Tag: physical sciences
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3-D Printer Maker Lands $19 Million in First Venture Funds
Formlabs, a developer of three-dimensional printing technology in Somerville, Massachusetts, secured $19 million in its first venture funding. The financing round was led by venture capital company DFJ, with Pitango Venture Capital, Innovation Endeavors, and returning angel investors. Formlabs is a spin-off from MIT’s Media Lab, founded in 2011 by three engineers and designers. The…
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Consortium Funds Bio-Semiconductor Component Research
Semiconductor Research Corporation in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina is supporting research at six universities on components performing electronic functions, but based on biological models. The $2.25 million Semiconductor Synthetic Biology research studies will be conducted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Yale, Georgia Tech, Brigham Young, and University of Washington. Semiconductor Research…
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Network Analysis Shows Drug Resistant Infection Factors
Operations researchers and computer scientists at University of Maryland in College Park and American University in Washington, D.C. identified interpersonal network interactions that help spread antibiotic resistant infections through a hospital. Maryland business professors Sean Barnes and Bruce Golden, with American University information technology faculty Edward Wasil, published their findings earlier this month in the…
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Tighter Home Weatherizing Standards Can Save $33 Billion
Weatherizing U.S. homes to tighter international standards can save up to $33 billion in energy bills each year, according to calculations by engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California, part of the U.S. Department of Energy. The team led by environmental engineer Jennifer Logue published its findings in this month’s issue of the journal…
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Challenge Seeks Better Insecticide Performance Test Methods
A new challenge on InnoCentive is looking for new methods or processes for tracking the interactions between insecticides and the pests they aim to kill. The competition has a total purse of $10,000 and a deadline of 18 November 2013 for proposals (free registration required). InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowd-sourcing competitions for corporate…
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Software Written to Guide Yoga for Vision Impaired
Computer scientists at University of Washington in Seattle wrote software for Microsoft Kinect game modules that provides spoken feedback for yoga students with little or no vision. The team led by doctoral student Kyle Rector describes the software known as Eyes-Free Yoga next week at ACM’s SIGACCESS International Conference on Computers and Accessibility in Bellevue,…
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Protocols Linking Underwater Devices to Internet Proposed
Engineers from University at Buffalo in New York are proposing a common set of wireless protocols for connecting underwater sensors, like those detecting tsunamis, to the land-based Internet. Electrical engineering professor Tommaso Melodia and graduate student Yifan Sun will present their proposal next month at ACM’s International Conference on Underwater Networks & Systems in Taiwan.…
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Mid-Air Tactile Sensory Ultrasound Technology Developed
Computer scientists at University of Bristol in the U.K. developed a system for conveying information through a sense of touch in mid-air without physically touching a screen or device. The team from Bristol’s Interaction and Graphics lab, led by doctoral student Tom Carter will present its findings and demonstrate the technology later this week at the ACM…
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P&G Seeking Ideas, Partners in Inkjet Printing Challenge
Procter & Gamble Company in Cincinnati is seeking new ideas for applications of 3-D inkjet printing to add consumer appeal to packaging, as well as collaborators to bring those ideas to fruition. The campaign to find these ideas and partners is contained in a new challenge on InnoCentive, which has a deadline of 30 October…
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3-D Printing Lifecycle Shown More Environmentally Friendly
Materials scientists at Michigan Technological University in Houghton found that in a lifecycle analysis of production processes, distributed three-dimensional printing can have a smaller environmental impact than conventional manufacturing. Michigan Tech’s Joshua Pearce and graduate student Megan Kreiger published their findings online in a recent advance issue of the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. Three-dimensional…