InventorSpot

Carbon nanotubes may be the key in overcoming a challenging roadblock for scientists trying to create artificial photosynthesis.

A scientist from the University of Florida has recently filed a patent that is attracting everyone from NASA and the US Air Force to UFO-seekers and sci-fi enthusiasts.

Since 2006, Subrata Roy, a mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor, has been working on a "flying saucer" aircraft design that turns surrounding air into plasma to generate its propulsion. The saucer, or "wingless electromagnetic air vehicle" (WEAV), has no moving parts and therefore could be more stable than airplanes and helicopters that rely on aerodynamics to provide lift.

As countless coaches have advised their athletes, often the best way to improve technique is to break things down into one movement at a time.

A new T-shirt that measures muscle output could take this strategy to the extreme. The shirt, which is embedded with small sensors, enables athletes to find out which muscles they're using at different moments, and how hard. The invention is part of the ConText Project.

Researchers at Brown University have been creating prototypes of mercury-absorbent cloths and packaging that would make it much easier and safer to clean up broken fluorescent bulbs.

Researchers have taken a photograph of a light pulse that is just 2.5 femtoseconds (10-15 seconds) long - the shortest pulse ever to be imaged.

They didn't use a tiny camera, but rather another even shorter light pulse. The flash lasted just 80 attoseconds (10-18 seconds), making it the shortest light pulse ever generated.

As biologists are busy working on cloning living organisms, engineers are working on a mechanical counterpart - creating non-living things that can replicate themselves.

With a breakthrough in research on titanium oxide nanocrystals, researchers may make solar cells more cost-effective.

A new robot named Flame is the most advanced walking robot that walks like a human. Researchers from TU Delft including Daan Hobbelen have designed the cutting-edge robot by making the traditional sloppy human walking movement more stable.

Faiz Rahman, a nanoelectronics researcher at the University of Glasgow, predicts that LED light bulbs for the home will start appearing on store shelves in the next 2-3 years to compete with incandescent and fluorescent bulbs.

A new laser that is 100 to 1000 times more powerful than typical high-speed lasers could help researchers look for Earth-like planets located billions of miles away.