Engineering – Page 6

Crime Prevention, Engineering, Great New Product, Science & Technology News

Proteus becomes the world’s first manufactured non-cuttable material

July 30, 2020

That’s as far as an angle grinder made it through this Proteus non-cuttable bar

Researchers from the UK’s Durham University and Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute claim they’ve come up with the world’s first manufactured non-cuttable material, just 15 percent the density of steel, which they say could make for indestructible bike locks and lightweight armor.

The material, named Proteus, uses ceramic spheres in a cellular aluminum structure to foil angle grinders, drills and the like by creating destructive vibrations that blunt any cutting tools used against it. The researchers took inspiration from the tough, cellular skin of grapefruit and the hard, fracture-resistant aragonite shells of molluscs in their creation of the Proteus design.

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Energy, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Transportation

How ships could produce an unlimited amount of their own fuel

July 28, 2020

The key is this special catalyst.

A new study shows that a lower-cost catalyst could help turn seawater into fuel on ships.

High-performance molybdenum is combined with potassium and gamma alumina to make a scaleable catalyst.
The material costs less than previous versions that worked as efficiently.

Scientists have taken a major step by improving a process for turning seawater into hydrocarbons. The barebones of the technology has existed since a landmark 2014 paper, but scientists have worked since then to make the process energy-efficient and affordable enough to use at scale in the field. This work could be a step toward that threshold.

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Ecological Products, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Solar Power, Tourism

This 100% electric pod inspired by James Bond is the worlds first floating eco-hotel suite!

July 25, 2020

Half the year is over and we haven’t been able to catch a break. To keep my hopes up, I continue to make a travel bucket list, and right now all I want to do is go off-the-grid regardless of the place. And there is nothing more perfect for that than Anthénea which is the world’s first autonomous and eco-friendly floating suite equipped with high-end facilities. This modern pod will literally wash all those worries away and you can continue being an eco-conscious traveler!

Anthénea is a UFO-shaped water suite made in France by veteran designers, engineers, and naval architects, whose vision was to create a nomadic vessel for eco-conscious tourists. It was a project born from the dreams of Jean-Michel Ducancelle, a naval architect, who was inspired by James Bond’s floating pod in ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977). The 50 sqm pod has three living spaces – a living area, a sleeping zone, and a lounge area that features a 360° solarium on its roof for 12 people. All interior elements are entirely made from sustainable materials. Anthénea adapts to a wide temperature range (-30°C to +40°C) and its stabilizing ballasting keeps the seasickness at bay! Coastlines are often overburdened with tourism and Anthénea offers an ecological way to lighten that load while promoting sustainable travel which is our ultimate future.

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Engineering, Medical Breakthrough, new technology, Science & Technology News

Research scientists develop groundbreaking artificial cartilage

July 20, 2020

The new material is strong enough to work in knees

Need some cartilage? There’s a technology for that.

Knee surgery is a frequently-performed procedure across the country. Why? Well, the knees are at work for most of your waking hours, and the same activity that keeps you physically fit can also lead to wear and tear on them. If you’ve ever needed to have work done on the joint itself, you may be aware of the difficulties of coming up with a lasting replacement: until recently, there wasn’t a replacement durable enough for the cartilage in a human knee.

That might no longer be the case, however. At Science Alert, David Nield has the news that a group of researchers, some affiliated with Duke University, have made a breakthrough in replacing cartilage. They’ve come up with a hydrogel that compares favorably to the material currently used for knee replacement surgery:

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Coronavirus, Engineering, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

University of Houston designs device that instantly zaps COVID-19

July 16, 2020

University of Houston has found a way to instantly zap COVID-10.

While the world rushes to find a COVID-19 vaccine, scientists from the University of Houston have found a way to trap and kill the virus — instantly.

The team has designed a “catch and kill” air filter that can nullify the virus responsible for COVID-19. Researchers reported that tests at the Galveston National Laboratory found 99.8 percent of the novel SARS-CoV-2 — which causes COVID-19 — was killed in a single pass through the filter.

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Engineering, quantum computing, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

MIT engineers use ‘artificial atoms’ to make the world’s largest quantum chip of its kind

July 16, 2020

Quantum chips have proved somewhere between difficult and impossible to manufacture

Researchers at MIT have developed a way to manufacturer “artificial atoms” to produce what they claim is the world’s largest quantum chip of its kind.

The atoms have been created in microscopically thin slices of diamond.

The accomplishment “marks a turning point” in the field of quantum processors, said Dirk Englund, associate professor at MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in a statement.

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Engineering, Nanotechnology, new technology, Science & Technology News

Atom-by-atom assembly makes for cheap, tuneable graphene nanoribbons

July 9, 2020

Graphene nanoribbons could serve a variety of purposes, and a new way to produce then could help unleash this potential

The wonder material graphene can take many forms for many different purposes, from transparent films that repel mosquitoes to crumpled balls that could boost the safety of batteries. One that has scientists particularly excited is nanoribbons for applications in energy storage and computing, but producing these ultra-thin strips of graphene has proven a difficult undertaking. Scientists are claiming a breakthrough in this area, devising a method that has enabled them to efficiently produce graphene nanoribbons directly on the surface of semiconductors for the first time.

As opposed to the sheets of carbon atoms arranged in honeycomb patterns that make up traditional graphene, graphene nanoribbons consist of thin strips just a handful of atoms wide. This material has great potential as a cheaper and smaller alternative to silicon transistors that would also run faster and use less power, or as electrodes for batteries that can charge in as little as five minutes.

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Engineering, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Medicine, Science & Technology News

Super-sticky surgical tape patches up organs and peels off harmlessly

July 2, 2020

An MIT team has created surgical tape that can hold strong but also be removed when needed

As helpful as Band-Aids are, ripping them off your skin is never fun – but just imagine having one on your heart or lung. Researchers at MIT have now managed to create surgical tape that can stick to wet surfaces like organs, and more importantly, be removed safely when it’s no longer needed.

Last year, the team developed an impressive new alternative to sutures. Their double-sided tape could be used to patch up incisions or wounds in organs, working within a matter of seconds. It could also be used to attach implantable medical devices to tissues.

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Biotech, Engineering, Famous Inventor, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

The Segway’s inventor has a new project : Manufacturing human organs

June 30, 2020

Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway almost 20 years ago, is still busy inventing. Now, at the age of 69, he is working on the most ambitious project of his career: manufacturing organs

When the FDA approves lab-grown human organs for patients, Dean Kamen wants to be ready to mass-produce them

This past January, the umpteenth version of the Segway Personal Transporter whisked attendees around in its white, egg-shaped seat at CES, the huge annual consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. Called the Segway S-Pod, it drew comparisons to the hover-chairs in Wall-E that shuttled around people so out of shape and blob-like, they’d forgotten how to stand.

This is not how Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway almost 20 years ago, imagined his legacy.

Kamen was inspired to create a device like the Segway in the early ’90s, when he noticed a young man who’d lost his legs in a wheelchair at the mall. It seemed like everywhere Kamen went that night, he bumped into the guy, seeing him unable to get over a curb or reach a high shelf at Radio Shack, too low to be noticed in line at the ice cream counter. Kamen had already been thinking about how to help the disabled. “And I just decided, you know what?” he says. “I’m going to solve that problem.”

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brain hacking, Engineering, new technology, Science & Technology News

Engineers put tens of thousands of artificial brain synapses on a single chip

June 23, 2020

A new MIT-fabricated “brain-on-a-chip” reprocessed an image of MIT’s Killian Court, including sharpening and blurring the image, more reliably than existing neuromorphic designs.

MIT engineers have designed a “brain-on-a-chip,” smaller than a piece of confetti, that is made from tens of thousands of artificial brain synapses known as memristors—silicon-based components that mimic the information-transmitting synapses in the human brain.

The researchers borrowed from principles of metallurgy to fabricate each memristor from alloys of silver and copper, along with silicon. When they ran the chip through several visual tasks, the chip was able to “remember” stored images and reproduce them many times over, in versions that were crisper and cleaner compared with existing memristor designs made with unalloyed elements.

Their results, published today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, demonstrate a promising new memristor design for neuromorphic devices—electronics that are based on a new type of circuit that processes information in a way that mimics the brain’s neural architecture. Such brain-inspired circuits could be built into small, portable devices, and would carry out complex computational tasks that only today’s supercomputers can handle.

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Engineering, new technology, quantum computing, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Honeywell claims to have world’s highest performing quantum computer according to IBM’s benchmark

June 20, 2020

The chamber housing the ion trap in Honeywell’s quantum computer system.

Honeywell said JP Morgan Chase and other customers are using its quantum computer in production, which it claims is the most powerful currently in use based on a benchmark established last year by IBM.

Industrial giant Honeywell on Thursday said it is now live with a quantum computer running client jobs that uses six effective quantum bits, or qubits, and a resulting “volume” of compute that it claims makes the system the most powerful quantum machine currently in production.

The announcement fulfills a vow the company made in March to offer a machine with a quantum volume of 64, as related on March 3rd by ZDNet’s Lawrence Dignan in a conversation with Honeywell’s head of quantum, Tony Uttley, who is president of the division Honeywell Quantum Solutions.

“In March we said within the next three months we’re going to be releasing the world’s highest-performing quantum computer, and so this is a case of Honeywell did what it said it was going to do,” Uttley told ZDNet in a telephone call.

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Driverless vehicles, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Get on board the Sea Train

June 14, 2020

DARPA’s Sea Train concept hopes to enable a convoy of medium-sized unmanned vessels to travel across the ocean without refueling, before splitting up to conduct independent operations. (Courtesy of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Imagine the following scenario.

Four medium-sized U.S. Navy vessels depart from a port along the United States’ coast. There’s no crew aboard any of them.

About 15 nautical miles off the coast, the four vessels rendezvous, autonomously arranging themselves in a line. Using custom mechanisms, they attach to each other to form a train, except they’re in the water and there’s no railroad to guide them. In this configuration the vessels travel 6,500 nautical miles across the open ocean to Southeast Asia. But as they approach their destination, they disconnect, splitting up as each unmanned ship goes its own way to conduct independent operations, such as collecting data with a variety of onboard sensors.

Once those operations are complete, the four reunite, form a train and make the return journey home.

This is the Sea Train, and it may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is investing in several technologies to make it a reality.

Continue reading… “Get on board the Sea Train”