Science and Enterprise

Tag: computer science

  • 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…

  • Programming Language Created for Synthetic DNA Chemistry

    Computer scientists and systems biologists at University of Washington, California Institute of Technology, and University of California in San Francisco are developing a coding language to enable the programming of synthetic DNA chemical interactions. A report from the team led by Washington computer scientist Georg Seelig appeared yesterday online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology (paid…

  • Who’s a Patent Troll? You’ll be Surprised by the Answer

    Nobody likes patent trolls, the “non-practicing entities” accused of filing lawsuits with questionable infringement claims aimed at extorting settlements from companies just trying to do business. A conference today in Washington, D.C. sponsored by Innovation Alliance — a group promoting a strong U.S. patent system — featured a panelist who would under some definitions be…

  • Computer System Built with Carbon Nanotube Circuitry

    Engineers at Stanford University in California created a basic computer system of circuits made from carbon nanotubes rather than conventional semiconductors built on silicon. The team led by Stanford electrical engineering professors Subhasish Mitra and H.S. Philip Wong published its findings online today in the journal Nature (paid subscription required). As silicon semiconductors became smaller and packed more…

  • FDA to Limit Oversight to Medical Device Mobile Apps

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will focus its regulation of mobile health apps on those that act as traditional medical devices, according to final guidance released yesterday. The guidance, to be published tomorrow in the Federal Register for public comment, says FDA will not enforce regulations on the majority of health-related smartphone and tablet…

  • NIST Funding $7.4M for Additive Manufacturing Standards

    National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of U.S. Department of Commerce, is awarding two grants totaling $7.4 million to improve measurement and standards for additive manufacturing, industrial applications of three-dimensional printing. Most of the money — $5 million — is going to a consortium of 27 organization headed by the National Additive Manufacturing…

  • Graphene Photodetector Integrated with Semiconductor Chip

    Researchers at Vienna University of Technology and Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria built a detector and converter of optical signals with graphene into a traditional semiconductor chip, making it easier to integrate optics and electronics in a single device. The team led by Vienna’s Thomas Mueller published its findings online this week in the…

  • System Measures Ball-Head Impact to Simulate Sports Injuries

    Engineers at Washington State University in Pullman built a system that lets sports scientists measure the impact of a softball hitting a player’s head to simulate potential injuries based on the properties of the ball. Washington State engineering professor Lloyd Smith and project engineer Derek Nevins will report their findings next week at the Asia-Pacific…

  • Wireless Sensor System Detects Occurrence of Elderly Falls

    Engineers at University of Utah in Salt Lake City developed a system combining wireless radio-wave sensors and a control algorithm to detect a person falling, without the individual wearing a separate device. Graduate student Brad Mager, representing the Utah team, presents the findings of a proof-of-concept test of the system today at the IEEE Personal,…

  • Portal Launched Matching Cancer Cells to Drug Molecules

    The Broad Institute, a medical research organization with scientists from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, opened its Cancer Therapeutics Response Portal, an online resource that matches potential drug molecules to their sensitivities among hundreds of cancer cell lines. The portal is described this week in the journal Cell (paid subscription required), in an…