You may have heard of plans to use drones for delivering packages, monitoring wildlife, or tracking storms. But painting murals?
That's the idea behind a project in Paul Kry's laboratory at McGill University's School of Computer Science. Prof. Kry and a few of his students have teamed up to program tiny drones to create dot drawings - an artistic technique known as stippling.
Sampath Vengate, who graduated in May with a master of science degree in aerospace engineering, used existing UTA research to design, build and test a UAV that uses mass actuation - weights that move back and forth within the wings to change the center of gravity from side to side - to turn while airborne.
He presented his findings in a paper at one of the two annual American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conferences, held in July in Washington, DC.
We learn a lot about objects by manipulating them: poking, pushing, prodding, and then seeing how they react.
We obviously can't do that with videos -- just try touching that cat video on your phone and see what happens. But is it crazy to think that we could take that video and simulate how the cat moves, without ever interacting with the real one?
BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA -- Space debris from completed missions -- inactive satellites, lens covers, fragments from spaceship disengagements -- pose a serious and ongoing threat to active communication and navigation satellites used by billions of people on Earth. An article published today by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, in Optical Engineering describes a new approach whereby debris orbiting in space could be pushed into the Earth's atmosphere by laser impulses, causing it to burn up.
Quantum computers promise speedy solutions to some difficult problems, but building large-scale, general-purpose quantum devices is a problem fraught with technical challenges.
To date, many research groups have created small but functional quantum computers. By combining a handful of atoms, electrons or superconducting junctions, researchers now regularly demonstrate quantum effects and run simple quantum algorithms--small programs dedicated to solving particular problems.
Turning carbon dioxide into stored energy sounds like science fiction: researchers have long tried to find simple ways to convert this greenhouse gas into fuels and other useful chemicals. Now, a group of researchers led by Professor Ted Sargent of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering have found a more efficient way, through the wonders of nanoengineering.
A proof-of-concept study from North Carolina State University finds that the density of bones in the skull affects the size of bullet holes in the skull. The finding is useful for law enforcement officials and medical examiners seeking to identify the caliber of firearms that have been used to commit murder.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have created a new silicon-tin nanocomposite anode that could lead to lithium-ion batteries that can be charged and discharged more times before they reach the end of their useful lives. The longer-lasting batteries could be used in everything from handheld electronic devices to electric vehicles.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 3, 2016 - Solar cells based on cadmium and tellurium could move closer to theoretical levels of efficiency because of some sleuthing by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Facility-based deliveries were reduced by approximately 8% during the Ebola epidemic in rural Liberia, according to a study by John Kraemer from the Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA, and colleagues, published in PLOS Medicine.
There is more than twice as much carbon in the planet's soils than there is in its atmosphere, so the loss of even a small proportion of that could have a profound feedback effect on the global climate.
Yet in its most recent report, in 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) used models that paid less attention to soil carbon potentially entering the atmosphere than had earlier reports, concluding that there simply wasn't enough evidence about how warmer global temperatures might impact soil carbon stocks.
With the report from Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Monday that 14 people in the state have been infected with the Zika virus most likely through mosquito transmission, the concern about outbreaks in the U.S. has intensified.
The news comes on the heels of new research by Northeastern professor Alessandro Vespignani that can help countries in the Americas plan a response.
EUGENE, Ore. -- Aug. 2, 2016 -- New research finds that airborne bacterial communities differ from one urban park to the next but those of parking lots are alike -- and differ from those of parks in subtle but potentially important ways.
At a glance, such findings seem intuitive. Parks often have different vegetation in them, and asphalt-covered parking lots are much the same -- barren asphalt bombarded by solar radiation as well as heavy metals and fuel from motor vehicles.
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a flexible wearable sensor that can accurately measure a person's blood alcohol level from sweat and transmit the data wirelessly to a laptop, smartphone or other mobile device. The device can be worn on the skin and could be used by doctors and police officers for continuous, non-invasive and real-time monitoring of blood alcohol content.
TORONTO, ON - A team of University of Toronto chemists has created a battery that stores energy in a biologically derived unit, paving the way for cheaper consumer electronics that are easier on the environment.
The battery is similar to many commercially-available high-energy lithium-ion batteries with one important difference. It uses flavin from vitamin B2 as the cathode: the part that stores the electricity that is released when connected to a device.