Computer-generated building models provide 3D spatial information for a variety of applications, such as city planning, automobile-navigation systems, and spatial inquiry (such as Google Earth or Microsoft Bing maps).  As urbanization proceeds apace worldwide, 3D geographic systems are proving invaluable in updating building models on a regular basis, in general using one of two methods.  [...]

How does one design a robot that maneuvers in three dimensions and navigates all manner of terrain?  Those are the main challenges that Howie Choset at Carnegie Mellon University is attempting to tackle.  Most modern robots perform functions from a fixed or mobile base.  Mobile bases extend a robot’s reach further than a fixed base; [...]

In the 19th century novel Flatland by Edward A. Abbott, residents of that fictional country exist in only two dimensions.  Women are born as line segments, while men come in a range of geometric shapes reflecting their rank, from lowly isosceles triangles, to middle-class squares, to six-sided hexagons, reserved for nobility.  The constraints of life [...]

Concrete pavements are made by mixing cement with water, sand, and virgin aggregates obtained from rock quarries located in the proximity of the construction site.  In Indiana most of these aggregates are quarried limestone.  “Some parts of Indiana have plenty of quarries near highway construction sites,” said Nancy Whiting, a scientist with the Applied Concrete [...]

Most buildings are not constructed to withstand an unexpected explosion or impact.  Now, a researcher at the University of Missouri is working with the U.S. Army to test a method of retrofitting buildings to protect them in the case of a terrorist attack.  Sarah Orton, assistant professor of civil engineering in the MU College of [...]

It’s the bane of drivers the world over.  You round a corner on a busy highway to find the traffic in front of you at a standstill, blocking the road ahead as far as the eye can see.  What should have been a quick commute has just turned into a frustrating slog.  For a few [...]

Robotic limbs controlled solely by the mind could be available to paralyzed people within a year.  Monkeys are being trained to control what might be the world’s most sophisticated and human-like robot arm.  But they never touch the prosthetic limb or fiddle with a remote control: they guide it with their thoughts alone.  If trials [...]

Rubbery polymers have been made in which damage is healed by exposure to light.  The healing mechanism allows localized, on-demand repair, and might help to extend the lifetimes of materials for many applications.  [Nature, 21 Apr 2011]

Wavy strips of piezoelectric materials on stretchable substrates can both withstand larger applied mechanical strain without cracking and harvest energy more efficiently than their flat counterparts.  [Nature, 21 Apr 2011]

Amorphous silicon has long been the king of flat-panel displays.  It began its reign in PC monitors and high-definition TV, then conquered netbooks, e-readers, and smartphones.  No other substance was as suitable for the thin-film transistors that sit behind a display’s hundreds of thousands of pixels, turning each one on or off.  But soon the [...]