News by Subject Technology & Engineering

A team led by Ivaylo Ivanov of Georgia State University used the 200-petaflop IBM AC922 Summit system, the world's smartest and most powerful supercomputer, to develop an integrative model of the transcription preinitiation complex (PIC), a complex of proteins vital to gene expression.

First unveiled in 2016, Salto the jumping robot stands at little less than a foot, but can vault over three times its height in a single bound. Now, University of California, Berkeley researchers have equipped the robot with a slew of new skills, giving it the ability to bounce in place like a pogo stick and jump through obstacle courses like an agility dog. Salto can even take short jaunts outside, powered by radio controller.

Some patients with atrial fibrillation or A-Fib need an ablation, which requires a catheter and an advanced 3D map of the heart. Researchers have developed the first algorithm that guides catheter movements and accurately detects A-Fib targets without 3D maps of the heart. In human simulations, this technique stops the catheter at the right target and identifies the source type with a 95.25% success rate and a 99 percent detection rate of scar tissue, regardless of scar size.

Purdue University researchers are building 'spidey senses' into the shells of autonomous cars and drones so that they could detect and avoid objects better.

The group of Prof. Dr. Matthias Karg at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf (HHU) in Germany is creating ultra-thin, highly ordered layers of spherical hydrogel beads that encapsulate gold or silver particles. These structures are of interest for applications in optoelectronics -- light-based information and communication technology -- and nanophotonics. The researchers have recently published findings on a significant step in the direction of 'plasmonic nanolasers' in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Visual Seveif software measures the economic impact of a fire, taking into account both material resources and their utility for leisure and recreation, the landscape's value and, now, carbon fixation.

Possible commercial uses are package deliveries since it can quickly fly to a target zone and then drive using its wheels safely and quietly to reach the recipient's doorstep. FSTAR can also be used for search and rescue applications as it can fly over various obstacles and crawl between or underneath cracks where a regular drone cannot fly. The robot can also be used in agriculture, maintenance, cleaning, filming, and entertainment, as well as law enforcement and anti-terrorist applications.