Fuel is expensive, so cars need to become lighter and lighter. To ensure that this weight loss does not come at the expense of safety, the vehicles' metal sheets are not only getting thinner but also harder – ultra-hard. This means that the production process, too, has to be re-adapted. "Several process steps are needed to manufacture car body components," explains Dipl.-Ing. Sören Scheffler of the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU in Chemnitz. "If you look at a car, you can see that each of its sheet metal parts is extremely large.
Culture
Since the discovery of nitroglycerin in 1846, the nitrate ester group of compounds has been known for its explosive properties. A whole series of other nitrate esters have been subsequently put to use as explosives and fuels. A research team led by David E. Chavez at Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA) has now developed a novel tetranitrate ester. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the compound has a particularly interesting characteristic profile: it is solid at room temperature, is a highly powerful explosive, and can be melt-cast into the desired shape.
Why are some countries more prone to political corruption? Viviana Stechina from Uppsala University, Sweden, has investigated why corruption among the political elite was more extensive in Argentina than in Chile during the 1990s. Among other things, her research shows that greater transparency does not necessarily lead to less corruption.
October 1, 2008, Providence, RI---Do females intrinsically have lessability than males to excel in mathematics at the very highest level?Conventional wisdom seems to say yes. Harvard University presidentLawrence Summers also seemed to give credence to this notion in 2005when he suggested that it might account in part for the very smallnumber of women professors in elite university math departments.
MADISON — A culture of neglect and, at some age levels, outright social ostracism, is derailing a generation of students, especially girls, deemed the very best in mathematics, according to a new study.
In a report published today (Oct. 10) in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, a comprehensive analysis of decades of data on students identified as having profound ability in math describes a culturally constricted pipeline that puts American leadership in the mathematical sciences and related fields at risk.
PALO ALTO, Calif., October 10, 2008 - In a seminar co-organized by Stanford University and the American Institute of Mathematics, Soundararajan announced that he and Roman Holowinsky have proven a significant version of the quantum unique ergodicity (QUE) conjecture. "This is one of the best theorems of the year," said Peter Sarnak, a mathematician from Princeton who along with Zeev Rudnick from the University of Tel Aviv formulated the conjecture fifteen years ago in an effort to understand the connections between classical and quantum physics.
Berkeley – Global warming is causing major shifts in the range of small mammals in Yosemite National Park, one of the nation's treasures that was set aside as a public trust 144 years ago, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Archaic corporate governing systems that failed to ferret out risky business deals helped stoke the nation's deepest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, a University of Illinois business law expert says.
Law professor Larry E. Ribstein argues the traditional, corporate-run firms that dominate the nation's Fortune 500 are ill equipped to prevent dicey management decisions that have choked credit markets, sparking a massive, taxpayer-financed Wall Street bailout.
It's hard being a mussel: you have to worry about hungry starfish and even hungrier humans, not to mention an environment that can change your body temperature 50 degrees Fahrenheit in just a few hours.
"It's one of the most variable habitats on Earth," said USC biologist Andrew Gracey. "Mussels can spend part of the day bathed in cool Pacific seawater and the other part baked under the California sun."
Gracey led the first real-time molecular sampling of mussels in their natural habitat, the results of which appear online Oct. 9 in the journal Current Biology.
During election season, Americans are reminded of their freedoms and rights that allow them to vote for their leaders. As countless political polls try to predict how voters are being swayed, those polled may not be allowed to vote at all. A University of Missouri professor of law says that the current economic crisis could cause disenfranchisement, depriving citizens the right to vote.
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Cremation, "air burial," grave cairns, funeral mounds, mummification, belief in life after death – death practices sacred to one culture are often considered "odd" or even terrifying by another.
The Greeks, for example, were fascinated with the historian Herodotus' description of the ancient Issedonians chopping up their dead into a mixed grill and devouring them in a communal barbeque, something entirely contrary to the Greeks' treatment of their own dead.
NEW YORK (October 8, 2008) – The songbird has a friend in the beaver. According to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the busy beaver's signature dams provide critical habitat for a variety of migratory songbirds, particularly in the semi-arid interior of the West.
Over the past ten years, dark chocolate and cocoa have become recognized through numerous studies for flavanol antioxidant benefits. In a study published this month in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, scientists from The Hershey Company and Brunswick Laboratories of Norton, MA report on the levels of antioxidants in selected cocoa powders and the effect of processing on the antioxidant levels. The study, which analyzed Hershey's Natural Cocoa Powder and nineteen other cocoa powders, reported that natural cocoa powders have the highest levels of antioxidants.
CHICAGO – Born out of war, plastic surgery remains at the forefront of surgical innovation, and advances from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan benefit victims of inner city wars being fought on our streets. At the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Plastic Surgery 2008 conference, Oct. 31 – Nov. 5, in Chicago, civilian and military plastic surgeons will participate in a panel discussion about the challenges created by today's high-powered weaponry and the advances in facial reconstruction accelerated by wartime.
An extensive study of how the nursing profession has been portrayed in films over the last century has shown that unflattering stereotypes are becoming less common and nurses are now being portrayed in a more positive light.
Australian nurse researcher Dr David Stanley reviewed more than 36,000 film synopses and watched 280 films made between 1900 and 2007 for his research, published in the latest issue of the UK-based Journal of Advanced Nursing.