• First responders could be zipping through skies within two years

    Glenn Martin, the inventor of the Martin Jetpack, the world’s first commercially available jetpack, recently spoke with Homeland Security NewsWire’s executive editor Eugene K. Chow; in their interview Martin discusses the technical challenges of developing a viable jetpack, its uses in emergency response, and when we can expect to see civilians zipping through the skies

  • World’s first magnetic soap can clean oil spills

    A University of Bristol team has dissolved iron in liquid surfactant to create a soap that can be controlled by magnets; the discovery could be used to create cleaning products that can be removed after application and used in the recovery of oil spills at sea

  • Helping UAVs to land safely in an emergency

    One obstacle to the wider use of UAVs in domestic missions such as law enforcement is the fact that UAV flight plans are set pre-flight, and if something goes wrong and they need to land they have no way to determining where the safest landing spot is; in most cases they just drop; engineers are developing a system which will allow UAVs sense and avoid other traffic and determine appropriate landing spots should the need arise

  • New material for building thermonuclear fusion reactors

    Two European projects – ITER and DEMO — propose development of fusion reactors that are economically viable; this work depends on the development of new structural materials capable of withstanding damage by irradiation and elevated temperatures resulting from the fusion reaction

  • Tails help leaping lizards – and robots – stay in control

    A new study examined how lizards manage to leap successfully even when they slip and stumble; the researchers found that lizards swing their tails upward to prevent them from pitching head-over-heels into a rock; the research pushed the boundaries of control in robotics in an area researchers call inertial assisted robotics

  • Using bacteria to detect toxins in water

    Biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego have created a living neon sign composed of millions of bacterial cells that periodically fluoresce in unison like blinking light bulbs; because bacteria are sensitive to many kinds of environmental pollutants and organisms, the scientists believe this approach could be used to design low cost bacterial biosensors capable of detecting an array of heavy metal pollutants and disease-causing organisms

  • “Smart Connector” to detect, pinpoint damage to cellular cables

    Researchers have developed the Smart Connector, a new sensor that once installed in the connecting units of coaxial cables can provide information about equipment damage and pinpoint the exact location through self-diagnosing technologies — some of the most advanced in the field today

  • A UAV that uses wind power as a bird does

    An engineering Ph.D. students wins prizes for the design of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — dubbed Green Falcon II — which would be powered by the sun and wind; “While all airplanes mimic the shape of birds, the Green Falcon II will literally use the wind to power its movement, just as a bird would,” the young inventor says

  • Research may yield more compact antennas for military use

    Researchers say that the tall, bulky antennas the U.S. military uses could be scrapped for low-profile, broadband antennas — thanks to a different approach to antenna design that replaces large dipole antennas with a more compact and conformal multi-mode radiator

  • Portable wastewater system generates energy, produces drinking water

    Researchers are working to develop a portable wastewater treatment system that could improve the military’s efficiency; the solar-bio-nano project also will generate energy and produce drinking water, thus providing a potential blueprint for the future of municipal/agricultural wastewater treatment systems

  • Large-scale power storage for the energy grid

    The sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow; Stanford University researchers have used nanoparticles of a copper compound to develop a high-power battery electrode that is inexpensive to make, efficient and durable that it could be used to build batteries big enough for economical large-scale energy storage on the electrical grid

  • Insects to become first responders, aid in search and rescue

    Researchers are finding ways to harvest energy from insects, holding the promise of using insects to aid in first response and search and rescue, and monitor hazardous situations before sending in humans

  • Harvard-designed swarm robots licensed to Swiss company

    Harvard researchers developed Kilobot — a low-cost, easy-to-use robotic system for advancing development of “swarms” of robots; robot swarms might one day tunnel through rubble to find survivors, monitor the environment and remove contaminants, and self-assemble to form support structures in collapsed buildings

  • Jellyfish-like robot for underwater surveillance

    Researchers at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech built an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) inspired by jellyfish morphology and propulsion mechanism

  • Ionized plasmas as cheap sterilizer in tough places

    Scientists show that ionized plasmas like those in neon lights and plasma TVs not only can sterilize water, but make it antimicrobial; these plasma devices could be life-savers in developing countries, disaster areas, or on the battlefield where sterile water for medical use is in short supply and expensive to produce