recently among the 2,000 participants who competed in Operation Locked Shields, an international cyber defense exercise run by NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia.

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A new study from Binghamton University, State University of New York proves the correct dosage for ultraviolet disinfection against COVID.

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The U.S. has great potential to become a global leader in battery manufacturing, but critical challenges still need to be addressed to realize that potential. This was a key takeaway of Bridging the Gap, a recent two-day workshop hosted by Li-Bridge.

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A University of Minnesota Twin Cities research team has developed a new microfluidic chip for diagnosing diseases that uses a minimal number of components and can be powered wirelessly by a smartphone. The innovation opens the door for faster and more affordable at-home medical testing.

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UC San Diego researchers developed a smartphone app that could allow people to screen for Alzheimer's disease, ADHD and other neurological diseases and disorders—by recording closeups of their eye. The app uses a smartphone's built-in near-infrared camera and selfie camera to track how a person's pupil changes in size. These pupil measurements could be used to assess a person's cognitive condition.

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Scientists have taken the first step to creating the next generation of wearable health monitors.

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Quantum computing experiments now have a new control and readout electronics option that will significantly improve performance while replacing cumbersome and expensive systems. Developed by a team of engineers at Fermilab in collaboration with the University of Chicago, the Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit, or QICK for short, is easily scalable.

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HSMs represent an emerging class of materials that are expected to become a major field of scientific exploration for the materials, mechanics, physics and computer simulation communities in the coming years. As an emerging materials field, many fundamental issues need to be probed.

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Irvine, Calif., April 28, 2022 — A quartet of professors at the University of California, Irvine, has been elected as members by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The 242nd class of AAAS inductees includes 261 extraordinary people from around the world, recognized for their accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy and research.

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How quickly a battery electrode decays depends on properties of individual particles in the battery – at first. Later on, the network of particles matters more.

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Large ion clusters known as aggregates are an important emerging topic for research on electrolytes in batteries. The research indicates that aggregates can affect electrolyte properties, including stability and ion transport.

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Four Maxine L. Silva Health Magnet High School seniors are the first enrolled in a new pipeline education program with the Francis Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso. Every other day, the students observe and work in the Francis Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences’ research labs in Medical Sciences Building I on the TTUHSC El Paso campus. The program was initiated by Rajkumar Lakshmanaswamy, Ph.D., dean of the graduate school, along with Alheli Romero, a Silva Health Magnet alumna and teacher.

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The INCITE program is aimed at large-scale scientific computing projects that require the power and scale of DOE’s leadership-class supercomputers.

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Harnessing the power that makes the sun and stars shine could be made easier by powerful magnets with straighter shapes than have been made before. Researchers linked to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory have found a way to create such magnets for fusion facilities known as stellarators.

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Johns Hopkins biomedical engineers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) training strategy to capture images of mouse brain cells in action. The researchers say the AI system, in concert with specialized ultra-small microscopes, make it possible to find precisely where and when cells are activated during movement, learning and memory.

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The consortium, named “Collaborative Research: REVVED,” short for Revolutionizing Electric Vehicle Education, is receiving $2.83 million from the National Science Foundation to fund the project.

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A graduating senior at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) who is working to develop a micro-aerial vehicle that can fly like a monarch butterfly has won second place for his paper in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Regional Student Conferences Region II Undergraduate Category.

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Wrapping up the HKIAS Distinguished Lecture Series on Electronics and Photonics was Professor Chi Hou Chan, the Chair Professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering (EE) at the City University of Hong Kong (CityU).

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A sensor created by Johns Hopkins University graduate students to detect very early-stage lymphedema could spare thousands of patients a year, many women with breast cancer, from the painful, debilitating condition.

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Researchers have developed a way to use satellite imaging data to create 3D images that could quickly detect changes on the Earth’s surface, a new study says.

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The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $20 million over five years to the CONECT project, one of the projects under the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem Services and Support (ACCESS) program announced in 2021.

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Virginians across the political spectrum (84%) say investing in research is important to the state’s economy, according to new survey released today .

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Researchers from Columbia Engineering and Columbia University Irving Medical Center have developed a model of human physiology in the form of a multi-organ chip consisting of engineered human heart, bone, liver, and skin that are linked by vascular flow with circulating immune cells, to allow recapitulation of interdependent organ functions. The researchers have essentially created a plug-and-play multi-organ chip, which is the size of a microscope slide, that can be customized to the patient.

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A chemical reaction that causes concrete to crack and deteriorate can now be identified without harm, according to Argonne scientists.

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Human skin has evolved to allow maximum durability and flexibility, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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Leaders from St. Louis’ business, civic, academic, and governmental communities came together to celebrate the launch of the Taylor Geospatial Institute, a first-of-its-kind institution that brings together eight leading research institutions to collaborate on research into geospatial technology

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MIT engineers have developed a paper-thin loudspeaker that can turn any surface into an active audio source.

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Swelling colloids – mixtures, such as milk and paint, in which particles are suspended in a substance and which can grow up to 100 times larger under certain temperatures – could be used to fix flow pathways in underground geothermal systems, a problem that has hobbled investment in geothermal energy.

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In conducting its research mission, the skilled and resourceful scientists and engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility generate ideas and technologies that have the potential to solve real-world problems. Now, with the establishment of its new Research and Technology Partnerships Office, the lab is expanding its capabilities to put the lab’s scientific and technological advances to work to the benefit of society. The Research and Technology Partnerships Office will ensure that intellectual property opportunities generated in support of the lab’s research mission receive the focus, support and outreach they need to reach the marketplace. She will also initiate and lead new programs related to the lab’s mission.

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Using terahertz imaging and signal processing techniques to look beneath the corroded surface of a 16th-century lead funerary cross, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia Tech-Lorraine revealed an inscription of the Lord's Prayer.

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A research team led by the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) was recently selected for second-phase funding of a $9.2 million project aimed at demonstrating a hybrid computing system that will combine the advantages of classical computing with those of quantum computing to tackle some of the world’s most difficult optimization problems.

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Los Alamos National Laboratory this week announced the selection of Evelyn Mullen as the new executive officer of the Weapons directorate, effective April 25.

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The University of Kentucky will collaborate on a five-year, $10 million National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative, led by the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), to reimagine cyberinfrastructure user support services and delivery to keep pace with the evolving needs of academic scientific researchers.