Lifeboat Foundation

A team from the University of Chicago.

Founded in 1,890, the University of Chicago (UChicago, U of C, or Chicago) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Located on a 217-acre campus in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, near Lake Michigan, the school holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings. UChicago is also well known for its professional schools: Pritzker School of Medicine, Booth School of Business, Law School, School of Social Service Administration, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, Divinity School and the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, and Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

Collaboration yields new solutions that tackle complex challenges in defense and aerospace sectors

Companies to showcase live demonstration of quantum-hybrid application at Space & Missile Defense Symposium

BURNABY, British Columbia, PALO ALTO, Calif. & HUNTSVILLE, Ala., August 7, 2023 —(BUSINESS WIRE)— D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS), a leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services, and Davidson Technologies, Inc., a technology services company that provides innovative engineering, technical and management solutions for the Department of Defense, aerospace and commercial customers, today announced progress in their collaboration to create solutions that advance national defense efforts. In support of the companies’ joint presence at this week’s Space and Missile Defense Symposium, D-Wave and Davidson Technologies revealed that together they have built two applications, focused on interceptor assignment and optimized radar scheduling.

The two materials, the researchers found, can be combined with water to make a supercapacitor — an alternative to batteries — that could provide storage of electrical energy. As an example, the MIT researchers who developed the system say that their supercapacitor could eventually be incorporated into the concrete foundation of a house, where it could store a full day’s worth of energy while adding little (or no) to the cost of the foundation and still providing the needed structural strength. The researchers also envision a concrete roadway that could provide contactless recharging for electric cars as they travel over that road.

The simple but innovative technology is described this week in the journal PNAS, in a paper by MIT professors Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn, and four others at MIT and at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

MIT engineers created a carbon-cement supercapacitor that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black, the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy.

Updated 19 seconds ago.

It appears that a professor from the University of Virginia has figured out how to construct a freeze gun, similar to the one wielded by Batman‘s adversary, Mr. Freeze, in the 1997 movie Batman and Robin. According to Futurism, however, the professor’s discovery is not meant to be used to create a weapon. The goal of Patrick Hopkins, a professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering, is to develop on-demand surface cooling systems for electronics in spacecraft and high-altitude jets.

The device was equipped with infrared technology.

A police drone equipped with infrared capabilities has risen as a hero in the search for a missing person with dementia that disappeared from a Delta hospital on July 29. Delta is a city located in British Columbia, Canada.

This is according to a report by Global News published on Wednesday.

Continue reading “Police use drone to find missing person with dementia” »

Scientists engineered a synthetic metamaterial to direct mechanical waves along a specific path, which adds an innovative layer of control to 4D reality, otherwise known as the synthetic dimension.

Everyday life involves the three dimensions or 3D — along an X, Y, and Z axis, or up and down, left and right, and forward and back. But, in recent years scientists like Guoliang Huang, the Huber and Helen Croft Chair in Engineering at the University of Missouri, have explored a “fourth dimension” (4D), or synthetic dimension, as an extension of our current physical reality.

Creation of a new synthetic metamaterial.

Researchers at the University of Melbourne have developed a fast, inexpensive and scalable method for engineering blood vessels from natural tissue.

A paper published today in Nature Metabolism has described a method of genetically engineering cells to respond to electrical stimuli, allowing for on-demand gene expression.

Despite its futuristic outlook, this line of research is built upon previous work. The idea of an implantable gene switch to command cells in order to deliver valuable compounds into the human body is not new. The authors of this paper cite longstanding work showing that gene switches can be developed to respond to antibiotics [1] or other drugs, and the antibiotic doxycycline is used regularly for this purpose in mouse models. More recently, researchers have worked on cells that control their output based on green light [2], radio waves [3], or heat [4].

However, these mechanisms have their problems. A gene trigger that operates in response to a chemical compound requires that compound to have stable, controllable biological availability [5]. If it relies on any wavelength of electromagnetic radiation, that process may be triggered by mistake or require intense energy to function [3].

New breakthrough in material design will help football players, car occupants, and hospital patients.

A significant breakthrough in the field of protective gear has been made with the discovery that football players were unknowingly acquiring permanent brain damage from repeated head impacts throughout their professional careers. This realization triggered an urgent search for better head protection solutions. Among these innovations is nanofoam, a material found inside football helmets.

Thanks to mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Baoxing Xu at the University of Virginia and his research team, nanofoam just received a big upgrade and protective sports equipment could, too. This newly invented design integrates nanofoam with “non-wetting ionized liquid,” a form of water that Xu and his research team now know blends perfectly with nanofoam to create a liquid cushion. This versatile and responsive material will give better protection to athletes and is promising for use in protecting car occupants and aiding hospital patients using wearable medical devices.