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Systems & Materials Research Corporation recently received a six-month $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of a universal 3D food printer. The company's creator imagines a day when every kitchen has a 3D printer, and the Earth's 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritious...

Researchers have created the first digital cameras with designs that mimic those of ocular systems found in dragonflies, bees, praying mantises and other insects. This class of technology offers exceptionally wide-angle fields of view, with low aberrations, high acuity to motion, and...

Terahertz technology is an emerging field that promises to improve a host of useful applications, ranging from passenger scanning at airports to huge digital data transfers. Terahertz radiation sits between the frequency bands of microwaves and infrared radiation, and it can easily penetrate many materials,...

University of Utah researchers developed a high-speed camera system that spent the past two winters photographing snowflakes in 3D as they fell – and they don’t look much like those perfect-but-rare snowflakes often seen in photos. NASA and the U.S. Army helped fund development of the camera,...

Purdue University researchers have created a new tool to detect flaws in lithium-ion batteries as they are being manufactured, a step toward reducing defects and inconsistencies in the thickness of electrodes that affect battery life and reliability. The electrodes, called anodes and...

NASA, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. State Department and Nike have issued a challenge to identify 10 game-changing innovations that could enable fabric systems to enhance global economic growth, drive human prosperity and replenish the planet's resources.

The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System demonstrator (UCAS-D) completed its first ever carrier-based catapult launch from USS George H.W. Bush off the coast of Virginia. The unmanned aircraft launched from the deck, executed several planned low approaches to the carrier, and safely...

Ever since he was six weeks old, an Ohio infant with a condition called tracheobronchomalacia would stop breathing because part of his windpipe carrying air to his left lung would collapse, requiring emergency assistance. But, thanks to a team of doctors and engineers at the University of Michigan,...

Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory flew their fuel-cell-powered Ion Tiger unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for 48 hours and 1 minute using liquid hydrogen fuel in a new, NRL-developed, cryogenic fuel storage tank and delivery system. This flight shatters their previous record of...

Advanced biofuels – liquid fuels synthesized from the sugars in cellulosic biomass – offer a clean, green and renewable alternative to gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. Bringing the costs of producing these advanced biofuels down to competitive levels with petrofuels, however, is a major...

Researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia are studying ways to prevent the remains of insect impacts from adhering to the wing of an aircraft in flight. The research is serious, and positive results could help NASA's aeronautical innovators achieve their goals for improving...

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have reported the first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis. While “artificial leaf” is the popular term for such a system, the key to this success was an...

A new design tool interprets gestures, enabling designers and artists to create and modify three-dimensional shapes using only their hands as a "natural user interface," instead of keyboard and mouse.

NASA scientists are currently working on the first practical field test toward proving the possibility of warp drives and faster-than-light travel. Thanks to a loophole in the theory of relativity, a ship could theoretically travel in such a way that the universe moves around it, allowing it to reach faraway planets very...

According to a report by AlixPartners, a business advisory firm, America is becoming more competitive in terms of manufacturing and will match China on the cost of manufacturing within two years. Their research reveals that, according to current trends such as wage inflation in China and exchange...

When it comes to outsourcing many complex professional services, this type of work should not be viewed as a mere commodity, say researchers at Harvard Business School, reporting in the journal , Organization Science. Instead, they say, cultivating important person-to-person relationships with the vendor of outsourced...

Scientists recently unveiled a new genre of tiny, biocompatible electronic devices that could be implanted into the body to relieve pain or battle infection for a specific period of time, and then dissolve harmlessly. These “transient electronics,” described at a meeting of the...

Scientists at the University of Washington, Seattle, have created a synthetic substance that can fully resist the body’s natural attack response to foreign objects. They say that devices such as artificial heart valves, prostheses and breast implants could be coated with this polymer to prevent the body...

Creating alloys at the nanometer scale is producing materials with properties unlike anything produced before says scientists at the University of Pittsburgh, who have demonstrated that these alloys possess the ability to emit such bright light they could have potential uses in medicine.

It could happen someday, say a group of mechanical engineering students at Rice University, Houston, TX. As a project required for graduation, four seniors created PediPower shoes that extract and store energy with every step to power portable electronics and, maybe even medical devices.

Lauded for safety, ease, and patient convenience, peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC) lines have become clinicians’ go-to for intravenous (IV) delivery of antibiotics, nutrition, chemotherapy, and other medications. But, compared to other central venous catheters (CVCs), PICCs more than double the...

NASA is one of the top research entities in the world, producing technologies that range from electronics and new materials, to state-of-the-art robotics and sensors. Readers of NASA Tech Briefs get a firsthand look at these new technologies every month. But how many of you have had the chance to go behind the scenes at...