• 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

  • Lockheed Martin shows tiny surveillance UAV

    The Samarai UAV is sixteen inches long and weighs less than half a pound; while flying, it can stream live video from a camera that rotated around its center providing a 360 degree view without a gimbal; it can be carried in a backpack and launchedt from the ground or like a boomerang

  • Cheap radiation detector made of PET resin developed

    Researchers develop a revolutionary radiation-sensitive plastic with a performance superior to plastic scintillators used for measuring radiation; the discovery will enable a major reduction in production costs — a step toward an inexpensive radiation detector available to everyone

  • Day of "solar" soldiers nears

    Researches develop wearable light-weight solar panels which will allow soldiers to generate power in the field and reduce the need for batteries for their electronic devices; they will also establish a power supply that keeps electronic devices operational throughout the duration of missions

  • Portable, super-high-resolution 3-D imaging

    A simple new imaging system could help manufacturers inspect their products, forensics experts identify weapons, and doctors identify cancers.

  • Aussies to clone explosives sniffer dogs

    Two Aussie dog-breeding companies will collaborate with South Korean scientists on cloning explosives and drug sniffer dogs; the first batch of ten dogs will go into service in 2013; the Australians cloned dogs would be made from tissue samples taken from a German shepherd called Hassan von Gruntal, who died in 2001; cloned sniffer dogs have already been used in South Korea and the United States

  • New material dramatically increases explosive force of weapons

    A revolutionary material that will replace steel in warhead casings will bring added lethality and increase the likelihood of a hit on an enemy target; by combining several metals with standard manufacturing techniques, High-Density Reactive Material (HDRM) has the potential dramatically to increase the explosive impact of most weapons with little or no compromise in strength or design

  • Reversing metabolism to make biofuels at breakneck pace

    Engineers reverse E. coli metabolism for speedy production of fuels, chemicals; a Rice University’s team reversed one of the most efficient of all metabolic pathways — the beta oxidation cycle — to engineer bacteria that produce biofuel at a breakneck pace

  • Self-assembled "micro-robots" designed

    Tiny micro-robots — just half a millimeter wide — assemble themselves into star shapes when an alternating magnetic field is applied; the robots can pick up, transport, and put down other non-magnetic particles — potentially enabling fabrication of precisely designed functional materials in ways not currently possible

  • Storing CO2 underground to extract electricity

    A team of scientists, led by the Berkeley Lab, hopes to become the first in the world to produce electricity from the Earth’s heat using CO2; They also want permanently to store some of the CO2 underground, where it can not contribute to climate change

  • Undergraduate student overcomes major hurdle to invisibility cloak

    An undergraduate student has overcome a major hurdle in the development of invisibility cloaks by adding an optical device into their design which not only remains invisible itself, but also has the ability to slow down light; the innovation open up the possibility for a potential invisibility cloak wearer to move around amongst ever-changing backgrounds of a variety of colors