Category Technology/Electronics

Illustration shows the delivery route of hydrogen sulfide to damaged cells based on two projects completed in the University of Oregon lab of Michael Pluth. Credit: Michael Pluth

Molecules with the potential to deliver healing power to stressed cells – such as those involved in heart attacks – have been created by University of Oregon researchers. The research – done at a cellular level in the lab and far from medical reality – involves the design of organic molecules that break down to release hydrogen sulfide when triggered by specific conditions such as increased oxidative stress. Oxidative stress damages cells and is tied especially to heart disease and cancer, as well as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

“We have discovered that small organic molecules can be engineered to release ...

Crash Test Cameras

2017 edition of NASA Spinoffs. NASA innovations we use in our daily lives. Here are some of our favorite things we bet you didn’t know use space technology.
1.Crash Test Cameras: Parachutes are a key part of the landing system for many of our spacecraft, but before we send them into orbit — or beyond — we have to make sure that they’re going to work as designed. One important component of testing is a video that captures every millisecond as the chute opens, to see if it’s working and if not, what went wrong. Integrated Design Tools built a camera for us that could do just that: rugged and compact, it can film up to 1,000 frames/s and back up all that data almost as fast...

New research shows that miniscule amounts of impurities in vacuum are being incorporated into OLEDs during fabrication and leading to large variations in lifetime. By reducing the time OLEDs spend in the deposition chamber during fabrication, impurities can be reduced and lifetime enhanced. Analysis of the impurities indicates sources that include previously deposited materials and plasticizers from chamber components. Credit: Hiroshi Fujimoto and William J. Potscavage, Jr.

Reproducibility is a necessity for science but has often eluded researchers studying the lifetime of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Recent research from Japan sheds new light on why: impurities present in the vacuum chamber during fabrication but in amounts so small that they are easily overlooked...

Optical setup for two wavelength digital hologram recordings of toy puppets. M, mirror; BS, beam splitter; BE, beam-expander; RP, reflecting prism; CCD, charge coupled device; D, rotating diffuser; R, rotator and O, object.

Digital holography: Noise practically eliminated. Digital Holography is a powerful imaging technique for 3D vision and display systems. However, the use of coherent light sources introduces annoying visual phenomenon, namely speckle noise, an intrinsic interference effect due to the laser. Such coherent noise, superposing to digital holograms, severely degrades the corresponding reconstruction quality in holographic systems...