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).
Researchers use a periodic cavity structure to channel light more intensely; applications seen in sensing, spectroscopy, remote sensing of explosives and more.
Starbons, made from waste biomass including food peelings and seaweed, were discovered and first reported 10 years ago by the York Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence. Using these renewable materials provides a greener, more efficient and selective approach than other commercial systems of reducing emissions.
Scalpels that never need washing. Airplane wings that de-ice themselves. Windshields that readily repel raindrops. While the appeal of a self-cleaning, hydrophobic surface may be apparent, the extremely fragile nature of the nanostructures that give rise to the water-shedding surfaces greatly limit the durability and use of such objects.
To remedy this, researchers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, are investigating the mechanisms of self-propulsion that occur when two droplets come together, catapulting themselves and any potential contaminants off the surface of interest.
SurfTec will use a National Science Foundation grant to investigate the feasibility of a novel approach that significantly improves wear resistance of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coatings.
Berkeley Lab scientists at DOE's Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis have found a way to better predict how thin-film semiconductors weather the harsh conditions in systems that convert sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into fuel.
NYU, ASU, and Carleton U. researchers create rTAG, a tangible learning environment that utilizes teachable agent framing, together with a physical robotic agent to get students away from the traditional computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse
TORONTO, June 30, 2016 - Fruit flies may seem simple, but these common visitors to the fruit bowl can drastically alter their gene expression and metabolism to respond to temperature changes in their environment, an international team of researchers have shown.
Global patterns of adoption spreading are induced by local adoption cascades initiated by multiple spontaneous adopters arriving at a constant rate, amplified by a large number of adoptions induced by social influence, and controlled by individuals who are immune to the actual adoption.
For the first time, a new class of magnetic materials, called topological magnon insulators, was revealed. This novel material can conduct magnetic waves along their edges, without conduction through the bulk material.
A team of engineers from Washington University in St. Louis is looking to capitalize on the sense of smell in locusts to create new biorobotic sensing systems that could be used in homeland security applications.
A small, squishy vehicle equipped with soft wheels rolls over rough terrain and runs under water. Future versions of the versatile vehicle might be suitable for search and rescue missions after disasters, deep space and planet exploration, and manipulating objects during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), according to its creators at Rutgers University. Their most important innovation is a soft motor that provides torque without bending or extending its housing.
In movies and television shows, audio tapes or other devices self-destruct after delivering the details of impossible missions. Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have taken it to a new level.
A new architecture takes very few processing steps to produce an affordable solar cell with efficiencies comparable to conventional silicon solar cells.
A computer program that recognises sketches pioneered by scientists from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) could help consumers shop more efficiently.
A standard engineering project took on a deeper meaning when Wichita State engineering and physical therapy students watched 3-year-old Jocelyn McNeese drive around in a toy car they modified for her special needs.
A new virtual reality simulator described as "a giant video game controller" will help University of Iowa researchers study how and why people lose control while driving all-terrain vehicles.
Xi Chen, associate professor of earth + environmental engineering at Columbia Engineering, and Klaus Lackner at Arizona State University, reports an unconventional reversible chemical reaction in a confined nanoenvironment. The discovery, a milestone in clarifying the scientific underpinnings of moisture-swing chemical reaction, is critical to understanding how to scrub CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere; the researchers have already used it to capture CO2 more efficiently and at a much lower cost than other methods.
A new study from Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business helps leaders better understand how to manage innovators, specifically scientists and engineers.
Every year, the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) honors a number of organizations who strive to further knowledge in geothermal technology, as well as economic and environmental advances, at the Baseload Renewable Energy Summit.
Soon Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering students at Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, will be able to outline many of the mazes of water lines that were buried under tiny South Jersey boroughs or sprawling North Jersey cities back when the students were sprouting their first teeth – or their great-great parents were learning to walk.
A new tool now rests in the 3D printing toolbox. The result is designer materials with desirable structures, such as microchips, or materials with unique properties.
Making faster, more powerful electronics requires smaller but still uniform connections between different materials. For the first time, researchers created extremely small, 5-nanometer-wide junctions, which were made in a specific pattern using two different flat semiconductors.
Molecules in liquid crystals form exotic phases in which arrays of defects are organized into striking patterns. Confining these defect structures within droplets offers fine control that points to strategies—not possible in bulk phases—for assembly of responsive, adaptable materials.
Movies of the nanoparticles in motion were obtained with world-leading electron microscopes. The results yielded insights into the structure and growth mechanisms of these materials.
A new semiconducting material that is only three atomic-layers thick has emerged with more exotic, malleable electronic properties than those of traditional semiconductors.
Even though conducting missing electrons and transparency were considered mutually exclusive, this new material both efficiently conducts missing electrons and retains most of its transparency to visual light.
Researchers at the Texas Analog Center of Excellence (TxACE) at UT Dallas are working to develop an affordable electronic nose that can be used in breath analysis for a wide range of health diagnosis.
University of Utah materials science and engineering associate professor Mike Scarpulla and senior scientist Kirstin Alberi of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have developed a theory that adding light during the manufacturing of semiconductors — the materials that make up the essential parts of computer chips, solar cells and light emitting diodes (LEDs) — can reduce defects and potentially make more efficient solar cells or brighter LEDs.
A new technique developed at Columbia Engineering by Biomedical Engineering Professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic repairs large bone defects in the head and face by using lab-grown living bone, tailored to the patient and the defect being treated. This is the first time researchers have grown living bone grown to precisely replicate the original anatomical structure, using autologous stem cells derived from a small sample of the recipient’s fat. (Science Translational Medicine 6/15)
Using the power of the light around us, Dartmouth College researchers have significantly improved their innovative light-sensing system that tracks a person's behavior continuously and unobtrusively in real time.