News by Subject Technology & Engineering

People who work nontraditional work hours, such as 11 p.m.-7 a.m., or the "graveyard" shift, are more likely than people with traditional daytime work schedules to develop a chronic medical condition -- shift work sleep disorder -- that disrupts their sleep. According to researchers at the University of Missouri, people who develop this condition are also three times more likely to be involved in a vehicle accident.

Humans in the 21st century spend most of their time indoors, but the air we breathe inside buildings is not regulated to the same degree as the food we eat and the water we drink. A group of 39 researchers from 14 countries, including two from the University of Colorado Boulder, say that needs to change to reduce disease transmission and prevent the next pandemic.

Harvard researchers have designed a stable, lithium-metal solid state battery that can be charged and discharged at least 10,000 times -- far more cycles than have been previously demonstrated --- at a high current density. The battery technology could increase the lifetime of electric vehicles to that of the gasoline cars -- 10 to 15 years -- without the need to replace the battery. With its high current density, the battery could pave the way for electric vehicles that can fully charge within 10 to 20 minutes.

To deliver reliable mechanical and electric properties, nanomaterials must have consistent, predictable shapes and surfaces, as well as scalable production techniques. UC Riverside engineers are solving this problem by vaporizing metals within a magnetic field to direct the reassembly of metal atoms into predictable shapes.

University of Central Florida researchers are building on their technology that could pave the way for hypersonic flight, such as travel from New York to Los Angeles in under 30 minutes. In their latest research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered a way to stabilize the detonation needed for hypersonic propulsion by creating a special hypersonic reaction chamber for jet engines.

Professor Dong-Woo Cho's research team at POSTECH develops an artificial diabetic skin based on 3D cell printing.

Trust, safety and security are the most important factors affecting passengers' attitudes towards self-driving cars. Younger people felt their personal security to be significantly better than older people. The findings are from a Finnish study into passengers' attitudes towards, and experiences of, self-driving cars. The study is also the first in the world to examine passengers' experiences of self-driving cars in winter conditions.

Engineers and scientists from MIT and Georgia Tech are enabling near real-time modeling of wheels, treads, and desert animals traveling at high speeds across sandy terrains. "Dynamic Resistive Force Theory," or DRFT, provides a path to speedier granular modeling -- and help in designing optimal rough terrain vehicles, like Mars and lunar rovers.