This year has had its share of science and technology advances from Army researchers. The RDECOM Research Laboratory, the Army’s corporate research laboratory (ARL), has the mission to discover, innovate and transition science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power. The lab’s chief scientist, Dr. Alexander Kott, handpicked the “coolest” advances to showcase what…
Pressure Tuned Magnetism Paves the Way for Novel Electronic Devices
High-Efficiency Discovery Drives Low-Power Computing
R&D Magazine’s Holiday Gift Guide for Science Lovers
1. She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity by Carl Zimmer Award-winning, celebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly…
Friendly Electromagnetic Pulse Improves Survival for Electronics
Sun-Soaking Device Turns Water into Superheated Steam
MIT engineers have built a device that soaks up enough heat from the sun to boil water and produce “superheated” steam hotter than 100 degrees Celsius, without any expensive optics. On a sunny day, the structure can passively pump out steam hot enough to sterilize medical equipment, as well as to use in cooking and…
Shape-Shifting Origami Could Help Antenna Systems Adapt on the Fly
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have devised a method for using an origami-based structure to create radio frequency filters that have adjustable dimensions, enabling the devices to change which signals they block throughout a large range of frequencies. The new approach to creating these tunable filters could have a variety of uses, from…
Helping the Blind to Navigate
A New Light on Significantly Faster Computer Memory Devices
A New Way to Provide Cooling Without Power
A Big Step Toward the Practical Application of 3D Holography With High-Performance Computers
Japanese computer scientists have developed a special purpose computer that can project high-quality three-dimensional (3-D) holography as video. The research team led by Tomoyoshi Ito, who is a professor at the Institute for Global Prominent Research, Chiba University, has been working to increase the speed of the holographic projections by developing new hardware. Holography has…
A Water Treatment Breakthrough, Inspired by a Sea Creature
Inkjet Printers Can Produce Cheap Micro-Waveguides For Optical Computers
Scientists from ITMO University have proposed a new technology for creating optical micro-waveguides using inkjet printing. Using this method it is possible to quickly create waveguides with the necessary parameters without expensive equipment and complex procedures. The new technology is optimized for the production of optical elements on an industrial scale. The results are published…
Electrical Cable Triggers Lightweight, Fire-Resistant Cladding Discovery
A University of Melbourne researcher has led the successful development of an organic, non-combustible and lightweight cladding core – a product that was previously thought to be impossible to create. Typically, lightweight cladding is made from organic, carbon-based, composite materials like plastic, but these materials by their nature are combustible. Non-combustible materials like steel, ceramic…
Air Gaps Key to Next-Gen Nanochips
A new type of transistor—which uses air gaps to eliminate the need for semiconductors—could help scientists produce more efficient nanochips. RMIT University researchers have engineered a new type of transistor that send electrons through narrow air gaps where they can travel unimpeded, rather than sending electrical currents through silicon. “Every computer and phone has millions…
New AI Computer Chips Combines Memory and Computation
New computer chips that combine memory with computation have enhanced the performance and reduced the energy needed for artificial intelligence systems. Princeton University researchers have developed the chip, which works with standard programming languages that could be particularly useful for phones, watches and other devices that rely on high-performance computing but have limited battery life.…
Simple, Scalable Wireless System Uses the RFID Tags on Billions of Products to Sense Contamination
MIT Media Lab researchers have developed a wireless system that leverages the cheap RFID tags already on hundreds of billions of products to sense potential food contamination—with no hardware modifications needed. With the simple, scalable system, the researchers hope to bring food-safety detection to the general public. Food safety incidents have made headlines around the…
Scientists Improve Smart Phone Battery Life By Up to 60 Percent
Batteryless Smart Devices Closer to Reality
Researchers at the University of Waterloo have taken a huge step towards making smart devices that do not use batteries or require charging. These battery-free objects, which feature an IP address for internet connectivity, are known as Internet of Things (IoT) devices. If an IoT device can operate without a battery it lowers maintenance costs…
New Light Detector Technology Mirrors Gecko Eardrums
Using an approach that is similar to how geckos process noise, researchers from Stanford University have created a new photodetector that can identify the angle of incoming light. The technology could have a variety of applications, including lens-less cameras, augmented reality and the robotic vision required for autonomous vehicles. “Making a little pixel on your…
Brain-Inspired Methods to Improve Wireless Communications
Researchers are always seeking more reliable and more efficient communications, for everything from televisions and cellphones to satellites and medical devices. One technique generating buzz for its high signal quality is a combination of multiple-input multiple-output techniques with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing. Virginia Tech researchers Lingjia Liu and Yang (Cindy) Yi are using brain-inspired machine…
Spinning the Light: The World’s Smallest Optical Gyroscope
The article was posted online by Nature Photonics on October 19 and can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-018-0266-5 Gyroscopes are devices that help vehicles, drones, and wearable and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in three-dimensional space. They are commonplace in just about every bit of technology we rely on every day. Originally, gyroscopes were sets…
New Technology Encodes and Processes Video Orders of Magnitude Faster than Current Methods
Understanding the Building Blocks for an Electronic Brain
Computer bits are binary, with a value of 0 or 1. By contrast, neurons in the brain can have all kinds of different internal states, depending on the input that they received. This allows the brain to process information in a more energy-efficient manner than a computer. University of Groningen (UG) physicists are working on…