A giant Pac-Man to gobble up space debris

The Clean Space One Project has passed a milestone. The space cleanup satellite will deploy a conical net to capture the small SwissCube satellite before destroying it in the atmosphere. It's one of the solutions being tested ...

Polymer mold makes perfect silicon nanostructures

Using molds to shape things is as old as humanity. In the Bronze Age, the copper-tin alloy was melted and cast into weapons in ceramic molds. Today, injection and extrusion molding shape hot liquids into everything from car ...

Why the seahorse's tail is square

Why is the seahorse's tail square? An international team of researchers has found the answer and it could lead to building better robots and medical devices. In a nutshell, a tail made of square, overlapping segments makes ...

Insect decoys could protect ash trees

Emerald ash borers have no trouble reproducing themselves as they have now spread through half the United States, but duplicating effective emerald ash borer decoys is not quite as easy. Now, engineers have devised an inexpensive ...

Optimizing shale gas production from well to wire

"Hydraulic fracturing" (or fracking) and "environmentally friendly" often do not appear in the same sentence together. But as the United States teeters on the precipice of a shale gas boom, Northwestern University professor ...

Men think they are maths experts, therefore they are

Just because more men pursue careers in science and engineering does not mean they are actually better at math than women are. The difference is that men think they are much better at math than they really are. Women, on ...

New app sheds light on phone usage

A year ago, Northwestern University PhD student John Rula accidentally left his smartphone in a taxi. After exiting the car, he checked his pockets multiple times only to find them empty. That's when the anxiety set in.

page 26 from 40