Lead, arsenic, and other heavy metals are increasingly present in water systems around the world due to human activities, such as pesticide use and, more recently, the inadequate disposal of electronic waste. Chronic exposure to even trace levels of these contaminants, at concentrations of parts per billion, can cause debilitating health conditions in pregnant women,…

Sandia National Laboratories robotics experts are working on a way to intercept enemy unmanned aircraft systems midflight. They successfully tested their concept indoors with a swarm of four unmanned aircraft systems that flew in unison, each carrying one corner of a net. Acting as a team, they intercepted the flying target, trapped it in air…

An ultraviolet spectrograph (UVS) designed and built by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is the first scientific instrument to be delivered for integration onto the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft. Scheduled to launch in 2022 and arrive at Jupiter in 2030, JUICE will spend at least three years making detailed observations in…

A new device to help homeowners cut electricity bills also could provide more efficient and safer cooling options for companies and vehicles. Purdue University researchers developed their device to decrease energy consumption of the vapor-compression heat pump cycle, which is commonly used in homes, businesses and vehicles for cooling and heating. The team created a…

Legit​ announced today the launch of their new collaboration software geared towards the life sciences. This first of its kind enterprise software allows companies to identify, connect, and collaborate with internal and external experts within the life sciences. The platform’s primary goal is to address the collaboration barriers within the life sciences caused by compliance…

David L. Chandler | MIT News Office In many industrial processes, such as in bioreactors that produce fuels or pharmaceuticals, foam can get in the way. Frothy bubbles can take up a lot of space, limiting the volume available for making the product and sometimes gumming up pipes and valves or damaging living cells. Companies…

A joint project between Monash University and Eastern Health’s Turning Point, are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to streamline the coding of national suicide-related ambulance data to help paramedics respond more effectively and ultimately prevent potential suicide rates. Ambulances are often the first point of contact in a crisis, making ambulance clinical records a unique data…

Southwest Research Institute, a leading innovator of machine learning technologies, has developed a motion prediction system that enhances pedestrian detection for automated vehicles. The computer vision tool uses a novel deep-learning algorithm to predict motion by observing real-time biomechanical movements with the pelvic area being a key indicator for changes. “For instance, if a pedestrian…

Pico Technology announces the PicoScope 6000E Series FlexRes oscilloscopes, featuring 8 channels with 500 MHz bandwidth, 16 digital channels, and resolution of 8, 10 or 12 bits. The products work with PicoScope 6 application software, which takes full advantage of the latest PC performance and display capabilities, showing clean, crisp waveforms on screens of any…

In 2016, the Containerized Bio-Containment System (CBCS), developed by Kansas City-based MRIGlobal — with support from HHI Corp., GPA Services L.L.C., the U.S. State Department, and The Paul G. Allen Ebola Program — was named one of the R&D 100 winners. The system is a first-of-its-kind, flyable medical transport unit and features full biocontainment. It…

Elysium, the global interoperability solutions provider, has integrated its advanced suite of software to support realizing MBD/MBE with Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform to aid users in achieving fast, accurate, compliance-checked transfer of data in multi-CAD environments. The new Elysium integration also ensures that customized quality checks, geometry/PMI/attribute validation, and geometry simplification are done automatically within…

Servier, an independent international pharmaceutical company, and Oncodesign, a French biopharmaceutical company, announce reaching an important milestone in their strategic partnership on research and development of potential drug candidates for Parkinson’s Disease. In March 2019, Servier and Oncodesign entered into a research and development partnership involving the LRRK2 kinase inhibitors derived from Oncodesign’s proprietary Nanocyclix…

Rob Matheson | MIT News Office To combat supply chain counterfeiting, which can cost companies billions of dollars annually, MIT researchers have invented a cryptographic ID tag that’s small enough to fit on virtually any product and verify its authenticity. A 2018 report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates about $2 trillion…

The National Aeronautic Association announced today that work being done by the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Lone Star UAS Center of Excellence & Innovation and NASA is among nine aviation and space achievements that will compete for the 2019 Robert J. Collier Trophy for excellence in aeronautics and astronautics in America. “We were flattered when…

When containing a massive disaster like an oil spill, small microbes play a big role. Arezoo Ardekani, a Purdue University associate professor of mechanical engineering, has published research that describes the complex hydrodynamics of microorganisms at liquid-liquid and gas-liquid interfaces, showing that microbes may flock to areas where surfactant has been applied. On April 20,…

A fresh start for 2020 Welcome to the new R&D World! A lot has happened since the last print issue of this venerable brand hit your desks, and we are proud of the new look and feel of the publication. Formerly known as simply, “R&D,” the brand was purchased out of bankruptcy by Cleveland-based WTWH…

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Tennessee Valley Authority have signed a memorandum of understanding to evaluate a new generation of flexible, cost-effective advanced nuclear reactors. Under the agreement, ORNL and TVA will collaborate on ways to improve the economic feasibility of potentially licensing, building, operating and maintaining one or…

Drug discovery software at Southwest Research Institute is expanding the capacity to virtually screen drug compounds for possible treatment of coronavirus and other infectious diseases. SwRI’s Rhodium virtual screening tool recently evaluated 2 million drug compounds in a few days, hoping to identify high-probability drugs that may have efficacy against the coronavirus with minimal adverse…

You don’t need a big laser to make laser-induced graphene (LIG). Scientists at Rice University, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT Knoxville) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are using a very small visible beam to burn the foamy form of carbon into microscopic patterns. The labs of Rice chemist James Tour, which discovered the…

Purdue innovators are at Silicon Valley’s premier chip-design conference to unveil technology that is 100 times more resilient to electromagnetic attacks to secure Internet of Things devices. Security of embedded devices is essential in today’s internet-connected world. Security is typically guaranteed mathematically using a small secret key to encrypt the private messages. When these computationally…

Thermo Fisher Scientific today announced that several of its analytical instruments and solutions have received industry recognition through multiple respected awards. These award-winning analytical solutions are enabling scientists and organizations to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer by unlocking a greater understanding of the human proteome, advancing the development of novel biotherapeutics and enhancing…

A cooling unit installed on the roof of Sandia National Laboratories’ supercomputer center saved 554,000 gallons of water during its first six months of operation last year, says David J. Martinez, engineering project lead for Sandia’s Infrastructure Computing Services. The dramatic decrease in water use, important for a water-starved state, could be the model for…

Atomic-scale structural analyses performed at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS) are helping scientists understand the inner workings of the enzyme “assembly lines” that microbes use to produce an important class of compounds, many of which have uses as antibiotics, antifungals, and immunosuppressants. These cellular machines, known as nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs), are large, multi-enzyme clusters that synthesize…

By Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office For some infants, a wet diaper is cause for an instant, vociferous demand to be changed, while other babies may be unfazed and happy to haul around the damp cargo for lengthy periods without complaint. But if worn too long, a wet diaper can cause painful rashes, and…

Who ever said bioengineers can’t get their groove on? The Rice University team led by Antonios Mikos says otherwise with its development of a groovy method to seed sophisticated, 3D-printed tissue-engineering scaffolds with living cells to help heal injuries. The researchers are literally carving grooves into plastic threads used to build the scaffolds. The grooves…