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Category: engineering – Page 81

Researchers at the UPC’s Department of Electronic Engineering have developed a new type of magnetometer that can be integrated into microelectronic chips and that is fully compatible with the current integrated circuits. Of great interest for the miniaturization of electronic systems and sensors, the study has been recently published in Microsystems & Nanoengineering.

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are electromechanical systems miniaturized to the maximum, so much so that they can be integrated into a chip. They are found in most of our day-to-day devices, such as computers, car braking systems and mobile phones. Integrating them into has clear advantages in terms of size, cost, speed and energy efficiency. But developing them is expensive, and their performance is often compromised by incompatibilities with other electronic systems within a device.

MEMS can be used, among many others, to develop magnetometers—a device that measures to provide direction during navigation, much like a compass—for integration into smartphones and wearables or for use in the automotive industry. Therefore, one of the most promising lines of work are Lorentz force MEMS magnetometers.

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Telecommunications have reshaped many aspects of our lives over the past few decades by providing incredibly convenient ways to share and access information. One of the most important enablers for this transformation has been the adoption and improvement of broadband technologies, which cram enormous amounts of data over wide frequency bands to achieve unprecedented transfer speeds. Today, most large cities have fiber optics-based networks that distribute high-speed internet directly to every home.

Unfortunately, it is not always feasible to deploy fiber optic links to and , due to the associated costs and civil engineering work required. Such places could benefit from a different approach to optical broadband communications: free-space optics. The main idea in free-space optical (FSO) communications is to set up aligned transmitter–receiver pairs where needed and use air as the medium to carry the signals.

While there are still many challenges to address in FSO systems (such as low energy efficiency, impact of weather, and high background noise), scientists worldwide are continuously trying out new ways of solving these issues and achieving higher data rates.

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University of Saskatchewan (USask) researchers have developed a new method of killing brain cancer cells while preserving the delicate tissue around it. The technique also has a remarkable side-benefit: making chemotherapy treatment of brain cancer suddenly possible.

The technique involves placing long needles through the skull and sending pulses of into a glioblastoma tumor—the pernicious variety of brain cancer that caused Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie’s death.

“A safer and more effective cancer treatment may be clinically possible,” said Dr. Mike Moser (MD), USask College of Medicine general surgery researcher and co-author of a study published recently in the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering.

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Many children grow up gazing up at the night sky, dreaming of becoming astronauts who boldly go to the Moon – and beyond.

But in order to get that elusive job, would-be astronauts must make it through a competitive selection process. For NASA’s 2021 class of astronauts, the space agency said it chose just 10 candidates from more than 12,000 applicants.

Basic requirements, according to NASA, include US citizenship and a master’s degree in a STEM field, like engineering, biological science, or computer science. Astronauts must be in good shape and able to pass NASA’s demanding physical exams.

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The flying fuel tank’s flight “was arguably aviation’s last milestone.”

Nearly 36 years ago, on December 23, 1986, pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, designer Burt Rutan, and crew chief Bruce Evans earned the Collier Trophy, aviation’s most prestigious award, according to a NASA report published in 2013.

A 25,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe.

Continue reading “Marvelous engineering of Voyager: The aircraft that traveled around the world without refueling” | >

Lazarus, built by university students, made its longest flight time yet.

Students at the University of Southampton have a special project they have been working on for years together. That is, to power flight using only the muscle power of a single pilot, technically known as human-powered aircraft (HPA). Earlier this year, the team won their first Formula Flight competition with their design dubbed Lazarus.

Formula Flight is a competition organized by the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Human Powered Flight Group. According to its webpage, human-powered flying is a sport that combines “extreme athleticism with almost impossible engineering”.

Continue reading “Human-powered aircraft: A plane with ‘impossible engineering’ and no engine” | >

Researchers at Penn Engineering have created a chip that outstrips the security and robustness of existing quantum communications hardware. Their technology communicates in “qudits,” doubling the quantum information space of any previous on-chip laser.

Liang Feng, Professor in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and Electrical Systems and Engineering (ESE), along with MSE postdoctoral fellow Zhifeng Zhang and ESE Ph.D. student Haoqi Zhao, debuted the technology in a recent study published in Nature. The group worked in collaboration with scientists from the Polytechnic University of Milan, the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems, Duke University and the City University of New York (CUNY).

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A new technology developed at Tel Aviv University makes it possible to destroy cancerous tumors in a targeted manner, via a combination of ultrasound and the injection of nanobubbles into the bloodstream. According to the research team, unlike invasive treatment methods or the injection of microbubbles into the tumor itself, this latest technology enables the destruction of the tumor in a non-invasive manner.

The study was conducted under the leadership of doctoral student Mike Bismuth from the lab of Dr. Tali Ilovitsh at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, in collaboration with Dr. Dov Hershkovitz of the Department of Pathology. Prof. Agata Exner from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland also participated in the study. The study was published in the journal Nanoscale.

Dr. Tali Ilovitsh says that their “new technology makes it possible, in a relatively simple way, to inject nanobubbles into the bloodstream, which then congregate in the area of the cancerous . After that, using a low-frequency ultrasound, we explode the nanobubbles, and thereby the tumor.”

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Asphaltenes, a byproduct of crude oil production, are a waste material with potential. Rice University scientists are determined to find it by converting the carbon-rich resource into useful graphene.

Muhammad Rahman, an assistant research professor of materials science and nanoengineering, is employing Rice’s unique flash Joule heating process to convert asphaltenes instantly into turbostratic (loosely aligned) graphene and mix it into composites for thermal, anti-corrosion and 3D-printing applications.

The process makes good use of material otherwise burned for reuse as fuel or discarded into tailing ponds and landfills. Using at least some of the world’s reserve of more than 1 trillion barrels of as a feedstock for graphene would be good for the environment as well.

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