These days, we normally use sensors to measure whether these components are strained beyond capacity, and it requires a lot of effort to install them into the component parts or glue them onto their surface, and even install networks of sensors with various sensibility. Researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Applied Material Research… »
Lightning-fast connections between robotic limbs and the human brain may be within reach for amputees. Funded by a Department of Defense initiative dedicated to audacious challenges and intense time schedules, the SMU engineers from Neurophotonics Research Center will develop two-way fiber optic communication between prosthetic limbs and peripheral nerves. Successful completion of the fiber optic… »
We already wrote about the Omega Center for Sustainable Living in Rhinebeck, N.Y., which got the Living Building Challenge certification (this project is also LEED Platinum certified), and in this article we’re going to write about Eco-Sense, a private home in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, that’s been bestowed with “Petal Recognition” for conquering the Site,… »
Although systems that remove salt from saltwater (desalination systems) have existed for decades, they are typically large-scale installations that require lots of energy to operate. A team of researchers from MIT has designed a solar-powered desalination system that could be rapidly deployed in remote areas, such as desert locations or farms and small villages in… »
A new technique developed by Princeton University engineers for producing electricity-conducting plastics could dramatically lower the cost of manufacturing solar panels. By overcoming technical hurdles to producing plastics that are translucent, malleable and able to conduct electricity, the researchers have opened the door to broader use of the materials in a wide range of electrical… »
Physicists Morgan Kjølerbakken and Vibeke Jahr were working on sonar technology when they came up with the idea for what they call a super-microphone while they were at the University of Oslo, Norway. Kjølerbakken and Jahr have now patented the device, dubbed it AudioScope, and founded a company Squarehead Technology where they commercialized their idea…. »
Physicists at Rutgers University have discovered that energy-carrying particles generated by packets of light can travel on the order of a thousand times farther in organic (carbon-based) semiconductors than scientists previously observed. This boosts scientists’ hopes that less expensive plastic solar cells based on this budding technology may one day overtake silicon solar cells in… »
Berkeley Bionics developed the first practical exoskeleton and the first untethered exoskeleton in the world. Later on, through a licensed agreement with Lockheed Martin Corporation, they came up with HULC exoskeleton which is meant for military use. A few days ago they unveiled similarly looking eLEGS, a wearable, artificially intelligent, bionic device that powers paraplegics… »
