Engineering
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18 hours ago | News
NASA’s
next flagship mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, will carry the
largest primary mirror ever deployed in space. Researchers has borrowed a
page from its segmented mirror design to create a similar example just a
half-inch in diameter. Strangely, the tiny mirror may one day become
the standard for future space telescopes.
May 22 | News
Plans
to create the world's first carbon-neutral higher-speed locomotive were
unveiled this week by the Coalition for Sustainable Rail, which has the goal
of proving the viability of solid biofuel—torrefied biomass—and modern
steam locomotive technology. The first step in those plans is to break
the world speed record for steam trains.
May 22 | News
The
SpaceX company made history as its Falcon 9 rocket, carrying 1,000
pounds of space station provisions in its Dragon capsule, rose from its
seaside launch pad and pierced the pre-dawn sky, aiming for a rendezvous
in a few days with the space station. If the mission proceeds as
planned, Dragon will be the first commercial vessel to visit the space
station.
May 17 | News
Not
long after a partially paralyzed man in Switzerland used his mind to
remotely control a small robot, a Massachusetts woman paralyzed for 15
years used only her thoughts to direct a robotic arm to pick up a bottle
of coffee and bring it to her lips But will the experimental
brain-controlled technology ever help paralyzed people in everyday life?
May 16 | News
Thanks
to new energy taxation regulations taking effect in Germany, electrical
engineers there have invented a space-saving energy usage metering unit
that can be simply clipped onto a power cable like a laundry peg,
without having to disconnect the load. The device is based on a magnetic
field sensor originally developed for use in washing machines, where it
monitors the position and orientation of the rotating drum.
May 15 | News
Camera
maker Canon Inc. is moving toward fully automating digital camera
production in an effort to cut costs—a key change being played out
across Japan, a world leader in robotics. According to the company
spokesman, counting on machines can help preserve the country's
technological power.
May 14 | News
Researchers
in Switzerland, together with industrial partners, have developed a
protective vest with an integrated cooling system. Based on Coolpad
technology, which was originally designed for use in cooling garments
for medical applications, the vest contains vessels filled with water
that is allowed to evaporate through a membrane, cooling down its
surroundings.
May 14 | News
Two
recent studies that tested two ways to protect autoworkers from injury
found letting autoworkers sit while they reach into a car's interior to
perform assembly could help prevent shoulder and back strain. But a
possibly better overall solution the researchers suggested might be to
tilt the entire car so that workers can stand up.
May 10 | News
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) at infrared wavelengths are the magic
behind
such things as night vision and optical communications. Cornell
University researchers
have advanced the process of making such LEDs cheaper and easier to
fabricate,
which could lead to ultrathin LEDs painted onto silicon to replace
computer
wiring with light waves.
May 8 | News
Pentamodes,
proposed in 1995 by Graeme Milton and Andrej Cherkaev, have until now
been purely theoretical. They exist when the mechanical behavior of
materials such as gold or water is expressed in terms of compression and
shear parameters. Materials experts in Germany have, for the first
time, built such a pentamode material, and it’s called a metafluid for a
specific reason.
