Scientists meeting from around the world in a fusion energy conference last week proclaimed the recent success of a University of Illinois-led innovation for fusion reactors. David Ruzic, professor of nuclear, plasma, and radiological engineering [...]
Improving Nanometer-Scale Manufacturing with Infrared Spectroscopy
Nanotechnology-based materials identification enables critically needed chemical metrology for nano-manufacturing. One of the key achievements of the nanotechnology era is the development of manufacturing technologies that can fabricate nanostructures formed from multiple materials. Such nanometer-scale [...]
Smartphone app can aid post-disaster rescue
Picture this: An earthquake strikes, and you’re trapped inside a damaged building. You pull out your smart phone to call for help, but you can’t get a signal. Suddenly your screen lights up, and an [...]
New method monitors semiconductor etching as it happens – with light
University of Illinois researchers have a new low-cost method to carve delicate features onto semiconductor wafers using light – and watch as it happens. “You can use light to image the topography and you can [...]
Next up: Environmentally safe electronics that also vanish in the body
Physicians and environmentalists alike could soon be using a new class of electronic devices: small, robust and high performance, yet also biocompatible and capable of dissolving completely in water – or in bodily fluids. Researchers [...]
Odorant shape and vibration likely lead to olfaction satisfaction
A new study of the sense of smell lends support to a controversial theory of olfaction: Our noses can distinguish both the shape and the vibrational characteristics of odorant molecules. The study, in the journal [...]
Newly demonstrated capabilities of low-powered nanotweezers may benefit cellular-level studies
Using ultra-low input power densities, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated for the first time how low-power “optical nanotweezers” can be used to trap, manipulate, and probe nanoparticles, including fragile biological [...]
Research collaboration with Brazilian partners addresses postharvest loss
Significant amounts of food are lost every year to postharvest waste, and the problem takes on global implications when studies show that this lost food could meet the minimum annual food requirements of millions of [...]
Robotic MAV helicopters formation flying video supports spacecraft swarm study
Robot MAV helicopters programmed for formation flying autonomously reconfigure their formation when members leave or enter the group. Soon-Jo Chung, an assistant professor in aerospace engineerng (AE), and his students show how it’s done in [...]
Spillways can divert sand from river to rebuild wetlands
In the spring and summer of 2011, high floodwaters on the Mississippi prompted the corps to open the Bonnet Carre spillway. The spillway had been built to divert water from urban New Orleans after flooding [...]
ScienceBlog.com
- For PTSD combat vets, ‘fear circuitry’ in the brain never rests
- Attacking MRSA with metals from antibacterial clays
- Frogs, salamanders suffering under erratic rainfall
- Ancient diet find could shatter ideas of how agriculture emerged
- Bach to the blues, our emotions match music to colors
- New method proposed for detecting gravitational waves from ends of universe
- World’s smallest droplets
- Climate change may have little impact on tropical lizards
- Carbon storage in Arctic tundra shows ecosystem resiliency
- Body mass index of low income African-Americans linked to proximity of fast food restaurants