Tree seeds, rather than biomass or fuel crop plants, could represent an abundant source of renewable energy, according to research published in the International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management. The study suggests that seeds from the Indian mahua and sal trees have almost as good a thermal efficiency as biodiesel but would produce lower emissions of carbon monoxide, waste hydrocarbons and NOx (nitrogen oxides).
Tech
Mention magnets, and most people think of trivial applications of those pieces of metal, like holding family photos and reminder notes on the refrigerator. An article on magnets in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), however, focuses on the critical role magnets play in the real world and the search for new materials to make them. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
A new American Chemical Society (ACS) video provides a behind-the-scenes-look at the DayGlo Color Corp. factory, producer of the fluorescent paints that light up traffic cones, black light posters, hula-hoops and other products. The video, the latest episode of the award-winning Bytesize Science series from the world's largest scientific society, is at www.BytesizeScience.com.
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The hand-held scanners, or tricorders, of the Star Trek movies and television series are one step closer to reality now that a University of Missouri engineering team has invented a compact source of X-rays and other forms of radiation. The radiation source, which is the size of a stick of gum, could be used to create inexpensive and portable X-ray scanners for use by doctors, as well as to fight terrorism and aid exploration on this planet and others.
AUSTIN, Texas - A new Department of Energy research facility could help bring the U.S. closer to generating power from the winds and waters along America's coasts and help alleviate a major hurdle for offshore wind and ocean power development.
Will Shaw, an atmospheric scientist at DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will describe plans for the facility at an 11:45 a.m. talk today at the 93rd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, which runs through Thursday in Austin, Texas.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have demonstrated a new technology that combines a laser and electric fields to create tiny centrifuge-like whirlpools to separate particles and microbes by size, a potential lab-on-a-chip system for medicine and research.
The storage capacity of concentrating solar power (CSP) can add significant value to a utility company's optimal mix of energy sources, a new report by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) suggests.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Chemicals used as flame retardants are present as environmental pollutants at locations around the globe, including remote sites in Indonesia, Nepal and Tasmania, according to a study by researchers from the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
The study, published this month in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, makes use of a novel but highly effective sampling technique: measuring concentrations of the chemicals in the bark of trees, which absorbs compounds in both vapor and particle phases.
Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed a camera that can be used to take powerful three dimensional colour X-ray images, in near real-time, without the need for a synchrotron X-ray source.
Its ability to identify the composition of the scanned object could radically improve security screening at airports, medical imaging, aircraft maintenance, industrial inspection and geophysical exploration.
Versatile and responsive to management, corn is grown throughout the world for everything from food to animal feed to fuel. A new use for corn could soon join that list, as researchers in China investigate the crop's ability to induce "suicidal germination" in a devastating parasitic weed.
PHILADELPHIA - A team, led by senior author Morris J. Birnbaum, MD, PhD, the Willard and Rhoda Ware Professor of Medicine, with the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, found that the diabetes drug metformin works in a different way than previously understood. Their research in mice found that metformin suppresses the liver hormone glucagon's ability to generate an important signaling molecule, pointing to new drug targets. The findings were published online this week in Nature.
Technologically valuable ultrastable glasses can be produced in days or hours with properties corresponding to those that have been aged for thousands of years, computational and laboratory studies have confirmed.
"That's not what I meant": human communication is fraught with misinterpretation. Written out in longhand, words and letters can be misread. A telegraph clerk can mistake a dot for a dash. Noise will always be with us, but at least a new JQI (*) device has established a new standard for reading quantum information with a minimum of uncertainty.
Ships of tomorrow could glide through the water with less energy because of a technology developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Pittsburgh.
By coating grooves called riblets with superhydrophobic material, researchers can encase ship hulls in a pinned layer of air, allowing them to race through the waves faster while using about half the fuel.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Norfolk Southern Railway No. 999 is the first all-electric, battery-powered locomotive in the United States. But when one of the thousand lead-acid batteries that power it dies, the locomotive shuts down. To combat this problem, a team of Penn State researchers is developing more cost-effective ways to prolong battery life.