• Man-made silk mimics spider silk

    Spider silk has attracted human interest for thousands of years due to its toughness and ductility; as with most biomaterials, spider silk has evolved over millions of years resulting in a combination of properties that far exceeds any man-made material; until now

  • Industrial stent-like repairs for failing pipelines

    There are thousands of miles of pipe underground in the United States, some more than 100 years old; gas, oil, water, and sewage seep, and sometimes gush, through corroded joints and defective welds every day; new technology uses carbon and glass laminates to repair and replace failing pipelines

  • Body wearable antennas for soldiers, first responders

    Body Wearable Antennas (BWAs) allow soldiers to communicate with their colleagues on the front line without the need for conventional radio whip-antennas which can be cumbersome and conspicuous; NWS can also be incorporate into the suits of fire-fighters for use during search and rescue, for police patrol team members to have the GPS locations of their colleagues, and in other hazardous industries such as mining, oil, and gas

  • Flying video camera will protect soldiers

    Engineers have developed the U.K.’s first lightweight outdoor flying video camera which can fit in a soldier’s backpack; the UAV is designed to help spot hidden dangers and feed the real-time footage to goggles worn by the operator

  • Disaster influences science fair entries

    Science fair for school children in Christchurch, new Zealand see several earthquake- and flood-related inventions by junior high students; first prize went to a ninth grader who designed a possum trap to protect curious native weka from being poisoned during floods

  • BAE Systems shows invisibility cloak-wrapped vehicle

    BAE Systems has tested an invisibility cloak that allows a vehicle to blend into its surroundings; sheets of hexagonal “pixels,” which can change temperature very rapidly, allow vehicles — even moving tanks — to match their surroundings, thus making them invisible

  • New first response, military tool: surveillance insects

    Micro air vehicles (MAVs) are tiny, insect-size UAVs used for search-and-rescue operations, surveillance, monitoring of hazardous environments, and detection of explosives; University of Michigan researchers had an idea: rather than build insect-size UAVs, why not use the insects themselves to fly these missions?

  • Breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cells

    Hydrogen makes a great fuel because it can be converted easily to electricity in a fuel cell and because it is carbon free; the downside of hydrogen is that, because it is a gas, it can only be stored in high pressure or cryogenic tanks; a team of USC scientists has developed a robust, efficient method of using hydrogen as a fuel source

  • Identifying bad guys in a crowd

    New CCTV technology aims to do two things: for post-incident forensic analysis the system retraces a person’s steps after they have left a site; and for real-time analysis the system alerts security to immediate or imminent threats; researchers say the technology will also address privacy concerns: if a computer could automatically detect and preserve footage “of interest,” the images of the rest of the people captured by CCTVs can be safely deleted, minimizing the invasion to privacy

  • Uncovering mechanisms key to fusion reactor walls

    A new tool will be hitched to an experimental fusion reactor at Princeton University to learn precisely what happens when extremely hot plasmas touch and interact with the inner surface of the reactor; fusion powers the stars and could lead to a limitless supply of clean energy

  • Enhancing communication of swarming robots

    With the help of computer simulations and prototypes, researchers are striving to enhance the communication in human and multi-robot interactions

  • DARPA seeks to build interstellar space ship in 100 years

    The Pentagon’s advanced research arm is currently exploring the technology to build a spaceship capable of travelling to distant stars in the next 100 years; the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans on awarding as much as $500,000 in seed money this fall to the company with the most promising ability to develop interstellar travel

  • Antenna-equipped garments here

    To make communications devices more reliable, researchers are working on incorporating radio antennas directly into clothing, using plastic film and metallic thread; the new antenna design has a range four times larger than that of a conventional antenna worn on the body — one that is used by American soldiers today

  • New tool helps visualize post-event disaster environments

    Using iPad mobile devices, emergency preparedness officials and first responders participating last month in the FEMA’s National Level Exercise 2011 (NLE-11), were able, for the first time, to make use of a new, science-based software tool that allows them to view and modify accurate models of building damage and other post-event disaster effects

  • Making rail travel more reliable

    U.K. researchers are collaborating with industry to develop novel optical sensors that detect when overhead power lines are likely to fail; the costly disruption to rail travel caused by the breakdown of overhead power lines could thus become a thing of the past