A high-tech robotic fish hatched at Michigan State University has a new look. A new skill. And a new name.
MSU scientists have made a number of improvements on the fish, including the ability to glide long distances, which is the most important change to date. The fish now has the ability to glide through the water practically indefinitely, using little to no energy, while gathering valuable data that can aid in the cleaning of our lakes and rivers. (more…)
Students use tornado-chasing technology to research rain’s impact on stream
COLUMBIA, Mo. – With advances in meteorology technology, predicting storms is becoming easier than in the past. While most meteorology students learn about these new technologies in the classroom and don’t get a chance to use sophisticated equipment until they are on the job, a group of University of Missouri students were able to test a mobile weather tracking device, Doppler on Wheels (DOW), made famous by shows such as Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers.
The DOW visiting MU is one of a fleet of radar trucks maintained by the Center for Severe Storm Research. Each radar truck is mounted with a Doppler weather radar dish. The fleet also consists of a support vehicle and three trucks that deploy instruments to track weather patterns in tornadoes and hurricanes. One of the radar trucks was brought to MU so that students could learn about the technology first-hand. (more…)
*Engineers at Brown University have designed a biological device that can measure glucose concentrations in human saliva. The technique could eliminate the need for diabetics to draw blood to check their glucose levels. The biochip uses plasmonic interferometers and could be used to measure a range of biological and environmental substances. Results are published in Nano Letters.*
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — For the 26 million Americans with diabetes, drawing blood is the most prevalent way to check glucose levels. It is invasive and at least minimally painful. Researchers at Brown University are working on a new sensor that can check blood sugar levels by measuring glucose concentrations in saliva instead.
The technique takes advantage of a convergence of nanotechnology and surface plasmonics, which explores the interaction of electrons and photons (light). The engineers at Brown etched thousands of plasmonic interferometers onto a fingernail-size biochip and measured the concentration of glucose molecules in water on the chip. Their results showed that the specially designed biochip could detect glucose levels similar to the levels found in human saliva. Glucose in human saliva is typically about 100 times less concentrated than in the blood. (more…)
