Stanford Engineering Library Blog

This series of lectures is provided by Cambridge University's Applied Superconductivity and Cryoscience Group. They feature contributions from leading world experts in academia and industry and are available free of charge.
As the project continues, there are plans to add supporting text, questions, and links to further reading for each lecture. Each lecture includes several chapters, each with an accompanying video. In addition to the video lectures, the site includes links to other related educational resources, an image gallery, and a bibliography of papers and publications related to the lectures.
Visit the site for more information.

Located at Carnegie Mellon, the Green Design Institute is a "major interdisciplinary education and research effort to make an impact on environmental quality through green design." The primary goal of the Institute is to form partnerships with industry, government, and other foundations in order to develop processes that "can improve environmental quality and product quality while enhancing economic development."
Visitors to the site may wish to begin by reading the "About Us" section to learn a bit more about the Institute. Perhaps the most useful section of the site can be found by clicking on "Education" where courses and course materials on environmental issues are available.

Visit the site.

MIT researchers have achieved a significant advance in nanoscale lithographic technology. Their new 25 nm technique could pave the way for next-generation computer memory and integrated-circuit chips, as well as advanced solar cells and other devices.

Read more at MIT News

Professor Rima Taher, a civil/structural engineer, teaches at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and New Jersey School of Architecture. She says building design and construction can be significantly improved to reduce wind pressures on building surfaces and to help better resist high winds and hurricanes in residential or commercial construction.
Read more about her ideas at NJIT News

If you didn't feel guilty about your TV habits already, here's a new reason: a chemical used in making flat-screen televisions has been found to be a potent greenhouse gas, 17,000 times stronger than carbon dioxide. In a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, atmospheric chemist Michael Prather called nitrogen trifluoride, or NF3, "the missing greenhouse gas," and warned that the climate could suffer as the chemical is produced in ever greater amounts to meet soaring demand for LCD displays. If all of the NF3 produced in 2008 were released into the atmosphere, it would have as much warming effect as 67 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. NF3 isn't covered by the Kyoto Protocol because it was only being produced in tiny amounts in 1997 when the treaty was negotiated. Ironically, NF3 was developed as an alternative to perfluorocarbons, greenhouse gases that are governed by Kyoto.

Read more about it at CNET News

University of Washington developers are working on vocal joystick software that can direct a mouse pointer on a computer screen, making for a hands-free voice controlled mouse. Check it out in this short article and accompanying video in Science Daily.

In this manifesto from Change This about applying performance improvisation skills in the business world, author Randy Sabourin incorporates short commentaries from the music and sports worlds among others to support his assertion that improvisation is a cutting edge competitive advantage in business. Business Improvisation: The Diving Catch of the Corporate World

In Britain, a forward-thinking consultant has proposed installing generators under the stairs of a harbor viewing platform. The generators would collect the energy from heel strikes made on the stairs by those ascending to and descending from the platform to create electric power. If the idea works, it's off to other public places such as shopping centers and rail stations. The full story is here.

In the new study, Pulickel M. Ajayan and colleagues in Texas point out that rice grain sized nanoassemblies are a step toward the development of futuristic nanomachines with practical applications in delivering medicines to patients, labs-on-a-chip, and other products. The study, scheduled for the July 9 issue of ACS's Nano Letters, describes the development of a hybrid nanowire consisting of segments with water-repelling carbon nanotubes on one end and water-attracting metal nanowires on the other. Read more at ASAP Nano Letters

For more than 50 years most scientists have tried to understand just what glass is. Dr Paddy Royall from the University of Bristol, with colleagues in Canberra and Tokyo, have revealed in an article in the June 22, issue of Nature Materials, that glass 'fails' to be a solid due to the special atomic structures that form in a glass when it cools. Knowing the structure formed by atoms as a glass cools represents a major breakthrough in our understanding of meta-stable materials and will allow further development of new materials such as metallic glasses which could be suitable for a whole range of products that need to be flexible such as aircraft wings, golf clubs and engine parts. Read more at Bristol University News