A team of engineers at MIT recently came up with a new system that allows the users to control water movement on the surface with the help of light. This new development may open up scope for several new developing technologies like microfluidic diagnostic devices whose valves and channels can easily be reorganized on field or fly systems that would separate oil from water at drilling rigs. The team working on this project had Kripa Varanasi as the head who is also an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. the rest of the team had members from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals from Saudi Arabia and MIT.
Understanding The Damaging Effects Of Microscopy Technique
A new research recently revealed that microscopy can have severely damaging effects which means it is not that good as we were all expecting it to be. It was being counted as those technologies that could help the scientists manipulate as well as study everything at a very microscopic scale. The Focused Ion Beam Milling process makes use of some highly energy filled particles for cutting and analyzing materials measuring one-thousandth of a human hair strand. This technology had remarkable ability to alter scientific fields right from materials science to biology and engineering as well as earth sciences. FIB has now become an essential tool for numerous applications like automotive applications, nuclear and aerospace engineering, as well as prototyping of micro-fluids and micro-electronics.
Using Lasers To Scale Jet Disintegration
There are so many processes like propulsion, where the fluid is injected in a supercritical thermodynamic conditions laden environment with fluid. However, under such situations, interaction and mixing dynamics do not work as they are supposed under their defined gas and liquid phases. More often than not, gas turbines, rocket engines, as well as oil burners experience difficult conditions that are ahead of critical conditions of their regular fuel, therefore, supercritical atomized sprays are used for coating tablets in the manufacturing process of medicines. Under both cases, one needs to have a precise understanding of dynamics about how these fluids break up and disperse around. A good understanding can always help in fundamental improvements of the ways systems like these are built.
Transforming Optical Communications With Nanoantennas
A team of researchers working at Columbia Engineering recently came up with a new method to control the propagation of light through restricted pathways as well as waveguides with more efficiency with nanoantennas. In order to demonstrate this technology, they created a device with integrated photons that were not only with record-small footprints but also had the capability to maintain optimum performance over an unprecedented range of broader wavelengths. The Photonic ICs or the Integrated Circuits are extracted through the propagation of light under optical waveguides, light propagation control is one of the core issues in the creation of such chips, it makes use of light in place of the electron for transportation of data. This new method developed by Yu’s team can easily lead to more potent, faster, and efficient optical chips, this, in turn, can easily transform optical communications as well as optical signal processing.
Lenovo Brings Forth A New VR-Supporting Workstation
Lenovo recently announced their completely new product the ThinkStation P320, a VR-ready or supporting workstation that can easily handle the most complicated two and three dimensional CAD workflows. Just like its fellow VR-ready stations, the P320 promises some of the most developed hardware configurations that are available in market these days. P320 can easily by loaded with Intel Xeon E3-1200 v6 Processor or any other 7th generation Intel Core Processor, whether it is from i3, i5, and i7 product series. When paired with NVIDIA’s Pascal next-generation GPUs, along with 64GB of 2400MHz ECC UDIMM DDR4 or the Quadro P4000, it can be proven that P320 has a very firm hardware.
WaterSim For Tackling Water Sustainability
There is no denying of the fact that simulation and modeling happen to be one of the most important parts of engineering tool boxes. These help the engineers in analysis, creation of models, perform tests over products and systems without any physical prototype. But what needs to be done if the model solution ends up being a problem, but there is not a single tool that fits into the equation. However, a team of engineering researchers at the Arizona State University solved the problem by building their own solution.
Ooho!! The Consumable Spherical Water Bottle
A small entrepreneurs team working in association with Skipping Rocks Lab recently came in news for its crowdfunding campaign for mass production of a consumable water bottling device that is capable of generating a consumable water bottle called Ooho! It is actually a spherical blob of water that is stored in a very thin membrane that can be popped in the mouth easily. The team aims to raise an amount worth half a million for publicity and promotion of this idea that can save a lot from plastic packaging waste. Skipping Rocks Labs happens to be a UK-based startup company that targets to create better and more eco-friendly packaging technologies for all kind of products. The concept behind Ooho!
Introducing A Device That Can Extract Water From Dry Air And Energy From Sunlight
Just imagine a place where water comes from air and energy from the sun. this is the kind if future that is moving towards it. There are ways being created that will help in turning this pretty picture into reality. Recently, a progress was made, when a team of creators came up with a new kind of water harvester that only uses mild sunlight that can pull gallons of water from dry air. The device can work pretty well even in the conditions when air has humidity as less as twenty percent. The solar-powered harvester was built at MIT with a special kind of material known as MOF or Metal Organic Framework that was generated at University of California, Berkeley.
3-D Printing And Shape-Shifting Objects
A team of researchers was recently able to come up with a 3D printing procedure for creation of objects that can change into a wide range of various shapes as a response to higher temperature. The team built the objects by printing different layers of shape memory polymers with every layer designed to react differently upon exposure to heat. A professor at the George W- Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering under the Georgia Institute of Technology, Jerry Qi, explains, “This new approach significantly simplifies and increases the potential of 4D printing by incorporating the mechanical programming post-processing step directly into the 3-D printing process. This allows high-resolution 3D-printed components to be designed by computer simulation, 3D printed, and then directly and rapidly transformed into new permanent configurations by simply heating.”
Hidden Mines Can Now Be Hunted With Knifefish Submersible Drones
The General Dynamics Mission Systems (GDMS) team, known for the development of knifefish autonomous submersible, recently made the news of the successful completion of the mine-hunting evaluation of its drone public. The project was carried out in association with the U.S. Navy and was carried on the Boston coast. The evaluation made use of Navy mine…
You Can Now Have PLEN Cube As Your Portable Assistant Robot
Natsuo Akazawa was quite fascinated with the concept of robots as he watched then in television series, fiction novels, and other sci-fi novels. His family owned a business that was included in the manufacturing of aerospace components, providing a strong mechanical strength. While he was selecting a career path for himself, he selected robots and created projects that were inspired by cartoons and toys that he saw in his childhood. After a few highly successful humanoid robotics projects, Natsuo is now running a crowdfunding campaign for his latest project called PLEN Cube which is a portable personal assistance robot. For this project, he worked in association with PLENGoer Robotics for this purpose and together they are now running a crowdfunding campaign for this robot.
Using Quantum Dots For Tracking Individual Blood Cells
For a few specific frequencies of short-wave infrared light, maximum biological tissues are almost as transparent as a glass surface. Now, there are some researchers that created a few small particles that can easily be injected into a human body from where those penetrating frequencies are emitted. This new development may offer a completely new way for seeking deep into structures of the internal body such as the fine blood vessels networks. These new findings are extracted from the utilization of light-emitting particles known as quantum dots. A paper was recently written on this topic, his name is Oliver Bruns, he is a member of MIT’s departments of biological engineering, chemistry, chemical engineering as well as mechanical engineering.
Duoskin – A Temporary Tattoo Device Developed By MIT Engineers
A team of researchers from MIT found itself quite fascinated towards wearable devices but needed to create a more efficient wearable device. Hsin-Liu Kao, Andres Calvo, and Chris Schmandt found that manufacturing process for wearable devices was quite costly and materials used in it are also quite exclusive that came mostly from material science and medical companies. Their prime goal was to build durable and skin-friendly interfaces that can be placed over skin and can be availed by anyone. They team started working in association with Asta Roseway and Christian Holz who hailed from Microsoft Research team. Finally, they came up with a complete range of devices that used a gold leaf as a fundamental element/ DuoSkin has the ability to get attached to your skin directly, it is very very thin and has proven to be a magnificent material for prototyping of ideas that can be used for commercially available materials.
Mass Production of Printed Electronics
Memory devices happen to be an array of electronics functions that have displays, sensors, and logic. In last few years, all of these have undergone a lot of changes which signifies better integration and enhanced performance. Ou regular lives are embedded with many such devices that have lower performance, for example, the electronic functions implemented over the computer chips present in your debit or credit cards, smart tags, and several other in-home appliances. As the memory devices are becoming more and more flexible, the days of their below level performance are far behind now. But ease of their integration and fabrication is getting better and better. But now, a researchers team from Munich University of Applied Sciences in association with INRS-EMT from Canada brought things to a better end.
Affordable Biological Sample Measurement With Glass Tube Sensors
A team of researchers recently discovered a complete use for a basic glass tube piece – weighing things. A sensor fitted in glass tube will really speed up tests done for examining chemical toxic levels and would throw some light on growth of planets and development of biomaterials. The research was led by an assistant bioengineering professor, WIlliam Grover, who is currently working at UC RIverside’s Bourns College of Engineering. His main accomplice was a doctoral student from Grover’s lab, Shirin Mesbah Oskui. The paper published by the team speaks of development of a inexpensive and basic sensor that will be able to scale volume, mass, density of microgram scale biological sample present in fluid. This research has several important applications in research related with toxicity as well as several other domains like biomaterials engineering, plant sciences, and developmental biology.
Restricting Lead Spread In Water Pipes With Predictive Modeling
With an aim to enhance the purity and safety of of drinking water, a St. Louis located team if engineers at the Washington University came up with a new technology capable of modelling and tracking down the lead particles build up. This can be done while the plumbing teams are working with partial lead service line (LSL) replacement of old pipes. The infusion of lead into water supplies takes place because of corrosion which is also a very serious risk related with lead water pipes. It can contaminate the water and lead to various health hazards such as having an adverse effect on development of children or leading to detrimental neurological disorders.
Cooling Electronics With Jumping Water Droplets
A team of engineers recently developed a new technology that can cool down hotspots inside high performing electronics by using the very same procedure that is used for cleaning wings of cicadas. When these water droplets fuse into each other, a reduction in surface area leads to releasing of very small quantity of energy. So, as long as, the surface below has enough hydrophobic character so as to repel water, the energy is enough to repel the merged droplet away. Over the cicada’s wings, the very same procedure helps in driving away droplets for catching and removing dirt and debris particles. The new technology that has been created by this team at DUke University in association with Intel Corporation, the droplets simply jump towards the hotspots cooling them right where the heat exceeds tolerable threshold for the device.
Car Horn Emojis: Coming Soon From The House Of Honda
Honda recently declared a major update in the typical vehicle horn system. The new feature debuting in it are Horn Emojis, so now you can express your emotions not only with your smartphone but also with the horn of your Honda car. It will be an integrated vehicle-to-human and vehicle-to-vehicle communication system for present day driver. It will be offered as a standard feature in the latest 2018 Odyssey minivan that is slated to debut this spring. Honda Horn Emojis provide costlier horn sounds as compared with customary car horns, offering a new communication way to all drivers.
Disney Makes It Mark Again As Researchers Demonstrate Playing VR Catch With An Actual Ball
Imagine if someone made you wear VR goggles on your head and throws a ball pointing at you, will you be able to catch it? No, right? The ball would pass in the most harmless manner and to the ground as you wouldn’t see it coming. But what if someone could track the ball and feed its movement trajectory into your VR glasses. Will you catch it then? The research team from Disney believes yes the person would be able to catch the ball. They were able to accomplish this fact by installing predictive trajectory algorithms, it predicted that the chances of the ball being caught by the subject will be increased to 95 percent.
Gripper Inspired By Octopus Tentacle
A Germany based Industrial automation company called Festo, recently developed a bionic gripper called “OctopusGripper’. The focus area of company includes a pneumatic servo pneumatic and electric automation technique. The new equipment is definitely attracting a lot of technical media attention lately. The name seems quite apt for this device. The inspiration came from a octopus tentacle. It has an edge because of its ability to grip object securely but softly. It can also pick up and hold a large variety of various shapes. You can always see in the video that shows how it picking up canister-shaped things, water bottles, glass, as well as balls. The team adds, “The octopus is a fascinating creature. As it has no skeleton and is made almost entirely of soft muscle, it is also extremely flexible and manoeuvrable. This not only means it can swim agilely in all directions, but also grip a wide range of objects in a form-fitting manner.”