Category: Industry

One simply cannot engineer without tools. These 25 are some of the most essential pieces of kit any self-respecting engineer needs to have to hand.The following list is far from exhaustive and is no particular order.1. Every self-respecting engineer has a good wrenchWrenches are essential tools for any self-respecting engineer.

November 22, 2016Astronomer Wanda Diaz Merced lost her sight in her early 20& 39;s when she was studying supernova explosions. Merced, fueled by her passion for the cosmos, found a way around her impairment. She discovered a way to hear the stars through sonification. Merced became a sonic astrophysicist.

November 19, 2016It sounds like torture but it& 39;s not. You can heal in a small pool lined with live metal electrodes called (unsurprisingly) electric baths.We& 39;re just as hesitant at the sound of electricity and water ever mixing, but apparently, it works. Even if sounds creepy, electrotherapy is not a new method.

By Shelby RogersNovember 19, 2016What would happen if we couldn& 39;t power our smart gadgets with electricity? Could we use our iPhones with another system?Researchers at Stanford University successfully sent a text message via chemical transmission rather than electricity. Image Courtesy of StanfordUniversity The structure of the messaging device runs similar to modern smart devices.

By Shelby RogersNovember 24, 2016The world& 39;s superpowers and blooming industrial nations have bickered for decades over who bears the biggest responsibility for carbon emissions. While that debate continues, 47 of the world& 39;s poorest countries have unified, pledging to avoid fossil fuels altogether.

By Shelby RogersNovember 20, 2016After being leaked last month, a paper detailing NASA& 39;s EM Drive finally got peer-reviewed and published.The peer review implies the & 34;impossible& 34; technology actually works. NASA Eagleworks Labs put out a hypothesis as to how the EM Drive could defy the the laws of physics:& 34; The supporting physics model used to derive a force based on operating conditions in the test article can be categorised as a nonlocal hidden-variable theory, or pilot-wave theory for short.

By Shelby RogersNovember 23, 2016Tesla and its new acquisition - SolarCity - will power the tiny island of Ta& 39;u in American Samoa with 100 percent of its solar panels.Because when you& 39;ve just made a $2.6 billion acquisition, why not celebrate by powering an entire island 4,000 miles away from the United States?

November 25, 2016Imagine that you are camping with your friends, grilling sausage, bacon, or boiling water on fire for your coffee. Normally, you resign yourself to a trip knowing your phone (and backup battery pack) will die. However, one company lets you charge your phone using your campfire.This camp stove takes a stove one step further than just grilling meat.

By Shelby RogersNovember 26, 2016Crap happens, even in space. However, NASA has no idea what to do with poop once it happens.NASA is offering a $30,000 to whoever can develop an idea for the poop problem. In a video posted to Vimeo, Astronaut Rick Mastracchio implores the public to help. Innovation challenge and prize platform HeroX partnered with NASA to promote the problem-solving competition.

November 27, 2016After 3,500 years of isolation, scientists have recreated the lost city of Amarna with incredible 3D models. Pharaoh Akhenaten, the husband of Nefertiti, built Amarna with unique and inventive architectural techniques.The project began in 2000 as a postgrad thesis for Paul Docherty& 39;s computer animation degree, but grew into something much larger.

By Shelby RogersNovember 24, 2016Researchers have sped up a process of several thousand years to two years. A team from the US Department of Energy& 39;s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have returned carbon dioxide to rock by injecting volcanic basalt rock with liquid CO2. Image courtesy of Wikimedia The technique gives scientists another way to store excess CO2 humans continually put into the atmosphere.

By Shelby RogersNovember 29, 2016A new biomedical & 39;bandage& 39; uses conducting nanowires to offer therapeutic stimulation. The device has the skin& 39;s stretchy properties and sensory abilities.The nanowires are shrouded in a thin layer of elastic polymer, and has already been called an electronic bandage.

By Shelby RogersNovember 28, 2016A free software program is helping neurosurgeons prepare for surgery. The Advanced Simulation Library (ASL) was utilized in the diagnostics and cognitive model of a medical robot. ASL simulated brain shift during a robot-assisted awake craniotomy. Image Courtesy of ASL The model includes many physical effects into its modeling.

November 27, 2016British inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage left a legacy known as & 34;the Father of Computing.& 34; However, his best successes were from his devices that never got made.Computer or mechanical engineers might be familiar with his name, who credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs.

December 01, 2016Minutes after launch, the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) has confirmed that the unmanned Progress 65 cargo ship has crashed.The communication was lost after 383 seconds after it had left Baikonur. Image courtesy of Alexander Nomerkov/Youtube The cargo ship was accompanied by a Soyuz carrier rocket.

By Shelby RogersNovember 30, 2016Geochemists from the UK developed a way to take dangerous nuclear waste and turn it into artificial diamonds. These diamonds can generate their own electric current. With a half-life of nearly 5,800 years, these potential diamond batteries could offer solutions to both waste and energy issues.

By Shelby RogersNovember 28, 2016Single crystal semiconductors carried the development of electronic devices for nearly a century. But research teams across the globe could have a new, more efficient method for making these crucial crystals.University of Surrey, the National Physical Laboratory, University of Kentucky and the University of Southampton worked on the project.

By Shelby RogersNovember 28, 2016Next May, Africa will launch its first private satellite - a satellite constructed largely thanks to 14 South African teenage girls.The team of girls designed the payloads for the scanning satellite as a part of a STEM boot camp. The payload will send back detailed thermal imaging information two times a day to assist with disaster prevention and boost food security.

By Shelby RogersNovember 29, 2016There have been several popular companies spawning from garages. Engineers Alex Hagmuller and Max Ginsburg hope to join the likes of Apple and Hewlett-Packard in taking their garage company AquaHarmonics to the next level. Image Courtesy of AquaHarmonics on Facebook AquaHarmonics recently won the US Department of Energy& 39;s Wave Energy Prize.

By Shelby RogersDecember 01, 2016Engineers with MIT created an inexpensive way to make bending muscle fibers. These artificial muscles have become staples in robotics over the last decade, as robotics progresses toward more human-like builds.The team found a simple and relatively cheap solution in nylon fiber.