MADISON -- Shifting a fraction of truck-borne freight onto trains would have an outsized impact on air quality in the Midwest, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Much of that impact boils down to simple efficiency, according to Erica Bickford, a graduate student in UW–Madison's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. For each ton they carry, long-distance trucks go about 150 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel. Trains can move a ton more than 400 miles per gallon.
A common theme in nanoscience research is the recycling of "old" processes and protocols that were once applied crudely on bulk materials in trades and industrial settings, but which can now be applied to nano-sized structures with high precision and resolution using newly available instruments and know-how.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The current Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards create a financial incentive for auto companies to make bigger vehicles that are allowed to meet lower targets, according to a new University of Michigan study.
Over their lifetimes, these larger vehicles would generate between three and ten 1,000-megawatt coal-fired power plants' worth of excess carbon emissions. A 1,000-megawatt plant could provide power for more than half a million people.
The concept of the hydrogen economy (HE), in which hydrogen would replace the carbon-based fossil fuels of the twentieth century was first mooted in the 1970s. Today, HE is seen as a potential solution to the dual global crises of climate change and dwindling oil reserves. A research paper to be published in the International Journal of Sustainable Design suggests that HE is wrong and SHE has the answer in the sustainable hydrogen economy.
New Rochelle, NY, December 8, 2011 -- Fecal contamination of public beaches caused by sewage overflow is both dangerous for swimmers and costly for state and local economies. Current methods to detect Escherichia coli, a bacterium highly indicative of the presence of fecal matter in water, typically require 24-48 hours to produce a result. A new, accurate, and economical sensor-based device capable of measuring E.
The research into the sustainability of nuclear and other electricity options in the UK shows that nuclear power could make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. However, that would require a huge expansion of nuclear, constituting 35% of the electricity mix by 2035, almost double the current contribution.
Given that most current nuclear power stations are due to close in this period, this scenario seems unfeasible, the authors claim.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2011 — The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions" podcast series discusses the discovery of bisphenol A (BPA) in 94 percent of thermal cash register receipts and describes how recycling of those receipts spreads BPA to paper napkins, toilet paper and other paper products.
The public is being kept in the dark about the viability of solar photovoltaic energy, according to a study conducted at Queen's University.
"Many analysts project a higher cost for solar photovoltaic energy because they don't consider recent technological advancements and price reductions," says Joshua Pearce, Adjunct Professor, Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. "Older models for determining solar photovoltaic energy costs are too conservative."
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M -- Unexpected voltage increases of up to 25 percent in two barely separated nanowires have been observed at Sandia National Laboratories.
Designers of next-generation devices using nanowires to deliver electric currents — including telephones, handheld computers, batteries and certain solar arrays — may need to make allowances for such surprise boosts.
WASHINGTON --Research into digital holography (DH), the process of electronically recording and numerically reconstructing an optical field, has made tremendous strides in recent years.
At the advent of the Internet thirty years ago, the brand new Domain Name System (DNS) (which translated website names like science.com into a network address like 1.2.3.4) was trusted by everyone. Today, hackers take advantage of our long-standing trust in DNS and work to trick the system by stealing information and redirecting data every day.
In fire experiments conducted in uniformly furnished, but vacant Chicago-area townhouses, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers uncovered temperature and heat-flow conditions that can seriously damage facepiece lenses on standard firefighter breathing equipment, a potential contributing factor for first-responder fatalities and injuries.
Researchers have found the first evidence that some athletes who take part in extreme endurance exercise such as marathons, endurance triathlons, alpine cycling or ultra triathlons may incur damage to the right ventricles of their hearts – one of the four chambers in the heart involved in pumping blood around the body.
Up to three quarters of elderly people in parts of India have vitamin C deficiency, a study by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine found.Vitamin C is an essential nutrient for human health, playing a role from maintenance and repair of tissues to antioxidant activities. This study is the first ever large screening of vitamin C blood levels in the older Indian population.
Power -- defined as the ability to influence others -- makes people think differently. For North Americans, a feeling of power leads to thinking in a focused and analytical way, which may be beneficial when pursuing personal goals.