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399 articles under ‘Engineering & Technology’
A team led by Harvard computer scientists, including two undergraduate students, has developed a new tool that could lead to increased security and enhanced performance for commonly used Web and mobile applications.
Smart suit improves physical endurance
Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering announced that it has received a $2.6 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a smart suit that helps improve physical endurance for soldiers in the field.
For decades, it has been the holy grail of particle physics, an elusive subatomic particle that offered the tantalizing possibility of explaining how much of the universe works. Billions of dollars have been spent in the search for it. Thousands of researchers — including dozens from Harvard — have conducted trillions of experiments as part of the hunt for its telltale signature.
Quantum computing, no cooling required
Using a pair of impurities in ultra-pure, laboratory-grown diamonds, researchers have created room-temperature quantum bits and have stored information in them for nearly two seconds — an increase of nearly six orders of magnitude over the life span of earlier systems. The work, described in the June 8 issue of Science, is a critical first step in the eventual construction of a functional quantum computer, as well as a host of other potential applications.
Fuel cell keeps going after hydrogen runs out
Materials scientists at Harvard have demonstrated that a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC), which converts hydrogen into electricity, can also store electrochemical energy like a battery. This fuel cell can continue to produce power for a short time after its fuel has run out.
A Harvard team of researchers has invented a way to keep any metal surface free of ice and frost. The treated surfaces quickly shed even tiny, incipient condensation droplets or frost, simply through gravity.
Using nature to inspire robotics
The annual symposium of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, held at Harvard Medical School, prompted a spirited discussion on robotics and medicine, with nature as a model.
Research by computer scientists, biologists, and cognitive psychologists at Harvard, Northwestern, Wellesley, and Tufts suggests that collaborative touch-screen games have value beyond play.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’ astronomers have detected for the first time jets of gamma rays extending thousands of light years from the Milky Way’s core, confirming expectations based on observations of other galaxies.
MIT’s Anant Agarwal, who is the first president of edX, shared early results from the new online education venture’s first pilot course at the second annual Harvard IT Summit.
Safer cataract surgery at hand
A new, highly innovative, computer-based simulation tool, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (Mass. Eye and Ear) Cataract Master, bridges the learning gap that residents and ophthalmologists new to phaco must navigate prior to performing actual surgery.
Harvard will offer a master’s degree in computational science and engineering.
A recent SEAS workshop emphasized comprehensive planning, cultural awareness, and a holistic approach to design in developing solutions to global problems.
Using DNA as bricks and mortar
Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have figured out how to use short lengths of DNA as physical, rather than genetic, building blocks, creating letters and other shapes from the molecules in a proof of design that could one day lead to the creation of structures that, among other things, deliver drugs to disease sites.
The last dance between Venus and the sun
Before 2004, the most recent Venus transit occurred more than a century ago, in 1882, and was used to compute the distance from the Earth to the sun. On June 5, 2012, another Venus transit will occur. Scientists with NASA's Kepler mission hope to discover Earth-like planets outside our solar system by searching for transits of other stars by planets that might be orbiting them. The next Venus transit: Dec. 11, 2117.
Sharing design, in all its forms
The first Design Fair at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) displayed the wealth of ideas that have emerged at SEAS throughout this past academic year.
The mitotic spindle, an apparatus that segregates chromosomes during cell division, may be more complex than the standard textbook picture suggests, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Earth’s sister in the crosshairs
A new book by Harvard astronomer Dimitar Sasselov explains the revolution in understanding the universe that views life as a natural part of planetary evolution and that has researchers on the brink of finding worlds that echo this one.
Harvard scientists have taken a critical step toward building a quantum computer — a device that could someday harness subatomic particles such as electrons to perform calculations far faster than the most powerful supercomputers.
Vinothan Manoharan, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and physics at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, wants to make self-assembly — when particles interact with one another and spontaneously arrange themselves into organized structures — happen in the laboratory to treat life-threatening diseases or manufacture useful objects.
New research by astronomers at the University of Utah and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that supermassive black holes can grow big by ripping apart double-star systems and swallowing one of the stars.
Bubble, bubble — without toil or trouble
Among the advances linked to Harvard is one that came in a field not normally associated with the University: the culinary arts. Cooks use a professor’s 1850s invention, baking powder, as a time-saving replacement for yeast.
Students participating in the Harvard College Innovation (I3) Challenge this year generated dozens of promising ideas to improve the quality of daily life.
Nurturing the seeds of innovation
The bond between Harvard and Silicon Valley is a close one. The region is home to a powerful network of alumni willing to offer mentorship to students and recent graduates who are dreaming big. Taking advantage of that network, SEAS and HBS recently came together to organize the trip to Palo Alto.
Inspired by a spherical toy that expands and collapses, researchers at Harvard and MIT have created a new type of engineered capsule, called a "buckliball," that exploits the phenomenon of buckling. The buckliball is the first morphable structure to incorporate buckling as a desirable engineering design element.
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