Category Technology/Electronics

4-D goggles developed at UC San Diego. Credit: Photo by Ching-fu Chen

A team of researchers at UC San Diego and San Diego State University has developed a pair of “4D goggles” that allows wearers to be physically “touched” by a movie when they see a looming object on the screen, such as an approaching spacecraft. The device was developed based on a study conducted by the neuroscientists to map brain areas that integrate the sight and touch of a looming object and aid in their understanding of the perceptual and neural mechanisms of multisensory integration...

Newly developed polymer can better mimic nature’s color-changing abilities. Credit: American Chemical Society

In nature, colors can serve as a form of communication, but they can also hide animals and plants, camouflaging them from sight. Researchers now report in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces that they have developed polymers that can better mimic nature’s color-changing abilities than existing polymers. They say the materials could enable smart decorations, camouflage textiles and improved anti-counterfeiting measures.

Most of the colors that people are familiar with, such as hues on a piece of paper, are made with pigments...

Liangbing Hu, left, and Teng Li, right, are engineers at the University of Maryland, College Park who have found a way to make wood more than 10 times stronger and tougher than before. Credit: University of Maryland

New process could make wood as strong as titanium alloys but lighter and cheaper. Engineers at the University of Maryland, College Par (UMD) have found a way to make wood more than 10X stronger and tougher than before, creating a natural substance that is stronger than many titanium alloys. “This new way to treat wood makes it 12 times stronger than natural wood and 10 times tougher,” said Liangbing Hu of UMD’s A. James Clark School of Engineering and the leader of the team that did the research, to be published on February 8, 2018 in the journal Nature...

This is a ball-and-stick model of the molecular structure of the solar-fuel catalyst developed at Caltech. Blue represents iron atoms; green is nickel; red is oxygen; white is hydrogen. Credit: Caltech

Research uncovers mechanism behind water-splitting catalyst. Caltech researchers have made a discovery that they say could lead to the economically viable production of solar fuels in the next few years. For years, solar-fuel research has focused on developing catalysts that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen using only sunlight. The resulting hydrogen fuel could be used to power motor vehicles, electrical plants, and fuel cells. Since the only thing produced by burning hydrogen is water, no carbon pollution is added to the atmosphere.

In 2014, researchers in the lab of Harry Gray, Cal...