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| Engineering |
Shifting the world to 100 percent clean, renewable energy as early as 2030: here are the numbers
Most of the technology needed to shift the world from fossil fuel to clean, renewable energy already exists. Implementing that technology requires overcoming obstacles in planning and politics, but doing so could result in a 30 percent decrease in global power demand, say Stanford civil and environmental engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson and University of California-Davis researcher Mark Delucchi.
New vehicle concept would protect crews from roadside bombs
A new crew survivability concept that would build military vehicles around a protected personnel compartment and use a sacrificial "blast wedge" to absorb energy from improvised explosive devices.
Small ... Smaller ... Smallest? ASU researchers create molecular diode
Recently, at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, N.J. Tao and collaborators have found a way to make a key electrical component on a phenomenally tiny scale. Their single-molecule diode is described in this week's online edition of Nature Chemistry.
MU researchers create smaller and more efficient nuclear battery
Batteries can power anything from small sensors to large systems. While scientists are finding ways to make them smaller but even more powerful, problems can arise when these batteries are much larger and heavier than the devices themselves. University of Missouri researchers are developing a nuclear energy source that is smaller, lighter and more efficient.
Energy savings in black and white
Anyone who has ever stepped barefoot onto blacktop pavement on a hot sunny day knows the phenomenon very well: Black surfaces absorb the sun's heat very efficiently, producing a toe-scorching surface. In the wintertime, that can be a good thing: A dark roof heats up in the sun and helps reduce your heating bill. But in summertime, it's definitely a bad thing: Your house gets even hotter, and your air conditioning has to work harder. In most places, the summertime penalty is greater than the wintertime gain, it turns out, so that's why many people, including U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, strongly advocate switching to white roofs.
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Securing the web
More and more, malicious hackers are exploiting web site security holes to attack their victims' computers. Programmers try to identify those holes in advance and plug them with code that performs security checks; but if they find a hundred holes and miss one, their programs are still insecure. At next week's ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, however, MIT researchers will present a new system called Resin, which automatically calls up security checks whenever they're required, even in unforeseen circumstances.
Color sensors for better vision
The car of the future will have lots of smart assistants onboard - helping to park the car, recognize traffic signs and to warn the driver of blind spot hazards. Many driver assistance systems incorporate high-tech cameras which have to meet a wide range of requirements. They must be able to withstand high ambient temperatures and be particularly small, light and robust. What's more, they have to reliably capture all the required images and should cost as little as possible. Nowadays CMOS sensors are used for most in-car systems. These semiconductor chips convert light signals into electrical pulses and are installed in most digital cameras. At present, however, the sensors used for industrial and other special cameras are mostly color blind.
Radiation-hardened microelectronics could reduce spacecraft weight
Space environments can deliver a beating to spacecraft electronics. For decades, satellites and other spacecraft have used bulky and expensive shielding to protect vital microelectronics-microprocessors and other integrated circuits-from space radiation.
Too scary to be real, research looks to quantify eeriness in virtual characters
Indiana University's Karl MacDorman has been to the valley -- the uncanny valley of virtual humans so lifelike they give us real humans the creeps. What he's found is that things don't look so bad after all.
Fabrics that fight germs and detect explosives go to market
Fabrics with embedded nanoparticles to detect counterfeiting devices, explosives and dangerous chemicals or to serve as antibacterials for hospitals, law enforcement or the hospitality industry are just a few of the products that a new company, launched by two Cornell researchers, will produce.
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| Quotes | Have you seen a tall, lanky dufus with a bird face and hair like the bride of Frankenstein?-Elaine, describing Kramer
Having major planets disappear is always a bad sign.- Jim Blinn
Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.- Washington Irving
Great spirits often meet violent opposition with mediocre minds - Albert Einstein
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