News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Researchers have developed a new method for correcting the errors that creep into DNA barcodes -- labels used in a wide range of biological experiments -- yielding far more accurate results and paving the way for more ambitious medical research in the future.

A scientist at Duke University says the natural evolution of social organizations into larger and more complex communities exhibiting distinct hierarchies can be predicted from the same law of physics that gives rise to tree branches and river deltas -- a concept called the constructal law.

Southern Texas and the western Gulf of Mexico is getting a soaking because of a low pressure system. The Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite passed over the western Gulf of Mexico and measured the rainfall from the system.

Engineers have created an electronic 'skin' in an effort to restore a real sense of touch for amputees using prosthetics.

Carnegie Mellon University's Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering Professors Bob Tilton and Todd Przybycien recently co-authored a paper with Ph.D. students Brittany Nordmark and Toni Bechtel, and alumnus John Riley, further refining a process that could soon help provide clean water to many in water-scarce regions. The process, created by Tilton's former student and co-author Stephanie Velegol, uses sand and plant materials readily available in many developing nations.

Chameleons change color by controlling the spacing among nanocrystals on their skin. Northwestern University's nanolaser changes color similarly -- by controlling the spacing among metal nanoparticles.