• Mechanical stress leads to self-sensing in solid polymers

    Fighting Illini researchers develop force-sensitive polymers; when pushed or pulled with a certain force, specific chemical reactions are triggered in the mechanophores; such polymers may be used in aircraft components or bridges to report damage and warn of potential component failure, slow the spread of damage to extend a material’s lifetime, or even repair damage in early stages to avoid catastrophic failure

  • Artificial flower kills mosquitoes dead with poisonous nectar

    Georgia Southern University researcher develops artificial flower which lure disease-carrying mosquitoes with its bright colors and sweet smell — and then kills them with its poisonous nectar; Professor Thomas Kollars: “One man can’t defeat mosquitoes. They have killed more people than all wars combined. But I can start being part of the team that defeats them”

  • Eating your flu vaccine

    Researchers put flu vaccines into the genetic makeup of corn, allowing pigs — and humans — to get a flu vaccination simply by eating corn or corn products

  • The near future will see self-cleaning materials, water-striding robots

    Researchers at the University of Nebraska and Japan explain a property called super hydrophobia, in the process giving engineers and materials scientists important clues as to how to develop the long-sought super hydrophobic materials

  • Dutch police uses unmanned mini-helicopter to sniff out cannabis

    Police in the noerthwest region of the Netherlands asked their engineers to design an unmanned helicopter to hover over the region and sniff out traces of weed smell in the air samples it collects; new methods does not require a warrant to enter buildings

  • PrimerDesign to develop DNA tests for Mexican strain of swine flu

    U.K. company races against the clock to produce the world’s first DNA test for the Mexican strain of swine flu

  • Blast-proof CCTV tested by DHS's S&T

    CCTVs help the police identify terrorists who perpetrate an attack; trouble is, the blast set by the terrorists may destroy the camera and its video; there are two solutions: the more expensive one is a real-time streaming-video CCTV which sends images back to HQ until the moment the camera is destroyed; the cheaper alternative is an indestructible video CCTV

  • Making quantum cryptography's promise a reality

    New research details how quantum communication can be made possible without having to use cryogenic cooling or complicated optical setups, making it much more likely to become commercially viable soon

  • U.K. government in £100 million scheme to promote new ideas, products

    U.K. government launches a new 100 million scheme — the Small Business Research Initiative — to encourage public-sector organizations to invite British companies to submit ideas and develop technologies, which the public-sector organization could then buy to help improve public services

  • Aussie company improves food pasteurizing

    Normally processors would have to use preservatives or heat the product and this inevitably changes the taste and destroys some nutrients; new method — called high-pressure processing (HPP) — uses pressure instead

  • Smart Grid offers savings, vulnerabilities

    A bill to be presented in Congress today aims to stop utility hackers; experts, legislators call for regulations on smart power meters to reduce new grid’s vulnerability to hacking

  • Skin-patch deliver flu vaccine

    Researchers at Emory and Georgia Tech develop a microneedle skin patch that delivers flue vaccine; the patches contain an array of stainless-steel microneedles coated with an inactivated influenza virus

  • DARPA awards Lockheed $399.9 million for blimp

    Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor, receives nearly $400 million from the Pentagon to develop a blimp-carrying radar; the radar would be about 6,000 square meters (7,176 square yards) in size

  • Dutch flying car company, well, takes off

    Dutch flying car company PAL-V is gearing up for market launch of its flying car; it is Europe’s response to Massachusetts-based Terrafugia’s Transition

  • Chemical robot shows possibility of electronics-free robots

    The Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction is one of a class of chemical systems in which the concentration of one or more compounds periodically increases and decreases; the oscillation thus generated creates an autonomous material that moves without electronic stimulation; door opens for future chemical robots: they will be “self organized” and generate their own control and mechanical signals from within