Hi Tech & Innovation news

Energy & Green Tech

Fungi turn shredded mattress foam into lightweight building insulation

Swinburne researchers have turned old, unwanted mattresses into safe and sustainable building insulation materials using fungi. The team grew a common fungus together with shredded mattress foam to create a new material that ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Extending optical fiber's ultralow loss performance to photonic chips

Caltech scientists have developed a way to guide light on silicon wafers with low signal loss approaching that of optical fiber at visible wavelengths. This accomplishment paves the way for a new generation of ultra-coherent ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

New AI system fixes 3D printing defects in real time

Additive manufacturing has revolutionized manufacturing by enabling customized, cost-effective products with minimal waste. However, with the majority of 3D printers operating on open-loop systems, they are notoriously prone ...

Engineering

Transparent windows can shield buildings from powerful electromagnetic pulses

Electromagnetic pulses (EMPs)—high-energy-density and ultra-wideband beams of electromagnetic radiation—are generated from sources such as nuclear explosions, high-power electromagnetic pulse devices, and intentional ...

Energy & Green Tech

Electric eel biology inspires powerful gel battery

Power sources used in devices found in or around biological tissue must be flexible and nontoxic, while still powerful enough to support demanding technologies such as medical devices or soft robotics. To achieve this balance, ...

Engineering

Origami-inspired ring lets users 'feel' virtual worlds

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are technologies that allow users to immerse themselves in digital worlds or enhance their surroundings with computer-generated filters or images, respectively. Both these technologies ...

Engineering

'Self-driving' lab learns to grow materials on its own

When scientists make the thin metal films used in electronics, optics, and quantum technologies, they usually spend months tinkering with the temperature, composition and timing of the process, hoping to land on just the ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Ultra-thin 3D display delivers wide-angle, highly-detailed images

Researchers have developed an ultra-thin 3D display with a wide viewing angle, clear image quality and vivid display depth. By overcoming tradeoffs that typically limit glasses-free 3D displays, the advance could open new ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

'Living metal' could bridge biological and electronic systems

Electronics have been transforming from rigid, lifeless systems into adaptive, living platforms capable of seamlessly interacting with biological environments. Researchers at Binghamton University are pioneering "living metal" ...

Engineering

Newly developed knitting machine makes solid 3D objects

A new prototype of a knitting machine creates solid, knitted shapes, adding stitches in any direction—forward, backward and diagonal—so users can construct a wide variety of shapes and add stiffness to different parts ...

Energy & Green Tech

Cooling paint harvests water from thin air

Researchers at the University of Sydney and start-up Dewpoint Innovations have developed a nanoengineered polymer paint-like coating that can passively cool buildings and capture water directly from the air—all without ...

Energy & Green Tech

Ultra-black nanoneedles absorb 99.5% of light for future solar towers

Using state-of-the-art equipment, researchers in the Thermophysical Properties of Materials group from the University of the Basque Country (EHU) have analyzed the capacity of ultra-black copper cobaltate nanoneedles to effectively ...