The world’s first human testing of a mind-controlled artificial limb is ready to begin. A joint project between the Pentagon and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Modular Prosthetic Limb will be fully controlled by sensors implanted in the brain, and will even restore the sense of touch by sending electrical impulses from the limb back to the sensory cortex.
The HIV antibodies were discovered in the cells of a 60-year-old African-American gay man, known in the scientific literature as Donor 45, whose body made the antibodies naturally. The trick for scientists now is to develop a vaccine or other methods to make anyone’s body produce them as well.[...]
Over the years the USA has developed many formidable aircraft. However, there were many that didn’t ever get far from the drawing board for a variety of reasons. Some were simply before their time while others were of no time in particular (or perhaps shouldn’t have been). Others still look like they were designed for a science fiction movie. Take a look at ten US military aircraft that never quite made it.
on Leary, 24, a MEng student in the University´s Department of Mechanical Engineering, took his bicycle machine design from a Steel City drawing board to the heart of Guatemala as part of his dissertation, which required him to `make something useful out of rubbish.´
The Balancing Cube is a robot that can remain balanced on any one of its corners, even when pushed. Six motorized weights quickly move to keep the robot’s weight balanced whenever it is in danger of falling over:
MIT researchers are exploring a new technology funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the National Science Foundation, which they call a thermopower wave, that may convert chemical energy to fuel cells for micro-machines, sensors and emergency communication beacons.
A solar powered airplane that one day will attempt an around the world non-stop flight took its maiden voyage yesterday in Switzerland. Solar Impulse flew for 87 minutes and climbed to 1,200 meters. “This first flight was for me a very intense moment!”
A new solar concentrator design from an electrical engineering Ph.D. student at the University of California, San Diego could lead to solar concentrators that are less expensive and require fewer photovoltaic cells than existing solar concentrators.
SOLO-TREC is the first unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) that is completely powered by renewable energy, which is the temperature differences in the ocean.
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