Northwestern University

Image by isolano. via Flickr A company says it has developed a polymer roof coating that will keep buildings cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Buildings consume about a third of the energy and two-thirds of the electricity in the U.S. Roofs are a good place to try to cut those figures. Because traditional

Gardening can be physically-demanding work. Whether you’re weeding, planting or harvesting, almost every garden-related task seems to involve kneeling down and/or bending forward – definitely not so easy on the knees or the back. For commercial garden workers, however, help could be on the way. Two Australian inventors have come up with a product they

SCIENTISTS from Edinburgh Napier University and Sappi have developed a low cost way to turn wood into a wonder material that could be used to build greener cars, thicken foods and even treat wounds. It means Sappi will be able to produce the lightweight material on a commercially viable basis – and without producing large volumes

Re-educating Rita IN JULY 2011 Sebastian Thrun, who among other things is a professor at Stanford, posted a short video on YouTube, announcing that he and a colleague, Peter Norvig, were making their “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course available free online. By the time the course began in October, 160,000 people in 190 countries had

Greenbean Recycle takes the childhood joy of bringing your cans and bottle to the redemption center and makes it a lot easier to get your money (and compete against your friends) What if every bottle or can you recycled not only gave you an instant refund deposited into the account of your choosing, but also

A nanoscoop electrode could be charged and discharged at a rate 40 to 60 times faster than conventional battery anodes An entirely new type of nanomaterial developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could enable the next generation of high-power rechargeable lithium (Li)-ion batteries for electric automobiles, as well as batteries for laptop computers, mobile phones, and

We’ve looked before at Innespace’s gentler, dolphin-shaped submersibles, but while the original Seabreacher J looks like great fun, this new X version really tickles my petrolhead glands. The key differences are a bigger engine, putting out 260 supercharged horsepower against the J model’s perfectly adequate 155 – and a new body shape that replaces the

Despite not becoming the personal transport revolution that it was designed to be, the Segway has provided a wealth of design fodder for numerous self-balancing concepts, prototypes and production single occupancy vehicles. Mohamad Sadegh Samakoush Darounkolayi’s entry into this year’s Michelin Design Challenge, however, probably owes more to the Disney/Pixar film WALL-E – hopefully the users of his Supple concept

A new device for building large tissues from living components of three-dimensional microtissues borrows on ideas from electronics manufacturing. The Bio-Pick, Place, and Perfuse (BioP3) is a step toward someday making whole organs. A new instrument could someday build replacement human organs the way electronics are assembled today: with precise picking and placing of parts.

Provides assistance by storing and releasing kinetic energy generated by a person when walking Like Honda’s Stride Walking Assist and the ReWalk, the Kickstart from Cadence Biomedical is designed to help improve the gait of people who have difficulty walking and help them regain their mobility and independence. But unlike its robotic cousins that are powered by weighty