New Technique Identifies Electricity-Producing Bacteria
Microbes screened with a new microfluidic process might be used in power generation or environmental cleanup. Living in extreme conditions requires creative adaptations. For certain…
Mechanical Engineering
‘Robotic Skins’ Turn Inanimate Objects Into Multifunctional Robots
Developed in the lab of Yale’s Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, NASA-inspired robotic skins enable users to turn soft objects – a stuffed animal or a foam tube,…
Engineers Develop New Manufacturing Process That Spools Out Strips of Graphene
MIT engineers have developed a continuous manufacturing process that produces long strips of high-quality graphene. The team’s results are the first demonstration of an industrial,…
Carbon Fiber Artificial Muscles Lift 12,600 Times Their Weight
The pull-up, an exercise dreaded by most, answers a basic question: are your muscles strong enough to lift your own body weight? Some Illinois researchers…
MIT Engineers Show How Hairy Tongues Help Bats Drink
Animals have evolved all manner of adaptations to get the nutrients they need. For nectar-feeding bats, long snouts and tongues let them dip in and…
MIT Engineers Develop a New Platform for Microfluidics Using LEGO Bricks
MIT engineers have just introduced an element of fun into microfluidics. The field of microfluidics involves minute devices that precisely manipulate fluids at submillimeter scales….
Yale Engineers Create a New Kind of Metallic Glass
By shrinking samples of metallic glass to nanoscale size, Yale scientists have discovered they can create new materials with potentially new applications. The research, published…
CVD Graphene with Large Grains is as Strong as Exfoliated Graphene
A new study from Columbia Engineering researchers reports on the strength of large-area graphene films grown using chemical vapor deposition (CVD), correcting the mistaken consensus…
Hopping Robots Could Use Stutter Jump to Conserve Energy
Jumping is much more complicated that it might seem, at least for robots. A new study indicates that the range of future rescue and exploration…
Graphene Membranes May be Used to Filter Water & Biological Samples
Finding that large membranes engineered from single sheets of grapheme allow small molecules to pass through, researchers are now looking to use the graphene membranes…
Light Activated Muscle Cells May Advance Biorobotics
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and MIT have genetically engineered muscle cells to flex in response to light, which may one day enable highly…
Self-Driving Audi TTS Hits Track Speeds of 120 MPH
A product of collaboration between Stanford’s Dynamic Design Lab and the Volkswagen Electronics Research Lab, Shelly the self-driving Audi TTS hit track speeds of 120…
Meshworm, A Soft Autonomous Robot that Moves Like an Earthworm
Modeled after an earthworm, Meshworm is a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body. Earthworms creep…
Semiautonomous “Intelligent Co-Pilot” Helps Vehicles Avoid Collisions
Using an algorithm to analyze data and identify safe zones, a team of scientists developed a new semiautonomous safety system that uses an onboard camera…
Researchers Study Butterfly Flight Dynamics to Create Small Airborne Robots
Engineers at Johns Hopkins are studying butterflies using high-speed video cameras to gain a better understand of their flight dynamics. With funding from U.S. defense…
How Mosquitoes Manage to Fly in the Rain
Mosquitoes are able to fly adeptly during a rainstorm as well as under clear skies, but how do they manage that feat? Since mosquitoes weigh…