Engineering

Pain-free microneedle patch may replace needles for blood draws

No more needles. Blood draws are no fun. They hurt. Veins can burst, or even roll — like they’re trying to avoid the needle, too. Oftentimes, doctors...

Lasers and virtual reality to revolutionize watch-crystal engraving

EPFL engineers teamed up with luxury watchmaker Vacheron Constantin to develop an innovative system that uses lasers to create 3-D sculptures within sapphire watch...

Scientists develop new method to create bioelectronics out of microscopic structures

Bringing together soft, malleable living cells with hard, inflexible electronics can be a difficult task. UChicago researchers have developed a new method to face this...

Scientists develop new graphene nanochannel water filters

When sheets of two-dimensional nanomaterials like graphene are stacked on top of each other, tiny gaps form between the sheets that have a wide...

New smart aerogel could turn air into drinking water

One kilogram of the new material generates enough drinking water to meet a household's daily need, and does not require any external power source. Some...

This laser-steering microrobot could refine minimally invasive surgeries

Robotic engineers from Harvard’s Wyss Institute and John A. Paulson School for Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) have developed a laser-steering microrobot that can...

Sculpted light could control chemical catalysts, shows Stanford study

Like a person breaking up a cat fight, the role of catalysts in a chemical reaction is to hurry up the process - and...

Inspired by kombucha tea, engineers create living materials

Engineers at MIT and Imperial College London have developed a new way to generate tough, functional materials using a mixture of bacteria and yeast...

How to keep drones flying when a motor fails

As anxious passengers are often reassured, commercial aircrafts can easily continue to fly even if one of the engines stops working. But for drones with...

This two-sided solar cell could collect scattered light to gather more energy

To increase the performance of solar panels, scientists have created a bifacial, or two-sided, tandem solar cell, built by bringing together the best of...