Author: dhallett

Chameleon’s tongue strike inspires fast-acting robots that catch live insects in the blink of an eye

Purdue University researchers were inspired by a chameleon’s tongue to create soft robots able to quickly catch a live flying beetle.

Purdue receives first USDA grant to study organic hemp production

Farmers interested in growing now-legal hemp have little information to guide them. With the help of a nearly $1 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant, research from Purdue University scientists, led by Kevin Gibson,
professor of botany and plant pathology, will answer questions related to organic production of the crop.

Purdue scientist sending tomatoes into space to study plant defense

Purdue University’s Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi aims to improve the odds of successful crops with a recently awarded NASA grant to understand the effects of spaceflight and simulated microgravity on plant defense responses

Purdue scientist working to remove persistent chemicals from drinking water

Linda Lee, professor in the Department of Agronomy, believes the key to lowering PFAS levels in drinking water is to reduce their use on products and to capture or remediate them before they leave wastewater treatment plants.

‘Imagination heaven’ playground on Purdue campus built to help children with communication challenges

The Bob L. and Joyce Beery Miles Outdoor Learning Space at Purdue University’s Lyles-Porter Hall was designed for researchers in the Purdue Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences to investigate and treat communication challenges in children.

Corinne Alexander Spirit of the Land-Grant Mission Award winner helping to shape the field of food science

Haley Oliver has spent years working toward developing the first food technology program in Afghanistan. The project is one of the many reasons Oliver, an associate professor of food science at Purdue University, received the 2019 Corinne Alexander Spirit of the Land-Grant Mission Award on Oct. 24.

Scientists develop efficient methods to turn woody biomass into fuels

Purdue University’s Nick Carpita and Maureen McCann have developed and refined methods for efficiently converting cellulosic biomass into fuels. Their findings could be used with gene-editing technology to make fuel from biomass sorghum, seen here, or other bio feedstock plants.

Purdue Foundry unveils first DDX cohort

The Purdue Foundry has unveiled its first cohort for the Double Down Experiment (DDX), which includes nine businesses ready to reach the next level with technologies designed to advance the world.

$2.3 million DoE grant to advance ethanol fuel research

Researchers at Purdue University have received $2.3 million in funding from the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office for their work to create computer models to simplify the design and construction of biorefineries to help them better perform reliably, sustainably, safely and economically.

Watch your ghost teach a robot how to tag-team

For those manufacturing jobs where humans have an edge, Purdue University engineers have introduced “GhostX:” An augmented reality platform that turns the user and robot into “ghosts.” The user can then plan out how to collaborate with the robot and work out kinks before actually performing a task.
The technology solves a big engineering conundrum: For humans and robots to truly collaborate, they would have to know exactly what each other is doing.