Tag: Engineering
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Nation & World
Combing out a tangled problem
A new technique speeds creation of nanowire devices, boosting research into what’s happening inside cells.
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Nation & World
The RoboBee flies solo
Several decades in the making, the Harvard Microbiotics Lab’s RoboBee made its first solo flight.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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.
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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.
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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.