Engineers have developed dynamic porous polymer coatings that enable inexpensive and scalable ways to control light and heat in buildings. They took advantage of the optical switchability of PPCs in the solar wavelengths to regulate solar heating and daylighting, and extended the concept to thermal infrared wavelengths to modulate heat radiated by objects.
Read morePhysicists predicted the Hubble Space Telescope would see a rising vapor plume as the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet crashed into the far side of Jupiter in 1994. And sure enough, the plume produced by the impact matched their computational analysis.
Read moreA high-resolution bioprinting process has been developed: Cells can now be embedded in a 3D matrix printed with micrometer precision — at a printing speed of one meter per second, orders of magnitude faster than previously possible. Tissue growth and the behavior of cells can be controlled and investigated particularly well by embedding the cells in a delicate 3D framework. This is achieved using so called 'bioprinting' techniques.
Read moreResearchers have found a new way to optimize nickel by unlocking properties that could enable numerous applications, from biosensors to quantum computing.
Read moreEngineers have found a way to significantly speed up the planning process required for a robot to adjust its grasp on an object by pushing that object against a stationary surface. Whereas traditional algorithms would require tens of minutes for planning out a sequence of motions, the new team's approach shaves this planning process down to less than a second.
Read moreThreats to coral reefs are everywhere — rising water temperatures, ocean acidification, coral bleaching, fishing and other human activities. But new research shows that 3-D printed coral can provide a structural starter kit for reef organisms and can become part of the landscape as fish and coral build their homes around the artificial coral.
Read moreSystems of tiny robots may someday build high-performance structures, from airplanes to space settlements.
Read moreNew insights into how the molecular organization of charged molecules can be regulated to transform large-scale structures from ribbons to scroll-like cochleate structures could inform future drug-delivery strategies.
Read moreHow risky is travel in the US? It gets tricky. Despite a lot of research on the dangers of traffic injury and death, there's a lack of clarity on the role of the built environment (roadway designs and adjoining development) and its risk effects. Before we can know how risky a given built environment is, we have to know how many people are traveling there, and in many cases, for pedestrians and cyclists, this data is not available.
Read moreA team of acoustic researchers has built macroscopic crystal structures that use internal rotation to attenuate the propagation of waves. The method makes it possible to build very light and stiff materials that can also 'swallow' low frequencies very well, as they report.
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