News Releases

A computer chip implanted near the eye's retina is well on its way to offering some restored vision to people blinded by eye diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related degeneration of the eye. The implant works for eye diseases where healthy retinal neurons remain intact after they lose...

In the deep waters two miles south of Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard, not far from where, two centuries ago, the likes of Captain Ahab and a thousand others kept their watch for the great white and his kin, we are now searching to understand another potential beast in those parts: the ocean and the...

With the expected 70,000 daily visitors to the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City this month, reliable communications are essential. Even the best laid plan needs a backup, and that's why the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., has its mobile communications center ready in Salt...

In a wind tunnel in Hampton, Virginia , on the 30th of May this year, a new kind of cruise missile engine, called a scramjet, was fired up. Just like any other cruise missile engine, it used conventional liquid hydrocarbon fuel, but this one was a mite different. In simulated hypersonic conditions...

Your rich uncle dies and leaves you a painted masterpiece he's had hidden away for years. But, it's scratched, torn, and much of the paint has flaked away. You could take it to a painting restorationist, but this can take months and in any case, restoration is very subjective. What to do? You call a...

Dreaming of the potential of thermocouple devices? Well, perhaps not… but maybe you should. The October 11th issue of the respected British science journal Nature says there has been a major breakthrough recently in the world of thermoelectric materials.

How to make a robotic arm that is able to flex in an infinite number of ways and order it to do so without disorder and confusion? Get yourself an octopus and study it. That is exactly what researchers funded by the Office of Naval Research are doing. Octopuses are boneless, brainy, and ancient...

Starshine-2, the third in a programmed series of mirror-covered satellites built with help by students from around the world, will be launched from the Space Shuttle Endeavor on November 29th. Two other similar satellites have already been launched and placed in orbit (Starshine-1 was launched in...

When landline communications links are on the fritz and the job is too massive for local cellular communications, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., stands ready to answer the call. NRL has outfitted Humvees with the capability of immediately providing two-way satellite...

A researcher working under an Office of Naval Research grant is just a couple of months away from completing a prototype detector designed to sound the alarm when airborne microbes such as anthrax are in the air. Dr. Jeanne Small, a biophysicist and professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Eastern...