Future

Stony Brook Hackathon Inspires Cutting-Edge Student-Built Technologies

Over the President’s Day weekend, Stony Brook University welcomed 174 students to the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology to compete in a 40-hour IoT and security hackathon. The event, called Hack@CEWIT, featured student programmers and designers from all over the U.S. A prize money of $7,000 was disbursed to the competitors who… Read More
Making Fuel Cells Cars More Affordable

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have developed an inexpensive and efficient alternative catalyst material for fuel cells, a cleaner source of electricity than natural gas or coal. Their paper is published in Small. A fuel cell uses fuels, such as hydrogen, to produce cleaner and more efficient energy than conventional combustion sources. Additionally,… Read More
Princess Leia of ‘Star Wars’ Inspires 3D Images That Float in Air

A team of researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU) has developed a revolutionary method to produce 3D image projections similar to the Princess Leia 3D message used in the original “Star Wars” movie. The method could lead to real-life applications of volumetric images seen in science fiction movies, such as “Avatar,” “Iron Man,” and… Read More
Simple Test for Fluoride Can Help Prevent Crippling Bone Disease

A simple test to detect fluoride in drinking water quickly could prevent skeletal fluorosis, a crippling bone disease, according to a team of researchers from the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies and the Water Innovation and Research Centre (WIRC) at the University of Bath, UK. The study is published in the journal Chemical Communications. Fluoride is… Read More
Acoustic Tractor Beam Opens Door to Levitating Humans

Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol, UK, have developed an acoustic tractor beam that’s so powerful that it could lead to the levitation of drug capsules or micro-surgical implements within the body and even humans. They believe it’s the “world’s most powerful acoustic tractor beam.” The study is published… Read More
New Method for Testing Potential Antibiotics ‘Puts Bacteria to Work for Us’

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have developed a method to quickly test hundreds of thousands of potential infection-fighting drugs, which involves constructing bacteria to produce and test molecules that could be self-damaging. This research comes at a pivotal time, for humans are increasingly becoming immune to existing antibiotics. The method is described… Read More
Scientists 3D Print Super-Soft Brain-Like Tissue

A team of researchers from Imperial College London and King’s College London has developed a new technique for creating 3D structures that can be used to replicate tissues and biological organs. The study is published in Scientific Reports. Organ printing The study of organ printing uses 3D printing techniques to produce artificially constructed device for… Read More
Trash-Talking AI Could Help Humans Get Along with Each Other

Brigham Young University computer science professors Jacob Crandall and Michael Goodrich, along with a team of researchers from MIT and other international universities, have created an algorithm that enables machines to compromise and cooperate instead of compete. The researchers are hoping that through their study they can improve the way humans interact with each other.… Read More
Computer Vision-Motor Tests Predict Baseball Batting Ability

A team of researchers from Duke Health has sharpened a digital method to test vision, sensory, and motor skills in baseball batters. The computer testing could serve as a new tool for baseball scouts in assessing a player’s skills, or for developing training programs to improve performance on the field. Duke Health is a research… Read More
Duke’s ‘Laser Evaporation Technology’ Makes ‘Impossible’ Solar Materials Possible

A team of researchers at Duke University has developed an efficient method to create hybrid thin-film materials, which could aid in the development of solar cells, light emitting diodes, photodetectors, and optoelectronic devices. The researchers claim that this method, which uses perovskites, allows for the creation of solar materials “that would otherwise be difficult or… Read More
Tweets, Coupled with AI, Make for a Better Flood Early-Warning System

Researchers at the University of Dundee, UK, are bringing Twitter, citizen science and AI techniques together to develop an early-warning system for flood-prone communities. The study was led by Dr. Roger Wang, lecturer of fluid mechanics in civil engineering at the University of Dundee. The research is published in the journal Computers & Geosciences. Rising… Read More
New Brain Mapping Technique Can Reveal Your IQ

A team of international researchers led by the University of Cambridge and the U.S. National Institutes of Health has used a new technique to map the connectivity of human brains by using brain scans from a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner and found a correlation between the level of brain connectivity and IQ. The study… Read More
Universities Accepting Bitcoin for Tuition

A handful of universities across the world is currently accepting bitcoin for payments, with Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland and FPT University in Vietnam being the two most recent additions. They join The King’s College in New York, the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, the University of Cumbria in the UK,… Read More
Metal Printing Opens Door to Flexible, Self-Healing Electronics

A team of researchers from North Carolina State University (NC State) has developed a method to create flexible, stretchable electronics capable of self-healing by directly printing metal circuits. The technique is applicable with existing manufacturing systems that require direct printing technologies, and can be used with multiple metals and substrates. The paper, “Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) Printing… Read More
TU Eindhoven Is Turning Smartphones Into Tricorders

Just like the tricorder popularized by Star Trek, smartphones outfitted with a micro-spectometer recently developed by researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands could be used by users to glean crucial information from the environment around them. The new micro-spectrometer is small enough to fit in a cell phone, but precise… Read More