Tag: Engineering

  • Nation & World

    Combing out a tangled problem

    A new technique speeds creation of nanowire devices, boosting research into what’s happening inside cells.

    5 minutes
    Charles Lieber
  • Nation & World

    The RoboBee flies solo

    Several decades in the making, the Harvard Microbiotics Lab’s RoboBee made its first solo flight.

    4 minutes
    To achieve untethered flight, the latest iteration of the Robobee underwent several important changes, including the addition of a second pair of wings.
  • Nation & World

    Blood-brain barrier chip performs human-like drug and antibody transport

    Wyss Institute scientists have developed chip technology that mimics the blood-brain barrier in humans. The new models will help researchers study drugs to treat cancer, neurodegeneration, and other diseases of the central nervous system.

    7 minutes
    A transparent plastic model of a human skull
  • Nation & World

    The little robot that could

    The iRobot Corp. announced its acquisition of Root Robotics, Inc., whose educational Root coding robot got its start as a summer research project at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University in 2011

    6 minutes
    The Root robot with a whiteboard and iPad
  • Nation & World

    Ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi breakthrough

    In a breakthrough on the road toward ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi, Harvard researchers have demonstrated for the first time a laser that can emit microwaves wirelessly, modulate them, and receive external radio frequency signals.

    3 minutes
    Laser.
  • Nation & World

    Identifying exotic properties

    Though they have unusual properties that could be useful in everything from superconductors to quantum computers, topological materials are frustratingly difficult to predictably produce. To speed up the process, Harvard researchers in a series of studies develop methods for efficiently identifying new materials that display topological properties.

    5 minutes
    illustration of water and how symmetry indicators work as a net to catch topological materials
  • Nation & World

    Laying some groundwork for environmental protection

    The Wyss Institute has developed a sheet pile driving robot, Romu, that works in uneven terrain to build metal walls that can act as dams, retaining walls, or building foundations.

    5 minutes
    Romu the robot in the sand
  • Nation & World

    A soft touch

    A new rubber computer combines the feel of a human hand with the thought process of a traditional computer, replacing the last hard components in soft robots. Now, soft robotics can travel where metals and electronics cannot — high-radiation disaster areas, outer space, and deep underwater — and turn invisible to the naked eye or…

    5 minutes
    The toggle gripper holds a screwdriver.
  • Nation & World

    Our endless fascination with pi

    For centuries, pi — the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter — has fascinated mathematicians and scientists. For more perspective on the famous number, the Gazette turned to physics lecturer Jacob Barandes — who, with some help from his 9-year-old daughter, Sadie, recited pi to 100 digits for us.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A step closer to tissue-engineered kidneys

    The Wyss Institute and Roche Innovation Center Basel in Switzerland have teamed up to create 3-D bioprinted proximal tubules beside functioning blood vessel compartments, closely mimicking the kidney’s blood-filtration system that removes waste products while returning “good” molecules, such as glucose and amino acids, back into the bloodstream.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Seeing things in a different light

    Harvard researchers are using a chemical process known as triplet fusion upconversion to transform near-infrared photons into high-energy photons. The high-energy photons could be used in a huge range of applications, including a new type of precisely targeted chemotherapy, in which low-energy infrared lasers that penetrate deep into the body could be used to transform…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Termites shape and are shaped by their mounds

    Researchers investigate how centimeter-sized termites, without architects, engineers or foremen, can build complex, long-standing, meter-sized structures all over the world.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Science at the speed of ‘light-sheet’

    Combining two recently developed technologies — expansion microscopy and lattice light-sheet microscopy — researchers have developed a method that yields high-resolution visualizations of large volumes of brain tissue, at speeds roughly 1,000 times faster than other methods.

    7 minutes
    Neural processes in a mouse brain.
  • Nation & World

    Yeasts get a boost from solar power

    Harvard researchers have started to combine bacteria with semiconductor technology that, similar to solar panels on a roof, harvests energy from light and, when coupled to the microbes’ surface, boosts their biosynthetic potential.

    5 minutes
    Yeast Molecules
  • Nation & World

    Filtering liquids with liquids

    Liquid-gated membranes filter nanoclay particles out of water with twofold higher efficiency and nearly threefold longer time to foul, and reduce the pressure required for filtration over conventional membranes.

    5 minutes
    Liquid-gated-membrane-composite
  • Nation & World

    ‘Aliens’ of the deep captured

    A new device developed by Harvard researchers safely traps delicate sea creatures inside a folding polyhedral enclosure and lets them go without harm using a novel, origami-inspired design.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Biology without borders

    To increase scientific understanding of biological systems, Harvard is launching an interdisciplinary research effort called the Quantitative Biology Initiative, with support from University President Drew Faust and Dean Michael D. Smith.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    No harm, no foul

    Researchers at SEAS, the Wyss Institute, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed a nontoxic coating that deters marine life from attaching to surfaces in a breakthrough for maritime travel and commerce.

    10 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Bionic leaf turns sunlight into liquid fuel

    A cross-disciplinary team at Harvard has created a system that uses solar energy to split water molecules and hydrogen-eating bacteria to produce liquid fuels. 

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A trap for greenhouse gas

    A team of researchers has developed a novel class of materials that enable a safer, cheaper, and more energy-efficient process for removing greenhouse gas from power-plant emissions.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Build your own bot

    A new resource provides both experienced and aspiring researchers with the intellectual raw materials needed to design, build, and operate robots made from soft, flexible materials.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Robot folds up, walks away

    A team of engineers used little more than paper and a classic children’s toy to build a robot that assembles itself into a complex shape in four minutes, and crawls away without human intervention.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvesting energy from devices

    Heat is a byproduct of nearly all electronic devices, yet most of it goes wasted. In an effort to recapture some of that energy and transform it into electricity, a team of Harvard and University of Sannio researchers have developed computer simulations to control the flow of heat and electrical current independently.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    When engineering meets art

    Music blared, LEDs blinked, and jaws dropped Tuesday at the SEAS Design and Project Fair, a celebration of creative problem-solving by students at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    In search of nature’s camouflage

    Cuttlefish, the “chameleon of the sea,” may offer researchers a model for bio-inspired human camouflage and color-changing products, some of which could be invaluable in wartime.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Engineering a better life

    When Kathy Ku ’13 proposed to build a water-filter factory in Uganda for $15,000 last year, her contacts advised her to double her budget. If all goes to plan, by next August Ku and her classmates will have created a fully functional and self-sustaining water-filter factory, supplying clean water at half the cost of imported…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Where students own their education

    The class Applied Physics 50 is grounded in a teaching philosophy that banishes lectures and encourages hands-on exploration, presenting a collection of best practices gleaned from decades of teaching experience and studious visits to college physics classrooms nationwide.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Robotic insects make first controlled flight

    The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Using explosions to power soft robots

    Using small explosions produced by a mix of methane and oxygen, researchers at Harvard have designed a soft robot that can leap as much as a foot in the air.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    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.

    4 minutes