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MIT researchers say they have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy using nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials. The key component in the new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water. The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up.
Read more at MIT News
Researchers in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States have shown, for the first time, that an extremely fast climate change occurred in Western Europe. Proof of an extreme cooling within a short number of years 12,700 years ago was attained in sediments of the volcanic lake Meerfelder Maar in the Eifel region of Germany.
Read more at EurekAlert!
Scientists Zuotao Zeng, Seth Darling and Zhonghou Cai, discovered networks of iron and nickel nanoparticles embedded within the oxide scales creating a protective barrier on alloys. Zeng says. "If they are eliminated we can create a more corrosion-resistant and longer lasting alloy."
Read more at Argonne Media Center
Packbot from the iRobot Corporation is one of several autonomous systems being deployed to help achieve the military goal of 30% of the Army comprised of robotic forces by 2020. Read more about the new robots and their innovative Wii controller at Washington University in St. Louis Engineering News
In the battle for the hearts, minds and wallets of potential e-reader customers, it appeared that Sony's Reader had two big advantages over Amazon's Kindle: an early start and a corporate mandate to link the product wirelessly to other Sony devices. But, according to an opinion column in the Financial Times, Amazon's Kindle seems to have taken a leap forward in the market. Financial Times (8/6)
Mr. Jalopy, a writer for Make magazine and author of the Maker's Bill of Rights is advocating for manufacturers to think more creatively when designing new products. He wants them to include features such as customization of parts, minimize "special" tools for such things as replacing a battery and give more thought to how users can repurpose, repair, or reuse the product or its parts.
Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/opinion/25mon4.html?ex=137740
Power-generating wind turbines have long been recognized as a potential hazard for birds. But at most wind facilities, bats actually die in much greater numbers.
"Because bats can detect objects with echolocation, they seldom collide with man-made structures," said Erin Baerwald of the University of Calgary in Canada. "An atmospheric-pressure drop at wind-turbine blades is an undetectable—and potentially unforeseeable—hazard for bats, thus partially explaining the large number of bat fatalities..."
Read the article "Barotrauma is a significant cause of bat fatalities at wind turbines" in Current Biology.
South Dakota State University research scientists are working with new materials that can make devices used for converting sunlight to electricity cheaper and more efficient. The objective is find new materials and novel device structures for cost-effective photovoltaic devices. Research at SDSU is focused on new materials with variable band gaps
Read more about the research in South Dakota State News.
Purdue Assistant Professor Jason Vaughn Clark has designed a tiny motorized positioning device that has twice the dexterity of similar devices. The innovation could allow sensors to work faster and at higher resolution and would be small enough to fit on a microchip.
Read more at Small Times.
This page contains all entries posted to Stanford Engineering Library Blog in August 2008. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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