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Nanoscale-Fortified Wood Could Pave Way for Eco-Friendly Construction
Imagine a fortified wood that is strong and inexpensive that it could be used for large-scale projects, reducing the need for steel and...
Cassie Kelly
Jul 20, 20254 min read


Pressurized Haptic Sleeve Breaks New Ground in Wearables
A new knitted sleeve that mimics human touch gives the wearer a new way to interact with the world, opening possibilities for social and...
Cassie Kelly
May 18, 20255 min read


Hummingbirds Fitted with Tiny Backpacks for Research
Alyssa Sargent, a doctoral student in biology at the University of Washington, is pushing the boundaries of hummingbird tracking with...
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Mar 17, 20253 min read


Do Gravity Batteries Scale to Household Size?
There comes a time in every engineer’s career when all options have been exhausted, and the project must end. Sometimes things just don’t...
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Mar 10, 20253 min read


A Deep Dive into the Future of Sargassum Innovation
A team of researchers led by Princeton University with funding from Schmidt Sciences has embarked on an ambitious project to transform...
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Mar 9, 20253 min read


Harvesting Water from the Air
A new water harvesting system, designed by a team at The Ohio State University, captures water directly from the air, much like a...
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Feb 18, 20253 min read


Novel Carbon Capture Tech Makes Case for More Wind Turbines
As global emissions continue to rise, the world’s top scientists and engineers are working on ways to counteract warming and prevent the...
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Nov 12, 20243 min read


Reverse Electrolysis Controls Underwater Robot’s Buoyancy
Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are ideal for unmanned missions to the deep sea, military operations, and marine research. However,...
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Aug 25, 20243 min read


Retractable Device Could Make Vehicle Camouflage Easier
While in combat, soldiers take every precaution to conceal themselves and their vehicles from the enemy. Currently, Army troops use...
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Aug 12, 20243 min read


Pint-sized Power Conversion with Piezoelectrics
Many of the microsystems we use every day, embedded in everything from smartphones to automobiles, need power converters to shift...
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Jun 23, 20243 min read


Machine Learning Finds Defects in Wind Turbine Blades
Wind turbines can be difficult to maintain, especially offshore. Getting out to sea to inspect the turbines is a dangerous and...
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May 13, 20243 min read


Engineers Spot Polar Bear Dens Via Radar
Winter is a critical time for polar bears. In their dens, mothers nurse young cubs, and if they are disturbed, the mother and the cubs...
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Feb 5, 20243 min read


Snail-Inspired Robot Sucks up Floating Microplastics
Bio-inspired engineering—taking lessons from nature and applying them to new technology—has accelerated and innovated designs that would...
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Jan 22, 20243 min read


Sensor Determines Produce Ripeness Instantly
Imagine using your phone at the grocery store to determine which fruits and vegetables you’d like to purchase based off of their...
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Jan 16, 20244 min read


Image Capturing Device Mimics the Human Eye
Common photodetectors used in cameras, like the ones on smart phones, cannot distinguish color. Instead, once the photo is captured, the...
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Jul 22, 20233 min read


Exoskeleton Boot Improves Walking Speed, Offers New Hope for Those With Mobility Challenges
Predicting what a person needs from an assistive device is complicated, and varying preferences for control and comfort have made it...
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Jan 19, 20234 min read


Novel Heat Treatment to Unlock High-Temperature, 3D-Printed Components
Utilizing 3D printing to construct high-temperature components like gas turbine blades and vanes would save manufacturers precious time...
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Jan 10, 20233 min read


Students and Industry Push for Undergraduate Robotics Programming
For more than a decade now, Alec Gallimore, Dean of Engineering at the University of Michigan, has witnessed the field of robotics grow...
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Aug 29, 20224 min read


Soaring through the Martian Atmosphere
Rovers and oribital missions have done wonders to improve our understanding of the surface of Mars, but it’s time for scientists to try...
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Aug 22, 20224 min read


Swarming Robots May One Day Explore Europa
Planetary scientists have their sights set on Jupiter’s moon Europa. It’s about the size of Earth’s moon, but is covered in a thick layer...
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Aug 21, 20224 min read


Wearable Muscles Work with Users to Restore Mobility
Robotic “exoskeleton” technology has greatly advanced in recent years, restoring mobility and functionality to those who’ve lost it. But...
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Aug 3, 20223 min read


Treating Pain without Drugs: Implantable Device Cools Nerves
With the ongoing concerns of the addictive nature of opiates and dangerous risks of other pain medications, many medical practioners are...
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Jul 25, 20223 min read


E-Skin Shows Success in Detecting Chemicals, Viruses
To create a world where robots and humans coexist, robots should be agile, adaptive, and most of all, responsive. It will be critical for...
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Jul 24, 20223 min read


RoboKrill Mimics the Ocean’s Major Food Source
A tiny, crustacean-inspired robot may one day swim among others like it in the sea, monitoring the ecosystem and delivering valuable...
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Jun 6, 20223 min read


Detecting Drones from Miles Away
As drone technology becomes increasingly advanced, so does their potential threat to our daily lives. In situations like the crisis in...
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May 22, 20224 min read


Robot Performs Laparoscopic Surgery
Autonomous robots are driving cars and sorting recycling, but a team at Johns Hopkins University has been developing a robot for a much...
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Mar 14, 20223 min read


Sensing 3D Printing Flaws Can Make AM More Accepted
One drawback to 3D printing for industries such as aerospace, automotive, or medicine is that there simply is no inexpensive way to...
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Jan 18, 20224 min read


How Artificial Reality Could Help Control Prostheses
For many people with amputations, robotic prostheses hold the promise of some measure of restored functionality. Controlling those...
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Jan 5, 20223 min read


Holograms You Can Touch
Virtual reality developers have been dreaming of a holographic gaming experience since Star Trek’s “Holodeck” first appeared on TV in the...
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Nov 8, 20213 min read


An Octopus-Inspired Soft Robot Uses Origami Principles
The principles of the ancient practice of origami still hold great influence in modern-day mechanics. For Renee Zhao, assistant professor...
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Nov 2, 20213 min read


IoT Bolsters Weather Forecasting for Farmers
One of the greatest threats to the future of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is farm runoff of fertilizers and pesticides that damage the...
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Oct 10, 20213 min read


Acoustically Triggered Nanorobotics Hold Promise for Cancer Treatment
Many incredible cancer-fighting drugs and treatments have been developed in the past few decades, and on paper, they seem like they hold...
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Aug 2, 20213 min read


Engineering the Next-Generation Space Station
When it was launched in 1998, the International Space Station was only meant to be in commission for 15 years. It was built during the...
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Jul 14, 20214 min read


A Tougher Skin for Stealth Aircraft
It takes rigorous training and testing, an acute level of skill, and costs up to $10 million to train a stealth fighter jet pilot, making...
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Jul 12, 20213 min read


Engineers Learn the Secret of Syncing
There’s a rhythm to life that almost every living and non-living thing can tap into. Many species of schooling fish will swim in unison,...
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Jul 1, 20213 min read


Engineering a Refrigerator for Space Travel
If there is one thing that almost everyone knows about the lifestyle of astronauts in space, it’s that the cuisine is not ideal. This is...
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Jun 21, 20214 min read


Preparing a Robotic Fleet for Future Mars Missions
Although Perseverance was set off on a mission to study when life could have existed on Mars, many humans are watching and wondering...
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Apr 27, 20213 min read


Novel 3D-Printing Technique Could Hasten Bone-Graft Recovery
Engineers all over the world are convening on the best techniques for growing organs, tissues, and blood vessels using human cells–and...
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Mar 29, 20213 min read


3D-Printed Algae Boosts Regenerative Medicine
In many ways, regenerative medicine is the next engineering frontier. But, one continued challenge of developing tissues and organs in...
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Jan 12, 20213 min read


9 Bioinspired Medical Technologies
Biomimicry, or bioinspiration, is proving to be an effective approach to reimagining technology, especially in biomedical engineering. We...
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Jan 7, 20215 min read


Tubular Robot Maneuvers Through the Body
Vine robots are a promising emerging technology for search and rescue missions. Able to grow to great lengths, these growing robots can...
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Oct 18, 20203 min read


Digitization Opens Door to Collaboration During COVID-19
Industry and government leaders know the key to sustainable growth and continuous innovation is to invest in the young minds that will...
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Aug 27, 20204 min read


Smart Habitats for Sustained Lunar Living
With five years and up to $15 million of NASA funding locked up, Purdue University's Resilient Extra Terrestrial Habitats (RETH)...
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Jul 22, 20204 min read


Lab-Grown Meat: A Big Step Forward
Many of us have experienced the sizzle and aroma of steak on a grill. Now, we are one giant step closer to sourcing that meat from a lab...
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Mar 15, 20204 min read


3D-Printed Organs Nearing Clinical Trials
With the aid of 3D printing and electrospinning, a team of bioengineers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine lead by...
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Mar 3, 20204 min read


High-Speed Chameleon Tongue Redefines Soft Robots
A high-speed soft robotic “tongue” can spring out to five times its original length, snag a beetle crawling on the ground, and bring it...
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Jan 23, 20203 min read


3D Bioprinter Prints Healthy Skin onto Patients in Minutes
Skin is one organ that varies greatly from patient to patient. Unlike damaged livers or lungs, which can be replaced by a donor,...
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Jul 26, 20194 min read


How to Teach Soft Robot Navigation
Perception is a tricky thing. Humans use all their senses to learn about their location and the objects with which they interact. If one...
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Jun 14, 20193 min read


Ovipositor Inspires New Needle for Surgery
The same mechanism that enables a parasitic wasp to lay her eggs inside a caterpillar without killing it could one day help surgeons...
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Jan 25, 20194 min read


New Approach Improves Treatment of Deadly Childhood Brain Cancer
Treating diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a deadly form of brain cancer, is so difficult that less than 1 percent of children survive...
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Nov 12, 20183 min read
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