Two years ago, Antonio Melillo was in a car crash that completely severed his spinal cord.  He has not been able to move or feel his legs since.  And yet here I am, in a lab at the Santa Lucia Foundation hospital in Rome, Italy, watching him walk.  Melillo is one of the first people [...]

Electronic components are invading the body.  In the lab, cling wrap–like circuitry draped over the hearts of test animals can track the activity of each of the heart’s four chambers and kill tissue that initiate potentially deadly arrhythmias.  Other arrays penetrate brain tissue to monitor the abnormal nerve firing patterns in epilepsy or induce gene [...]

Deformations in large structures such as bridges, buildings, and pipelines can be dangerous.  In addition to safety assessments, measuring the static and dynamic displacement of in-service structures is an important issue and a challenging task for validating designs and monitoring performance.  Long-term measurement allows continuous monitoring of structures, which permits constant safety oversight so that [...]

At the start of this year Germany officially entered the Dark Ages again — at least according to its state weather service.  A mere 22.5 hours of sunshine were recorded in January — a 60-year low.  Despite this, the country’s power supply, which has a world leading input from solar panels, firmly stood its ground, [...]

Geothermal heat provides sustainable energy for electricity generation and heating applications.  Worldwide use of geothermal energy has increased steadily over the past few decades, and exploration and development are ongoing at unprecedented levels in Iceland, New Zealand, East Africa, Germany, Chile, and Australia.  Today, 24 countries generate electricity from geothermal energy and 78 countries use [...]

Could assembled concrete towers be a viable alternative to the steel towers now used for wind turbines?  Could concrete towers be a practical way to raise turbine towers from today’s 80 meters to the steadier winds at 100 meters and taller?  Which of three ways to connect the columns and panels works best for wind [...]

Field effect transistors (FETs) composed of discrete silicon active regions or ‘fins’, referred to as finFETs, have superior electrostatic properties compared to planar devices  As a result, they are likely to play a role in further miniaturization of electronic devices.  However, density requirements for fin patterning have exceeded what can be achieved through direct printing [...]

The advent of the first cellphones in the 1980s marked the beginning of commercial mobile communications.  Now, only 30 years later, wireless connectivity has become a fundamental part of our everyday lives and is increasingly being regarded as an essential commodity like electricity, gas, and water.  The technology’s huge success means we are now facing [...]

In November 2012, IBM announced that it had used the Blue Gene/Q Sequoia supercomputer to achieve an unprecedented simulation of more than 530 billion neurons.  The Blue Gene/Q Sequoia accomplished this feat thanks to its blazing fast speed; it clocks in at over 16 quadrillion calculations per second.  In fact, it currently ranks as the [...]

Optical transparency is an essential characteristic of many solids that are used in transportation, defense, and safety applications.  Such transparent materials are used, for example, in automotive windshields, electronic displays, aircraft windows and canopies, hurricane resistant windows, bullet resistant enclosures, personnel helmet visors, and transparent armor.  In some of these situations, the capacity of the [...]