Valves, nozzles, pistons, spark plugs and camshafts – the heart of each car is its engine. It is a complex structure with many levels and individual parts and must therefore be assembled in a correspondingly precise way. Parts that are slightly damaged, malformed or assembled the wrong way can cause engine damage. The results would be an angry customer and damage to the reputation of the car manufacturer.
WIMAUMA, FL—When natural ecosystems are replaced by roads, homes, and commercial structures, soil is negatively impacted. Studies have shown that, among other issues, distressed urban soils are often significantly compacted, may have alkaline pH, and may contain low amounts of essential organic matter and nutrients. This altered soil is typically not conducive to healthy plant root growth and establishment, leading to challenges for urban landscapes and home gardens.
In its infancy, when the universe was a few millionths of a second old, the elemental constituents of matter moved freely in a hot, dense soup of quarks and gluons. As the universe expanded, this quark–gluon plasma quickly cooled, and protons and neutrons and other forms of normal matter "froze out": the quarks became bound together by the exchange of gluons, the carriers of the color force.
For most people, listening to the ocean means contemplating the soothing sound of waves breaking gently on a sandy beach.
But for researchers studying everything from whale migration to fisheries populations, and from underwater mapping to guiding robots trying to repair leaking undersea oil wells, listening to the ocean from the other side – underwater – can reveal volumes of valuable data.
WASHINGTON — It will take more than tougher fuel economy standards for U.S. transportation to significantly cut its oil use over the next half century. It will likely require a combination of measures that foster consumer and supplier interest in vehicle fuel economy, alternative fuels, and a more efficient transportation system, says a new report from the National Research Council.
MINNEAPOLIS – Can a smartphone app enable meaningful, face-to-face conversation?
Engineers are trying to find out, with software that helps people locate their friends in a crowd – and make new friends who share similar interests.
The software, called eShadow, makes its debut at the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) on Thursday, June 23 in Minneapolis.
A University of Exeter team has monitored the movements of an entire sub-population of marine turtle for the first time. The study confirms that through satellite tracking we can closely observe the day-to-day lives of marine turtles, accurately predicting their migrations and helping direct conservation efforts.
PHILADELPHIA — When semiconductor nanorods are exposed to light, they blink in a seemingly random pattern. By clustering nanorods together, physicists at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that their combined "on" time is increased dramatically providing new insight into this mysterious blinking behavior.
OSAKA, JAPAN—In horticultural production, growers often depend on systems that use artificial light to produce high-quality transplants. Although the systems are efficient, fluorescent lamps can produce plants with shorter shoots than those grown under natural light. Studies have indicated that this reduced shoot elongation is due to the high red:far red ratio of typical commercial fluorescent lamps, which emit little far red irradiation.
EAST WAREHAM, MA—Cranberry is an important commercial crop in states such as Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Washington, and Oregon. Insects and disease can pose serious problems for growers trying to realize profits in heavy cranberry production regions. Since cranberry is a perennial crop, pest damage can have a particularly significant negative impact in the next growing season.
University of Minnesota engineering researchers in the College of Science and Engineering have recently discovered a new alloy material that converts heat directly into electricity. This revolutionary energy conversion method is in the early stages of development, but it could have wide-sweeping impact on creating environmentally friendly electricity from waste heat sources.
Caribou have been dwindling in Alberta for several decades and some scientists believe they could be gone entirely in 70 years. In the area of the petroleum-rich Athabasca Oil Sands in the northern part of the Canadian province, some say they could disappear in as little as 30 years.
Efforts have begun to remove wolves from parts of Alberta to reduce caribou predation, but new research suggests that human activity related to oil production and the timber industry could be more important than wolves in the caribou population decline.
The obscure technology used in heated automobile seats, gadgets that charge iPhones from the heat of a campfire, and other devices is undergoing a renaissance and could well emerge as a new "green" substitute for traditional sources of energy and play other key roles in addressing some of society's most pressing sustainability issues. That's the conclusion of an article on the technology — termed thermoelectrics — in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) the American Chemical Society's weekly newsmagazine.
The regulation of personal data varies hugely across countries and sectors, research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) reveals.
Researchers at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. recently found a way to improve electricity generating fuel cells, potentially making them more efficient, powerful and less expensive. Specifically, they discovered a way to speed up the flow and filtering of water or ions, which are necessary for fuel cells to operate.
Simply put, the researchers stretched Nafion, a polymer electrolyte membrane, or PEM, commonly used in fuel cells and increased the speed at which it selectively filters substances from ions and water.