Engineering in the News August 2012

Excerpts from Illinois in the News, a daily service provided by the University of Illinois News Bureau. This collection of August excerpts focuses on engineering topics and faculty contacted for their expertise by print and broadcast reporters around the world.

FLEXIBLE MATERIALS
IEEE Spectrum (New York City, Aug. 30) -- A Cornell research team has developed a technique for manufacturing the components of electronic circuits on a single one-atom-thick sheet. The Cornell team’s method “may have huge potential in flexible electronics, where thinner is often better, due to improved mechanics of bendability,” says John A. Rogers, a materials scientist at Illinois.

MUSCLES AND ROBOTS
Health Canal (Melbourne, Australia, Aug. 30) -- A group of university researchers has genetically engineered muscle cells to flex in response to light, and is using the light-sensitive tissue to build highly articulated robots. Rashid Bashir, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and bioengineering at the U. of I., comments on the research. Also: PhysOrg.com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Aug. 30).

START-UPS
The Chronicle of Higher Education (Aug. 28) -- Lesley Millar, the director of the Office of Technology Management at the U. of I., says the focus on entrepreneurship at Illinois is one reason for the big jump in the number of start-up companies formed there.

ROBOT MAVS KEEP FORMATION
ScienceBlog (Aug. 27) -- Robot MAV helicopters programmed for formation flying autonomously reconfigure their formation when members leave or enter the group. The helicopter testbed has been used to demonstrate the effectiveness of algorithms researchers have developed for implementing swarms consisting of hundreds to thousands of very small spacecraft – each about the size of an iPhone (watch the video).

SMART STITCHES
Gizmodo (Sydney, Aug. 24) -- A team of researchers at Illinois led by materials science professor John Rogers has successfully developed an electronic suture that contains ultrathin silicon sensors integrated on polymer or silk strips and can be laced through the skin and knotted just like conventional medical stitches. Also: Greenbang (London, Aug. 23), ASEE FirstBell (Aug. 24), Gizmodo UK (Bath, England, Aug. 24), Technology Review (Aug. 24), Popular Science (Aug. 24), Discovery News (Aug. 24), Medgadget (El Granada, Calif., Aug. 24), NBC News (Aug. 27), Smart Planet (Aug. 27), DVice (Aug. 27), NBC News (from Discovery News, Aug. 27), iMedicalApps.com (Aug. 28), Gizmag (Melbourne, Australia, Aug. 28).

Related story: Boston Herald (Aug. 28) -- Cambridge startup MC10 is pioneering smart sutures, ultrathin silicon sensors contained in polymer or silk threads that are as small as string — but infused with the ability to measure temperature. MC10 was co-founded by John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois. Rogers’ breakthrough was published in the publication Small, a journal that chronicles scientific research at the nano- and microscale level. Also: ASEE FirstBell (Aug. 28).

COMPUTER MODELS SOLVE PROBLEMS
Science 360 (National Science Foundation, Aug. 24) -- Podcast of interview With NSF-funded Sheldon Jacobson, UIUC Simulation And Optimization Lab Director, About Applications Of His Research – From Aviation Security To Vaccine Stockpiles. (click on NSF Webcasts and Interviews on webpage).

SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Aug. 23) -- Many researchers studying superconductivity strive to create a clean, pure, perfect sample, but a team of researchers, including U. of I. physics professor Karin Dahmen, found that some flaws might hold the key to a material’s unique abilities.

RESEARCH COMMERCIALIZATION
Chicago Tribune (Aug. 23) -- Illinois universities are commercializing more of their research through technology licensing and startup formation, but they continue to trail academic institutions in states such as California and Massachusetts, according to a new Illinois Innovation Index report. The report named the U. of I., Northwestern, the University of Chicago and Southern Illinois University as the top startup-creating schools. Also: Crain’s Chicago Business (Aug. 22). ASEE FirstBell (Aug. 23).

LED ANNIVERSARY
Scientific Computing (Aug.) -- In 1962--50 years ago this fall--Nick Holonyak, then a physicist at GE, built the world’s first LED. Holonyak’s diode emitted only red light, but it lit a research boom whose multi-colored offspring now illuminate homes and cities, the latest iPad “retina” screens, and flat-screen TVs. “Boy, those were the golden years,” says Holonyak, now 83 years old. “When I went in, I didn’t realize all that we were going to do.”

NANOTECHNOLOGY
Nanotechweb.org (Bristol, England, Aug. 17) --  U. of I. materials scientists Eric Pop and Ashkan Behnam have shown that graphene nanoribbons obtained from graphene grown by chemical vapor deposition could make ideal interconnects for nanoelectronic circuits.

KEEPING ONLINE ACCOUNTS SAFE
Philadelphia Inquirer (Aug. 16) -- It is not difficult for hackers to get at online accounts. "Daisy-chaining" online accounts--linking one e-mail account to another through account-recovery addresses, and the use of similar - and thus guessable - e-mail addresses at multiple accounts--opens the door for a decent hacker. Edmond Rogers, a cybersecurity engineer at the University of Illinois' Information Trust Institute, agreed that a central mistake was the daisy-chaining of accounts. "You don't have the same key for all the cars you own. You don't have the same keys for your home that you do at work," Rogers says.

POST-HARVEST LOSSES
The Republic (from The Associated Press; Columbus, Ind., Aug. 16) -- Researchers from the U. of I. and three universities in Brazil are working together to study ways to reduce the amount of food lost after harvesting. Also: Northwest Herald (from The Associated Press; Crystal Lake, Ill., Aug. 16), St. Louis Post-Dispatch (from AP, Aug. 16), GrainNet. (Aug. 15), Feed & Grain.com (Aug. 16), Rock River Times (Aug. 22).

BIOFUEL
Water & Wastewater.com (Aug. 15) -- Agricultural and biological engineering researchers at Illinois reportedly have developed a process for converting raw pig manure to crude oil, and with further development, the process may even yield biodiesel. According to some estimates, an average 10,000-hog farm could produce 5,000 barrels of crude oil a year. Also: U.S. News & World Report (Aug. 23).

SMART SURGICAL GLOVES
The Engineer (London, Aug. 10) -- The intricate properties of the fingertips have been mimicked and recreated using semiconductor devices in what researchers hope will lead to the development of advanced surgical gloves. The devices, shown to be capable of responding with high precision to the stresses and strains associated with touch and finger movement, are a step toward the creation of surgical gloves for use in medical procedures such as local ablations and ultrasound scans. Researchers from the U. of I., Northwestern and Dalian University of Technology wrote about their work in a study published today in the journal Nanotechnology. “Imagine the ability to sense the electrical properties of tissue, and then locally remove that tissue, precisely by local ablation, all via the fingertips using smart surgical gloves,” says study co-author John Rogers, a materials scientist at Illinois. Also: e! Science News (Quebec City, Aug. 10), Laboratory Talk (Berkhamsted, England, Aug. 10), Medical Daily (New York City, Aug. 9), Nanotechweb.org (Bristol, England, Aug. 10), PhysOrg.com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Aug. 10), Science (Washington, D.C., Aug. 9), Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., Aug. 9), Wired (Aug. 10), Institute of Physics (Aug. 10),  Global Post (Aug. 11), New Scientist (8/11),Daily Mail (London, Aug 13), Live Science (New York City, Aug. 10), Medgadget (El Granada, Calif., Aug. 10), New Electronics (London, Aug. 13), Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Aug. 12), Kurtzweil.ai (Aug. 12), The Hindustan Times (New Delhi, Aug. 13, ASEE FirstBell (8/13), Popular Science (Aug. 13), “SmartPlanet” (CBS Interactive, Aug. 13), United Press International (Aug. 13), Nanowerk News (Honolulu, Aug. 15), Ecouterre (blog, Aug. 16), The Wall Street Journal (Week in Ideas #4, Aug. 17), Gizmag (Melbourne, Australia, Aug. 18), Wall Street Journal online (Aug. 17), Mobile Magazine (Aug. 20).

ALUMS' BOOTSTRAPPING SUCCESS ONLINE
Business Insider (Aug. 13) -- Article highlights Sean Broihier's ultra-lean start-up, Fine Art America, a print-on-demand business for artists and photographers from all over the world who get to name their own prices for their work. His first venture, Local Automation, a website designed for engineers, still exists today. Broihier graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in mechanical engineering.

ACQUISITION BUILDS CLOUD CAPABILITIES
eWeek.com (Aug. 8) - - VMware officials continue to build up their cloud computing capabilities through acquisitions, this time buying the Log Insight big data analytics platform from small technology vendor Pattern Insight. Log Insight gives a looking-glass view at cloud computing services by supplying providers with monitoring data on cloud and virtualized environments. Pattern Insight was founded in 2006 by YuanYuan “YY” Zhou, at the time a professor of computer science at Illinois. The company initially had several offices at the University's EnterpriseWorks in Research Park. Also: ZD Net (Aug. 8), Techcrunch.com (Aug. 8), CRN.com (Aug. 8), PC Advisor (Aug. 8), Information Management (Aug. 8), The Register (Aug. 9, UK).

WEARABLE SENSORS
eWeek.com (Aug. 8) -- Wearable computing could lead to an overhaul of mobile phone architecture, according to a July report by GigaOM Pro, the research arm of online tech publisher GigaOM. MC10, an electronics company in Cambridge, Mass., plans to add WiFi capabilities to an epidermal monitor developed by the University of Illinois. Sano Intelligence, a tech startup, has developed a wearable patch that monitors kidney function, metabolism and blood glucose levels.

IMPROVING ENGINEERING EDUCATION
The Huffington Post (Aug. 7) -- Engineering professor emeritus David Goldberg co-authors an article about "Three Habits at Three Levels for Improved Engineering Education."

NEW ENERGY CENTER
Fife Today (United Kingdom; Aug. 6) -- Oil firm BP said it will open an International Centre for Advanced Materials to support science and engineering, spread across Manchester and Cambridge universities and Imperial College, London, as well as the University of Illinois in the United States. Around £60 million will be invested in the project, which will create a number of new academic posts. Also: Environmental Leader (Estes Park, Colo., Aug. 9), Ceramic Tech Today (Aug. 23).

CS ALUM DRIVING CURIOSITY
CNN.com (Aug.6) -- CS alumnus Scott Maxwell has the greatest job on Earth...or Mars, actually. He's one of about a dozen people at NASA tasked with steering the $2.6 billion Mars rover, Curiosity, from more than 100 million miles away.

THE PHYSICS OF BASEBALL
The New York Times (Aug. 4) -- U. of I. emeritus physics professor Alan Nathan was called on to analyze the unusual movement of the split-finger fastballs thrown by New York Yankees pitcher Freddy Garcia. Nathan has written numerous published papers on the physics of baseball and pitching. But he had never seen anything like what Garcia had done. This was not simply the Magnus effect – the principle responsible for the curve in a curveball. “There was something else going on,” Nathan says. “The left-right movement wasn’t determined primarily by the spin; it was determined by something else.”

OLYMPICS AND FAIR PLAY
CNN International (Aug. 4) -- A South African double-amputee’s appearance in the London Olympics poses some interesting philosophical questions according to Rayvon Fouché, a U. of I. history professor and a researcher at the Coordinated Science Laboratory,. Fouché, the author of the forthcoming, Gamechanger: Technology and Science in Sport, says it isn’t easy to define fair play in sport in a high-tech age.

PHYSICISTS LEARNING A TRADE
Science (Aug. 3) -- One year after finishing their PhDs, 60% of physicists were in postdocs. Nearly half of all physicists work in industry, and only about 35% work in academia. This reflects two trends: relative decline in the number of tenure-track academic jobs in most physics fields, and increasing opportunities in certain fields for math-savvy physicists. Several years ago, at the University of Illinois physics professor Nigel Goldenfeld created an arrangement that allowed physics PhD students to earn a master's degree in finance as a regular part of their physics coursework. That finance-degree fast track no longer exists—Goldenfeld cites financial reasons—but says the program was quite popular with students.

SOLAR CELLS
Business Insider (New York City, Aug. 1) -- Even a new development like Solar Junction solar cell technology, which recently set the record for most efficient solar cell, can’t work alone. It works best with Semprius’ solar cell module. The North Carolina-based company utilizes a breakthrough micro-printing process to produce the solar cells en masse and load them onto specially designed large arrays to collect power from the sun. John Rogers, a materials science professor at Illinois, pioneered the printing process and in 2005 founded Semprius.

MATERIALS
Nanotechweb.org (Bristol, England, Aug. 1) -- Various research groups have made progress in “epidermal electronics” using a variety of methods. U. of I. engineering professor John Rogers’ group, for example, has used a transfer-printing method to cut individual silicon chiplets to micrometer size and attach them to a flexible substrate, allowing the researchers to create wireless heart-rate monitors that stick to the skin like temporary tattoos using only Van der Waals forces.
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