Engineering

Med School Students Can Play “Operation” With These Synthetic Cadavers

Florida company SynDaver is making life-like organs and bodies. But, as teaching models, are they as helpful as the real thing?

November 23, 2015

What Is Li-Fi, and Will It Replace Wi-Fi?

Mobile communications professor Harald Haas has theorized about using LED bulbs to transmit data for years. Now, the technology is a reality.

November 19, 2015

RoboBees Can Fly and Swim. What’s Next? Laser Vision

Swarms of robotic bees, capable of seeing, may soon be able to monitor pollution and traffic, or scan the struts of bridges

November 17, 2015

This Year’s James Dyson Award Goes to a Circuit Board Printer

Four engineering students in Canada win the prestigious international award with their invention, which they hope will speed up electronics manufacturing

November 10, 2015

Cool Finds

This Extremely Slow Rube Goldberg Device Lasts More Than Six Weeks

The whimsical invention uses molasses, a tortoise, and sprouting grass to move a golf ball

November 2, 2015

This Camera Sees What Your Eyes Can’t

HyperCam, an affordable hyperspectral imaging camera, can tell if your food’s gone bad, among other things

October 26, 2015

This “Psychic Robot” Can Read Your Mind

Researchers have created an algorithm that understands what movement you meant to make, even if you’re interrupted

October 14, 2015

Cool Finds

This Swiss Watchmaker is Teaching Apprentices For Free

The U.S. desperately needs new watchmakers. Will a new generation save the industry?

October 12, 2015

This Wearable Device Translates Sign Language To English

The prototype detects hand and finger movements and turns them into words on a screen

October 6, 2015

This Concrete Can Absorb a Flood

A UK company has developed a permeable pavement that can drink 1,000 liters of water per square meter in a minute

October 5, 2015

Innovative Spirit Health Care

Scientists Manipulate Common Plants to Produce Cancer Drugs

Stanford researchers have figured out how to transfer a rare plant’s chemical “assembly line” into a cheap, common lab plant

September 24, 2015

Future of Energy

Using Kirigami, the Japanese Art of Paper Cutting, to Build Better Solar Panels

Researchers have used the art technique to make light panels that twist to follow the sun

September 15, 2015

The Innovative Spirit

This Exoskeleton Is Actually Controlled by the Wearer’s Thoughts

Engineer Jose Contreras-Vidal’s “brain-machine interface” uses electrical activity in a person’s brain to move a robotic exoskeleton

September 14, 2015

The Innovative Spirit

When a Trip to the Zoo Resulted in an Engineering Breakthrough

Megan Leftwich, an engineering professor at George Washington University, is building a robotic flipper based on her observations of sea lions

August 10, 2015

New Research

Curly Hair Science Is Revealing How Different Locks React to Heat

A mechanical engineer tackles the understudied problem of how to style curls without frying hair

August 4, 2015

New Research

This Robotic Insect Can Jump on Water

Why? Because it’s cool

August 3, 2015

Could a Wind Turbine Be Coming to a Bridge Near You?

Engineers find, in a simulation, that two wind turbines mounted under a bridge in the Canary Islands could power hundreds of homes

July 31, 2015

Cool Finds

Kids Can Build Their Own Lego Prosthetics

Prototype system brings a bit of fun to prosthetics

July 30, 2015

Legos Go Sustainable, and Everything (Really) is Awesome

To reduce its carbon footprint, the toy company is searching for a sustainable material for its bricks by 2030

July 28, 2015

How Are Universities Grooming the Next Great Innovators?

Design and entrepreneurship courses at Stanford and other institutions are fundamentally changing higher education

July 14, 2015