Gigantism Is a Never-Ending Temptation for Engineers and Designers
Vaclav Smil, writing at IEEE Spectrum: There is a fundamental difference between what can be designed and built and what makes sense. History provides a lesson in the shape of record-setting behemoths that have never since been equaled. The Egyptian.....»»
Engineers develop terahertz imaging system capable of capturing real-time, 3D multi-spectral images
Terahertz waves can penetrate opaque materials and provide unique spectral signatures of various chemicals, but their adoption for real-world applications has been limited by the slow speed, large size, high cost and complexity of terahertz imaging s.....»»
New instrument to capture stardust as part of NASA mission
Scientists and engineers at the CU Boulder will soon take part in an effort to collect a bit of stardust—the tiny bits of matter that flow through the Milky Way Galaxy and were once the initial building blocks of our solar system......»»
Predicting which US city populations will grow and which will fall by 2100
A trio of environmental engineers at the University of Illinois Chicago, has used census data and an annual demographics survey to make predictions about U.S. city population growth or decline in the years leading up to 2100......»»
Unity lays off an additional 25 percent of its staffers
1,800 newly announced job cuts come on top of 1,300 layoffs since mid-2022. Enlarge (credit: Unity) When Unity laid off 265 Weta Digital engineers in November, the company warned that more layoffs would be necessary in t.....»»
Shape of water jet found to influence sound of impact on still water
A trio of mechanical engineers at Seoul National University has found that the shape of a water jet dropped into a glass of water is the determining factor in the noise that results. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Fluids, Mou.....»»
How a sea animal with a "snot palace" could inspire better pumps
To build more efficient pumping systems, engineers might take inspiration from a tiny filter-feeding sea creature encased in a gelatinous structure known as a "mucus house" or "snot palace.".....»»
A computer vision and machine learning system that monitors and controls workup processes
A team of chemists and engineers at the University of British Columba working with colleagues at pharmaceutical company Pfizer has developed a chemical processing system combining computer vision with a real-time machine-learning monitoring system fo.....»»
Increase in rice farming in sub-Saharan Africa found to be producing rising amounts of methane
A team of engineers and atmospheric scientists at Harvard University, working with a colleague from the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has calculated the increased amount of methane being expelled into the atmosphere.....»»
Photochemistry and a new catalyst could make fertilizer more sustainable
Georgia Tech engineers are working to make fertilizer more sustainable—from production to productive reuse of the runoff after application—and a pair of new studies is offering promising avenues at both ends of the process......»»
Engineers invent octopus-inspired technology that can deceive and signal
With a split-second muscle contraction, the greater blue-ringed octopus can change the size and color of the namesake patterns on its skin for purposes of deception, camouflage and signaling. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have d.....»»
Calculating the number of oranges that can be plucked from a fruit stand before it collapses
A small team of physicists and mechanical engineers from Universidad de Antofagasta, Universidad Autónoma de Chile and Universidad de O'Higgins, all in Chile, has found a way to find the stability points of granularly arranged monolayers in a single.....»»
LastPass prompting users to set a stronger master password after major security incident
LastPass faced a major attack in 2022 after hackers gained access to sensitive user data through an exploit found on the computer of one of the engineers working for the company. More than two years after this incident, LastPass has now announced new.....»»
Researchers find large diversity of protists in the Parabasalia phylum in both mice and humans
A team of pathologists, geneticists, immunologists and engineers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, has found a previously unrecognized diversity of protists in the Parabasalia phylum in both mice and humans. In their paper published on t.....»»
Engineers pair laser light to crystal lattice vibrations to enhance optical properties of 2D material
Engineers at Columbia University and theoretical collaborators at the Max Planck for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter have found that pairing laser light to crystal lattice vibrations can enhance the nonlinear optical properties of a layered 2D m.....»»
Team develops transistors with sliding ferroelectricity based on polarity-switchable molybdenum disulfide
Over the past few years, engineers have been trying to devise alternative hardware designs that would allow a single device to both perform computations and store data. These emerging electronics, known as computing-in-memory devices, could have nume.....»»
A sweater made from new aerogel fiber tests warmer than one made from down
A team of chemical engineers and materials scientists at Zhejiang University in China has developed a new type of aerogel fiber that has proven to be warmer than down when woven into a sweater. In their paper published in the journal Science, the gro.....»»
NASA"s GUSTO prepares to map space between the stars
On a vast ice sheet in Antarctica, scientists and engineers are preparing a NASA experiment called GUSTO to explore the universe on a balloon. GUSTO will launch from the Ross Ice Shelf, near the U.S. National Science Foundation's McMurdo Station rese.....»»
NASA"s BurstCube passes milestones on journey to launch
Scientists and engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, have completed testing for BurstCube, a shoebox-sized spacecraft designed to study the universe's most powerful explosions. Members of the team have also delivered.....»»
Newly developed material gulps down hydrogen, spits it out, protects fusion reactor walls
University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have used a spray coating technology to produce a new workhorse material that can withstand the harsh conditions inside a fusion reactor......»»
Scout makes Detroit area its R&D home
Scout Motors' engineers and designers had been working remotely or in temporary offices. That changes with the new Scout Innovation Center......»»