Topic

A Queen's University researcher has created a Star Trek-like human-scale 3D videoconferencing pod that allows people in different locations to video conference as if they are standing in front of each other. Two people simply stand in front of their own life-size cylindrical pods and talk to...

A doorknob that knows whether to lock or unlock based on how it is grasped, a smartphone that silences itself if the user holds a finger to her lips and a chair that adjusts room lighting based on recognizing if a user is reclining or leaning forward are among the many...

Each summer at Stanford University, the Army High-Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC) invites a select group of undergraduates from across the country to gather for a two-month immersion into advanced computing. New Mexico State University student Adam Duran worked with mentors Adrian Lew, an assistant...

By asking an individual to walk a short distance in front of a radar system while saying the months of the year in reverse order, researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute can determine if that person is impaired and possibly suffering from a concussion. This simple test, which could be...

Julia Kubanek, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Biology, describes research into antifungal compounds found on the surfaces of tropical seaweed collected in the Fiji Islands. The compounds may have possible applications for treating malaria.

Zeeshan Syed, assistant professor in the University of Michigan Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has led the discovery of subtle but potentially life-saving signals hidden in heart attack patients' EKG histories. The findings could save thousands of lives every year.

Bioengineers from the Jacobs School of Engineering at University of California, San Diego have developed a self-healing hydrogel that binds in seconds - as easily as Velcro - and forms a bond strong enough to withstand repeated stretching. The material has many potential applications, including medical sutures, targeted...

Sandia National Laboratories distinguished technical staff member Juan Elizondo-Decanini developed a new configuration for neutron generators by turning from conventional cylindrical tubes to the flat geometry of computer chips. The Neutristor is an ultra-compact, disposable, neutron generator...

In a conventional cochlear implant, there are three main parts that are worn externally on the head behind the ear: a microphone to pick up sound, a speech processor and a radio transmitter coil. These external components may be undesirable because they raise reliability issues, prevent patients from swimming, and...

"Blindsight is a condition that some patients experience after having damage to the primary visual cortex in the back of their brains. What happens in these patients is they go cortically blind, yet they can still discriminate visual information, albeit without any awareness." explains Tony Ro, a neuroscientist at...

University of Illinois researchers have developed a technique to computationally correct for aberrations in optical tomography, which could provide faster, less expensive, higher-resolution tissue imaging to a broader population of users. Real-time, 3D microscopic tissue imaging may be useful for medical...

The primary mirror of very large submillimeter-wave telescopes will necessarily be segmented into many separate mirror panels. These panels must be continuously co-phased to keep the telescope wavefront error less than a small fraction of a wavelength, to ten microns RMS (root mean square)...

Electrochemical ultracapacitors (ECs) have been developed using graphitic nanostacks as the electrode material. The advantages of this technology will be the reduction of device size due to superior power densities and relative powers compared to traditional activated carbon electrodes....

A mobile pill transmitter system moves through, or adjacent to, one or more organs in an animal or human body, while transmitting signals from its present location and/or present angular orientation. The system also provides signals from which the present roll angle of the pill, about a selected...

Current planetary protection policies require that spacecraft targeted to sensitive solar system bodies be assembled and readied for launch in controlled cleanroom environments. A better understanding of the distribution and frequency at which high-risk...

Research was conducted on the qualification of Honeywell platinum resistance thermometer (PRT) bonding for use in the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). This is the first time these sensors will be used for Mars-related projects. Different types of PRTs were employed for the...

Stereoscopic display techniques are based on the principle of displaying two views, with a slightly different perspective, in such a way that the left eye views only by the left eye, and the right eye views only by the right eye. However, one of the major challenges in optical devices is...

An integrated fiber-optic Raman sensor has been designed for real-time, nonintrusive detection of liquid nitrogen in liquid oxygen (LOX) at high pressures and high flow rates in order to monitor the quality of LOX used during rocket engine ground...

A front-end instrument, the laser ablation ion funnel, was developed, which would ionize rock and soil samples in the ambient Martian atmosphere, and efficiently transport the product ions into a mass spectrometer for in situ analysis.

A single-stack broadband quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) has been developed that consists of stacked layers of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells with absorption peaks centered at various wavelengths spanning across the 9-to-11-μm spectral regions. The correct design of broadband QWIPs was a...

A paper discusses a dual-compartment inflatable suitlock (DCIS) for Extra-vehicular Activity (EVA) that will allow for dust control, suit maintenance, and efficient EVA egress/ingress. The expandable (inflatable technologies) aspect of the design will allow the unit to stow in a compact package for transport.

A document discusses a “solution-assisted contacting” technique for optical contacting. An optic of surface flatness Lambda/20 was successfully contacted with one of “moderate” surface quality, or Lambda/4. Optics used were both ultra-low expansion (ULE) glass (Lambda/4 and Lambda/20) and...

A document discusses polymer nanocomposite superparamagnetic actuators that were prepared by the addition of organically modified superparamagnetic nanoparticles to the polymer matrix. The nanocomposite films exhibited large deformations under a magnetostatic field with a low loading...