National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

To halt climate change, the world desperately needs advances in clean energy. But in recent years, Silicon Valley, the nation’s engine for technical innovation, has turned its back on investments in the field. Now, even as the world grows hotter, young scientists with fresh ideas about energy technology are finding it increasingly difficult to find

Scientists report they have successfully developed and tested the world’s first ultrathin artificial retina that could vastly improve on existing implantable visualization technology for the blind. The flexible device, based on very thin 2D materials, could someday restore sight to the millions of people with retinal diseases. And with a few modifications, the device could

New attachment turns a smartphone into a microscope that can image and size DNA molecules 50,000 times thinner than a human hair If you thought scanning one of those strange, square QR codes with your phone was somewhat advanced, hold on to your seat. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have recently developed

Look out, super glue and paint thinner. Thanks to new dynamic materials developed at the University of Illinois, removable paint and self-healing plastics soon could be household products. U. of I. materials science and engineering professor Jianjun Cheng, graduate student Hanze Ying and postdoctoral researcher Yanfeng Zhang published their work in the journal Nature Communications. “The key advantage of

Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have identified a compound that attacks the Achilles’ heel of certain cancer cells by depriving them of their energy source, the sugar glucose. Cancer chemotherapy can be a rough ride, in part because most of these drugs don’t distinguish between what’s cancerous and what’s not. The chemicals attack all

Image via Wikipedia Hardly a day seems to pass without a new report of a soldier or civilian being killed or maimed by an improvised explosive device(IED) in Afghanistan or Iraq. Just such a weapon killed two coalition members on Monday in Iraq’s volatile southern region, according to NATO. Meanwhile, data published October 22 by Wikileaks indicates

“Our devices are directly compatible…they talk the same language.” Bristol University scientists look set to debut a new type of quantum chip, which could offer mobile devices greater protection from hackers. The silicon-based chip will be unveiled at the British Science Festival in Aberdeen this week and has been developed by an international team of

Adding transparent solar cells to the glass would be a relatively small cost Imagine a world where the windows of high-rise office buildings are powerful energy producers, offering its inhabitants much more than some fresh air, light and a view. For the past four years a team of researchers from Flinders University has been working

Eduardo Torres-Jara wants to expand the kinds of tasks robots can perform, by giving them more sensitive fingers. And his startup, Robot Rebuilt, is out making the rounds of Boston venture capital firms. The new robot, Tactico, builds upon work done at MIT‘s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, and supervised by Rod Brooks, the iRobot co-founder who is