The Discovery Files

As mobile and wearable devices such as smartwatches grow smaller, it gets tougher for people to interact with screens the size of a matchbook. That could change with a new sonar technology developed by University of Washington computer scientists and electrical engineers that allows you to interact with mobile devices by writing or gesturing on any nearby surface -- a tabletop, a sheet of paper or even in mid-air.

When doctors diagnose a torn ligament, it's usually because they can see ruptures in the ligament's collagen fibers, visible on a variety of different scans. However, they also often treat patients with many of the symptoms of a tear, but whose ligaments don't show this kind of damage. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania are using network science to gain new insights into these "sub failure" injuries, which can lead to pain and dysfunction despite the lack of obvious physical evidence. The mechanisms that lead to these symptoms happen on a microscopic level and can't be detected by existing clinical tools.

Human voices are individually recognizable because they're generated by the unique components of each person's voice box, pharynx, esophagus and other physical structures. Researchers at Georgia Tech are using the same principle to identify devices on electrical grid control networks, using their unique electronic "voices" fingerprints produced by the devices' individual physical characteristics to determine which signals are legitimate and which signals might be from attackers. A similar approach could also be used to protect networked industrial control systems in oil and gas refineries, manufacturing facilities, wastewater treatment plants and other critical industrial systems.

Runway congestion can keep a plane idling for an hour or more, burning unnecessary fuel. Now engineers at MIT have developed a queuing model that predicts how long a plane will wait before takeoff, given weather conditions, runway traffic, and incoming and outgoing flight schedules. The model may help air traffic controllers direct departures more efficiently, minimizing runway congestion.

Researchers at Purdue University are using a technology likened to "mini force fields" to independently control individual microrobots operating within groups, an advance aimed at using the tiny machines in areas including manufacturing and medicine. The team developed a system for controlling the robots with individual magnetic fields from an array of tiny planar coils.

If researchers can understand how viruses assemble, they may be able to design drugs that prevent viruses from forming in the first place. Unfortunately, how exactly viruses self-assemble has long remained a mystery because it happens very quickly and at very small length-scales. Now, there is a system to track nanometer-sized viruses at sub-millisecond time scales. The method, developed by researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is the first step towards tracking individual proteins and genomic molecules at high speeds as they assemble to create a virus.

By studying videos from high-stakes court cases, University of Michigan researchers are building unique lie-detecting software based on real-world data. Their prototype considers both the speaker's words and gestures, and unlike a polygraph, it doesn't need to touch the subject in order to work. In experiments, it was up to 75 percent accurate in identifying who was being deceptive (as defined by trial outcomes), compared with humans' scores of just above 50 percent.

How thin can a camera be? Very, say Rice University researchers who have developed patented prototypes of their technological breakthrough. FlatCam, invented by the Rice labs of electrical and computer engineers, is little more than a thin sensor chip with a mask that replaces lenses in a traditional camera.

A team led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have solved a longstanding mystery about how some fish seem to disappear from predators in the open waters of the ocean, a discovery that could help materials scientists and military technologists create more effective methods of ocean camouflage.

University of Illinois professor Narayana Aluru led a team that found that tiny pores in thin sheets of the material molybdenum disulfide could be very good at removing salt from seawater to yield drinkable water. The material, a nanometer-thick sheet of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) riddled with tiny holes called nanopores, is specially designed to let high volumes of water through but keep salt and other contaminates out, a process called desalination.

Washington State University researchers for the first time have discovered how electrical stimulation works for the treatment of bacterial infections, paving the way for a viable alternative to medicinal antibiotics. The researchers passed an electric current over a film of bacteria and in 24 hours killed almost all of a multi-drug resistant bacterium that is often present in difficult-to-treat infections. The remaining bacterial population was 1/10,000th of its original size. The researchers also tested the method on pig tissue, where it killed most of the bacteria and did not damage surrounding tissue.

In creating what looks to be a simple children's musical instrument--a xylophone with keys in the shape of zoo animals--computer scientists at Columbia Engineering, Harvard, and MIT have demonstrated that sound can be controlled by 3-D-printing shapes. They designed an optimization algorithm and used computational methods and digital fabrication to control acoustic properties--both sound and vibration--by altering the shape of 2-D and 3-D objects.

Many bugs that make us sick--bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites--hide out in our cells in protective little bubbles called vacuoles. To clear an infection, the immune system must recognize and destroy these vacuoles while leaving the rest of the living cell intact. Now, researchers from Duke University have discovered that our bodies mark pathogen-containing vacuoles for destruction by using a molecule called ubiquitin, commonly known as the "kiss of death."

A team of researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin has invented a method for producing inexpensive and high-performing wearable patches that can continuously monitor the body's vital signs for human health and performance tracking, potentially outperforming traditional monitoring tools such as cardiac event monitors.

Teenagers and adults who go to bed late on weeknights are more likely to gain weight than their peers who hit the hay earlier, according to a new study from UC Berkeley that has found a correlation between sleep and body mass index. Berkeley researchers analyzed longitudinal data from a nationally representative cohort of more than 3300 youths and adults, and found that over time for every hour they went to bed after 11:15 p.m., they gained 2.1 points on the BMI index. This gain occurred roughly over a five-year period.