University of Warwick

“At this price point, the Sandia Hand has the potential to be a disruptive technology,” Sandia National Laboratories has developed a cost-effective robotic hand that can be used in disarming improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. The Sandia Hand addresses challenges that have prevented widespread adoption of other robotic hands, such as cost, durability, dexterity and

New approaches will let smart-phone users send video and video chat with any other smart-phone user, regardless of the network or platform Thanks to Skype, Apple FaceTime and at least a half dozen other mobile video apps, the old-fashioned phone call is becoming passé. Why just speak to someone when you can engage them in

This design won second prize at the international design competition German designers Andreas Meinhardt and Daniel Abendroth have collaborated on this portable heating system, which moves around automatically capturing and storing excess heat. The H-Agent then re-diffuses this heat in cooler areas of the house where it is needed. The device, which looks like a

New instrument offers fast, low-cost tool to fight ecological degradation in Yellowstone National Park For decades the National Park Service has been locked in a battle against lake trout, an invasive fish with a voracious appetite that has overtaken Yellowstone Lake and upended its formerly thriving ecosystem. According to new research, an aircraft-mounted instrument could

Many smartphone applications are designed more for fun than substance (Angry Birds, anyone?), but a new app from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Bat Conservation Trust offers individuals and communities a chance to get involved in citizen science in a very real way and to help conserve bat populations in the process.

Why is it that we can get sad, when we see someone else crying? Why is it that we wince, when a friend cuts his finger? Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience have found that the rat brain activates the same cells when they observe the pain of others as when they experience pain

Promising for remote communities and disaster areas A cool new concept being tested in the Abu Dhabi desert uses a wind turbine to condense water from the air and pump it into storage tanks for filtration and purification. The technology was created by Eole Water after its founder, Marc Parent, was inspired by the water

To slow the evolutionary progression of weeds and insect pests gaining resistance to herbicides and pesticides, policymakers should provide resources for large-scale, landscape-level studies of a number of promising but untested approaches for slowing pest evolution. Such landscape studies are now more feasible because of new genomic and technological innovations that could be used to

In a groundbreaking new study led by University of Minnesota biomedical engineers, artificial blood vessels bioengineered in the lab and implanted in young lambs are capable of growth within the recipient. If confirmed in humans, these new vessel grafts would prevent the need for repeated surgeries in some children with congenital heart defects. The study

NERSC Flips Switch on New Flagship Supercomputer The National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) Center recently accepted “Edison,” a new flagship supercomputer designed for scientific productivity. Named in honor of American inventor Thomas Alva Edison, the Cray XC30 will be dedicated in a ceremony held at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley