Engineering News Tidbits

• CMU Robotics! First and foremost, CMU was named in CNET's special report, A user's guide to robotics higher ed. Colin Angle, the CEO of iRobot (maker of the Roomba), named Carnegie Mellon as one of the top three "places that we make sure we know what's going on," as far as robotics innovation goes.

• Big news in lasers and fusion! The National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California has built the world's largest laser. From this article: "The record-breaking laser is made up of 192 individual beams, each about 40 centimeters square." According to the BBC, this laser was built for three reasons, including the exploration of fusion in the context of nuclear explosions, the exploration of fusion as an energy source, and the exploration of fusion in stars. A video about how the laser works (warning, there is a short ad before the video starts) is available here.

• Making the world: In our search for interesting engineering news, we found a video showing how globes are made:


• Biomedical news! Scientific American's July issue has an article called "Yanking Pathogens Out of Blood with Magnets." You can come see it in the Engineering & Science Library's reading area or check it out online here.