Tag: physical sciences
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Nanotech Solution Boosts Lithium-Ion Battery Performance
Engineers at Northwestern University in Illinois have created an electrode for lithium-ion batteries that can hold 10 times the charge and recharge 10 times faster than current batteries. A paper describing the research was published last month in the journal Advanced Energy Materials (paid subscription required), and funded by the Energy Frontier Research Centers program…
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Electronic Film Implant Designed to Monitor Brain Functions
Medical and engineering researchers from the U.S., Korea, and China have developed a thin, flexible electronic film that can monitor brain activity without the use of penetrating electrodes. The team’s findings appear online in the journal Nature Neuroscience (paid subscription required). The film (illustrated left), about one-quarter the thickness of a human hair, contains 720…
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GE, Illinois Tech to Partner on Wind Energy Management
GE’s software division will collaborate with researchers from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) to devise better monitoring and diagnostic methods for the management of wind farms. The project is part of IIT’s University-Industry Consortium for Wind Energy funded by Department of Energy. The two-year project aims to help wind farms reduce maintenance costs and improve…
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Patent Filed for Nanocomposite Polymer-Based Film
A materials scientist at University of Cincinnati has developed a transparent and electrically conductive polymer-based film with potential solar and fuel cell applications. Jude Iroh (pictured right), who is also an engineering professor at UC, recently filed a provisional patent for the discovery. The nanocomposite film is transparent and electrically conductive, says Iroh, as well…
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Wearable Device Captures Food Intake, Lifestyle Patterns
A device developed at University of Pittsburgh allows people battling obesity to track their food consumption and physical activities without keeping separate records. The eButton, as the NIH-funded device is called, is now a prototype in pilot testing, and the result of research by Pittsburgh biomedical engineer Mingui Sun. The eButton, worn on the chest…
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National Lab Developing Alternatives to Rare Earth Materials
The Ames Laboratory in Iowa is developing alternatives to rare earth materials in two separate projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy — one material for use in permanent magnets for electric vehicles, and the other material a manganese-based alternative to rare earths. The Ames Laboratory is a national lab under Department of Energy’s…
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Technology Funded to Assess Superfund Site Contamination
Researchers at Arizona State University in Tempe and University of Florida in Gainesville received funding to develop a device to measure toxic sediments with greater precision, accuracy and sensitivity. ASU’s Rolf Halden (pictured right) and Florida’s Nancy Denslow will test the device, and also evaluate health effects on two marine organisms and assess remediation efforts…
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Universities, Companies Partner on Data Center Power Use
Three U.S. universities have joined with 15 companies in a collaborative research center to increase energy efficiency and help create a greener electronics industry. Researchers at Binghamton University in New York, Villanova University in Pennsylvania, and University of Texas at Arlington are the institutions taking part in the Industry/University Cooperative Research Center in Energy-Efficient Electronic…
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Algorithms Track Individual Athletes During Sports Events
Computer algorithms developed by Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland make it possible to visually track individual players in action on sports teams. The technology developers, from EPFL’s Computer Vision Laboratory, present their findings today at the International Conference on Computer Vision in Barcelona. The system can track multiple players in fast-moving sports…
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Researchers Give Robotics a Human Face
Research engineers at Technical University of Munich (Technische Universitaet Muenchen, TUM) in Germany and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan have developed a way to give robots a human-like plastic head. Called Mask-bot, the technology may have a more immediate application as a tool to create avatars for participants in…