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Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed sensors that could be mounted on bridges, aircraft or other large structures to constantly search for faults and flaws, possibly giving officials time to head off disasters like the recent Interstate 35W collapse in Minneapolis.

The Sandia engineers are working on several kinds of sensors. One of them, a self-adhesive rubber patch stuck to the surface of a bridge, would be able to detect cracks propagating through the structure by registering changes in air pressure. Another involves a kind of smart paint that could help detect cracks. A network of permanently mounted sensors would be able to constantly monitor the structure and alert engineers to developing flaws before they become a real problem.—Gregory Mone

Via Newswise

The way Robert Liden sees it, his company is simply building an odd-looking car. It's made mostly of steel and glass, after all, and it has an engine with a radiator and a water pump. It just doesn't have wheels, seats or a Blaupunkt.

There´s a reason you´re such a klutz when lopping off the head of a virtual ogre: You can´t feel what you´re doing. But game players will soon be able to get their hands on virtual-touch technology initially developed by Sandia National Laboratories and once reserved for such costly equipment as surgical simulators used to train medical residents. Novint Technologies´s desktop Falcon controller (novint.com), which will cost about $100, is the first interactive 3-D touch device for the home PC.

That, at least, is the vision of Jeff Brinker, a materials scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. Brinker and his team have devised a way to transform the loathed insects into stealthy environmental sentinels to detect chemical or biological agents.

Before Russell Kerschmann came along, the world through a microscope looked much the way people perceived the world at large to be before Columbus set sail: flat. Microscopes let us see an object's surface and get some sense of its insides, but its true three-dimensional architecture remained a mystery. No one knew exactly how the two parts of Velcro attach, or precisely how the network of pores in a paper towel enable it to suck up water, or even how the three different layers that make up our skin interact.