Making News, April 2010

The Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) has announced that Michael L. Vaughan (DE A ’82), Senior Assistant Dean of the University of Delaware, has been named Vice President of the Board of Director of JETS. Read news release

JETS also announced its new president, Linda Snow-Solum, the first female president of JETS.

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The New York Times, is reporting on an old idea that is finding new life at Hewlett-Packard.

Devices known as memristors, or memory resistors, were originally conceived by Leon O. Chua, IL A ’59, in 1971. Scientists at H.P. did not start using the computer chips until 2008.

Now there are reports of “advances in the design of a new class of diminutive switches capable of replacing transistors as computer chips shrink closer to the atomic scale.”

Dr. Chua, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, says, “Our brains are made of memristors,” referring to the function of biological synapses. “We have the right stuff now to build real brains.”

Read the full article for information about the advances in transistor technology

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Researchers from NASA, the U.S. Navy, and several universities, have demonstrated the first unmanned sub that runs on the ocean’s thermal energy.

Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangrian Observer Thermal RECharging, is the name of the robotic vehicle that “uses a thermal recharging engine powered by the natural temperature differences at different ocean depths.”

Read the blog post to find out more about how the processes involved in powering this autonomous ocean vehicle.

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