science wire

After touch screens, researchers demonstrate electronic recording and replay of human touch Researchers at the University of California, San Diego report a breakthrough in technology that could pave the way for digital systems to record, store, edit and replay information in a dimension that goes beyond what we can see or hear: touch.

Electronic devices with touchscreens are ubiquitous, and one key piece of technology makes them possible: transparent conductors. However, the cost and the physical limitations of the material these conductors are usually made of are hampering progress toward flexible touchscreen devices. Fortunately, a research collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University has shown a new a way to design transparent conductors using metal nanowires that could enable less expensive - and flexible - touchscreens.

New method for turning genes on and off could enable more complex synthetic biology circuits. MIT researchers have shown that they can turn genes on or off inside yeast and human cells by controlling when DNA is copied into messenger RNA - an advance that could allow scientists to better understand the function of those genes.

Q&A with Jonathan Zittrain delves into recent cyber attacks on news media by the Syrian Electronic Army (Harvard Gazette) Computer network hackers calling themselves the Syrian Electronic Army ea

In a materials science laboratory at Harvard University, a transparent disk connected to a laptop fills the room with music-it's the "Morning" prelude from Peer Gynt , played on an ionic speaker.

Eye doctors at the University of California, Berkeley, are opening a new clinic to help combat an alarming rise in myopia, or nearsightedness, which they attribute partly to the overuse of handheld electronics.

New technique creates highly detailed, accurate 3-D maps in real time. Computer scientists at MIT and the National University of Ireland (NUI) at Maynooth have developed a mapping algorithm that creates dense, highly detailed 3-D maps of indoor and outdoor environments in real time. The researchers tested their algorithm on videos taken with a low-cost Kinect camera, including one that explores the serpentine halls and stairways of MIT's Stata Center.

Columbia Journalism School, founded a century ago to train generations of reporters, was only 7 years old when Pittsburgh's KDKA made the first broadcast by a licensed radio station.

Specialist robots will learn how to act intelligently in real-world environments, supporting security guards or care home assistants, in a multi-million Euro project. The aim of the research is to create mobile robots that are able to operate intelligently and independently, based on an understanding of 3D space and how this space changes over time, from milliseconds to months.

University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface , with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.

Chemist Paul Alivisatos, one of the pioneers of nanoscience, has been appointed to the Samsung Distinguished Chair in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at UC  Berkeley in recognition of his many scientific achievements.

MIT Technology Review has named Liangfang Zhang, a professor of nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, among the top 35 young innovators of 2013.

PA 268/13 To satisfy the world's desire for ever more processing power, at ever diminishing energy cost, in even tinier devices, scientists are looking to spintronics (spin transport electronics) to provide the next generation of high-speed, high-efficiency electronic devices. New research, led by a team of physicists at The University of Nottingham , and published on 20 August 2013, , reports on the development of a new antiferromagnetic spintronic material, tetragonal CuMnAs, which could provide one of the answers.

Applied physicists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have demonstrated that they can change the intensity, phase, and polarization of light rays using a hologram-like design decorated with nanoscale structures. As a proof of principle, the researchers have used it to create an unusual state of light called a radially polarized beam, which-because it can be focused very tightly-is important for applications like high-resolution lithography and for trapping and manipulating tiny particles like viruses.

The walls have ears: Princeton researchers develop walls that can listen, and talk Posted August 20, 2013; 11:30 a.m. by John Sullivan, Office of Engineering Using a modern twist on a t

UC San Diego faculty members have garnered three of 15 Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative awards granted by the Department of Defense this year.

New prototype device recognizes electrical properties of infected cells as signatures of disease. Researchers at MIT have found a way to detect early-stage malarial infection of blood cells by measuring changes in the infected cells' electrical properties. The scientists, from the laboratories of MIT's Anantha Chandrakasan and Subra Suresh - who is now president of Carnegie Mellon University - have built an experimental microfluidic device that takes a drop of blood and streams it across an electrode that measures a signal differentiating infected cells from uninfected cells.

A physicist at Imperial College London who works with lasers is among 7 researchers who received the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

ANN ARBOR-Loosely inspired by a biological brain's approach to making sense of visual information, a University of Michigan researcher is leading a project to build alternative computer hardware that

New equipment allows engineering researchers to conduct research in a room that looks like something out of science fiction. Thanks to some new equipment, researchers in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering are now able to conduct research on antennas in a setting that seems straight out of science fiction.

We might be one step closer to an Internet-of-things reality. University of Washington engineers have created a new wireless communication system that allows devices to interact with each other without relying on batteries or wires for power.

The new electron beam writer housed in the Nano3 cleanroom facility at the Qualcomm Institute is important for electrical engineering professor Shadi Dayeh's two major areas of research.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a unique new twist to the story of graphene, sheets of pure c

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. The College of Engineering's Networking and Security Research Center (NSRC) is now the Institute of Networking and Security Research. Thomas La Porta, the Leonhard Chair Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and director of the new institute, said the name change and elevation of title are meant to accurately reflect the organization's growth and success since its inception in 2003.

Media Releases Matter and Material Materials Research SwissFEL A terahertz laser developed at the Paul Scherrer Institute makes it possible to control a material's magnetisation at a timescale of picoseconds (0.000 000 000 001 seconds).

To understand the properties of non-Newtonian fluids, 20 middle-school-aged girls walk on a mixture of water and cornstarch outside Cornell's Human Ecology Building July 29.

6 August 2013 Thanks to advanced electrical wiring developed for space, some racing drivers are now steering sleeker and potentially faster cars in competitions here on Earth.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (08/02/2013) —A natural anti-inflammatory compound, a smartphone-based breathalyzer and a plastic bead that cuts off the blood supply to cancerous tumors are just

Associate Professor Gianluca Iaccarino will lead a government-funded project that will use the next generation of supercomputers to model techniques that could dramatically increase the efficiency of solar power.

A leader in computational materials design will bring an industry perspective to the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) this year.

AUSTIN, Texas — This summer, a radio navigation research team from The University of Texas at Austin set out to discover whether they could subtly coerce a 213-foot yacht off its course, using a custom-made GPS device.

An Oxford University scientist has been elected into the Royal Academy of Engineering. Professor Zhanfeng Cui was among 60 new Fellows announced at the organisation's annual general meeting last week.

Imperial academics received a record haul of honours from a prestigious engineering academy this month.

When University of Pennsylvania nanoscientists created beautiful, tiled patterns with flat nanocrystals, they were left with a mystery: why did some sets of crystals arrange themselves in an alternating, herringbone style, even though it wasn't the simplest pattern?

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Three Penn State researchers are among the inaugural winners of $1.6 million in scientific grants from the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, the organization announced today (July 25). A total of eight grants were made by the organization, part of the Pittsburgh Foundation, to support cutting-edge scientific research across Pennsylvania.

Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed an inexpensive new way to grow thin films of a material prized in the semiconductor and photovoltaic industries, an achievement that could bring high-end solar cells within reach of consumer pocketbooks.

UAlberta student team is putting its underwater robotic vehicle to the test against more than 30 teams from around the world.

The know-how of Imperial academics helped a BBC journalist to design a mock mission to Mars, which features extensively across the network this week.

A research team led by Ali Javey, UC Berkeley associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has created the first user-interactive sensor network on flexible plastic. The new electronic skin, or e-skin, responds to touch by instantly lighting up. The more intense the pressure, the brighter the light it emits.

Robots can do a lot for us: they can explore space or they can cut our toenails. But do advances in robotics and artificial intelligence hold hidden threats? Three leaders in their fields answer questions about our relationships with robots.

Ways of storing energy from sustainable sources and improving surgical robotic technology are projects receiving funds from the UK Government.

ANN ARBOR-Physicists at the University of Michigan say they have devised a more elegant way to fine-tune the behavior of topological insulators-peculiar, two-faced materials whose electrical properties differ markedly between their surface and their interior.

The University of Liverpool has been awarded  £3.3 million by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to establish state-of-the-art facilities to support the development of advanced electrochemical energy storage devices for grid scale applications.