August 15, 2007, 8:14 PM CT

Underwater Robot On Black Sea Expedition

Using a novel underwater robot, University of Delaware marine researchers will help reveal the mysteries of the Black Sea's geology and maritime history, including ages-old shipwrecks, during an international expedition that is now underway.

The Institute for Exploration and the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography are leading the mission, which will conduct geological and archaeological research in the Aegean and Black Seas--waterways that have served as major trade routes for centuries.

Robert Ballard, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, and president of the Institute for Exploration, is the principal investigator on the research cruise, which will include a multidisciplinary team of researchers from several nations.

"This is a truly exciting expedition that will shed light on important geological features in the Mediterranean while also uncovering vital information about ancient trade routes and the maritime history of the Black Sea," Ballard said.

Perhaps best known for locating the sunken ocean liner Titanic in 1985, Ballard has received numerous honors for scientific research and public education. He was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree by UD in 2001......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

August 6, 2007, 5:19 PM CT

Diagnostic 'lab on a chip'

If you have ever marveled over the orderly process by which cars, buses and other modes of transportation are directed toward their destinations in a big city, youll really appreciate the work of one Florida State University chemist.

Thomas Fischer, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at FSU, is designing a smart traffic system similar to those in major metropolises. A major difference, though, is its size: Fischers traffic grid is small enough to fit on a tiny microchip.

Working with an FSU postdoctoral associate, Pietro Tierno, and another colleague, Professor Tom H. Johansen of the University of Oslo in Norway, Fischer has designed a lab on a chip -- a small device that, when exposed to very low magnetic fields, might one day be used as a portable tool for quickly diagnosing a variety of human illnesses.

Currently, a doctor seeking to help a sick patient may take a blood sample and send it out to a laboratory, Fischer said. In three or four days, the lab results will come back and the doctor will have a better idea of what ails the patient.

With the lab on a chip, however, it might be possible to take a single drop of the patients blood, place it on a small chip, and then be able to provide a very quick, inexpensive and -- most important -- accurate diagnosis......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

August 3, 2007, 9:58 PM CT

Nano-'Building Blocks' To Take On New Shapes

Scientists from the University of Delaware and Washington University in St. Louis have figured out how to train synthetic polymer molecules to behave--to literally "self-assemble" --and form into long, multicompartment cylinders 1,000 times thinner than a human hair, with potential uses in radiology, signal communication and the delivery of therapeutic drugs in the human body.

The discovery, a fundamental new tool for nanotechnology, is published in the Aug. 3 issue of the prestigious journal Science.

Darrin Pochan, associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Delaware, and Karen Wooley, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, led the research effort, which also involved co-authors Honggang Cui, a recent doctoral graduate, and doctoral student Sheng Zhong at UD, and Zhiyun Chen, a doctoral advisee of Wooley's. The research was supported by a Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) grant from the National Science Foundation.

The focus of the research was block copolymers, which are synthetic molecules that contain two or more chemically different segments bonded together. Block copolymers are used to make a variety of materials such as plastics, rubber soles for shoes, and more recently, portable memory sticks ("flash drives") for computers......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

August 3, 2007, 9:44 PM CT

Ttechnology to monitor bridge safety

Greensboro North Carolina A &T State University has developed a technology that could have possibly prevented the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr. Mannur Sundaresan, professor of mechanical engineering, has developed a single channel continuous sensor that has the potential to detect and locate early crack growth in structures, thereby providing timely information to prevent catastrophic failures. This single channel continuous sensor can detect the leading edge of the acoustic emission event, occurring anywhere in the region covered by the sensor.

Essentially, the technology involves using commercially available sensors deployed in a unique configuration to acoustically monitor structural integrity to remotely detect and address standard flaws via acoustic emission signals.

As per Sundaresan the technology operates like the bodys nervous system. If youre hurt, the nervous system lets you know right away. That doesnt happen with a structure. An inspector has to go look. With small cracks, its like finding a needle in a haystack. Small cracks are like cancer. Theyre commonly not noticed until theyve grown large enough to cause serious damage. These sensors will detect the growth of cracks in their early stages just as our nervous system alerts us of any injury immediately so that we can take action to limit the damage......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

August 1, 2007, 9:13 PM CT

Using a magnet to tune a magnet

An international research team, led by researchers at the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN), has found a way to switch a materials magnetic properties from hard to soft and back again something which could lead to new ways of controlling electromagnetic devices. The research will appear in the journal Nature on August 2nd and shows how a magnet can be tuned by subjecting it to a second magnetic field, perpendicular to the original.

Magnets can be classified by their hard or soft magnetic properties. Hard magnets, sometimes called permanent magnets, have fixed or pinned domain walls which mean the material stays magnetised for a long time. Soft magnets have moveable domain walls that can be easily flipped. These materials exhibit impermanent magnetic properties.

Professor Gabriel Aeppli, Director of the LCN and a senior member of the research team, explained the significance of the research: Whether a magnet is hard or soft determines what you can use it for. Typically, you would use a permanent magnet to fix a note to the door of your refrigerator because you want it to stay there for a long time. Conversely, you might use a soft magnet in a motor or transformer because it would be better at adapting to the rapid changes in alternating current and would dissipate much less energy than a hard magnet......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

August 1, 2007, 8:38 PM CT

A Step Toward Advanced Sensors

Engineers at Purdue University have.

shown how to finely control the spectral properties of ultrafast light pulses, a step toward creating advanced sensors, more powerful communications technologies and more precise laboratory instruments.

The laser pulses could be likened to strobes used in high-speed photography to freeze fast-moving objects such as bullets or flying insects. These laser pulses, however, are millions of times faster than such strobes, with flashes lasting a trillionth or quadrillionth of a second - a picosecond or femtosecond, respectively.

The properties of the pulses, when represented on a graph, take on specific shapes that characterize the changing light intensity from the beginning to end of each pulse. Precisely controlling this intensity, which is called "pulse shaping," will enable scientists to tune the laser pulses to suit specific applications, said Andrew Weiner, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue.

Scientists at other institutions have developed ultrafast lasers producing trains of pulses that are split into hundreds of thousands of segments, with each segment representing a different portion of the spectrum making up a pulse. The segments are called "comb lines" because they resemble teeth on a comb when represented on a graph, and the entire pulse train is called a "femtosecond frequency comb." The 2005 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to scientists who precisely controlled the frequencies of these comb lines and demonstrated applications correlation to advanced optical clocks, which could improve communications, enhance navigation systems and enable new experiments to test physics theory, among other possible uses......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

July 31, 2007, 9:42 PM CT

Chickens dieting to help Delaware's waterways

Dieting to lose weight and improve your health?

Millions of chickens in Delaware--one of the nation's top poultry producers--have been on a diet to reduce their impact on the environment and improve the health of the state's waterways, and it appears to be working.

Extensive research led by William Saylor, professor of animal and food sciences at the University of Delaware, has confirmed that Delaware chickens now digest more of the phosphorus, an essential nutrient, in their feed, thanks to the addition of a natural enzyme called phytase. As a result, about 23 percent less phosphorus is output in chicken manure.

So now when poultry litter is used to fertilize a farm field, a lot less phosphorus is available to potentially leach from the soil or be carried off in storm water to a river or bay.

And that's good news for waterways like Delaware's Inland Bays, where overloads of nutrients, particularly phosphorus and nitrogen, have contributed to serious water-quality problems, such as massive blooms of algae and fish kills.

To put it in perspective, in 2006, Delaware farmers produced over 269 million broiler chickens--1.8 billion pounds of poultry--valued at more than $739 million, according to the Delmarva Poultry Industry. Those chickens produced more than 280,000 tons of waste......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

July 30, 2007, 7:21 PM CT

Robotic Fin For Submarines

Inspired by the efficient swimming motion of the bluegill sunfish, MIT scientists are building a mechanical fin that could one day propel robotic submarines.

The propeller-driven submarines, or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), currently perform a variety of functions, from mapping the ocean floor to surveying shipwrecks. But the MIT team hopes to create a more maneuverable, propeller-less underwater robot better suited for military tasks such as sweeping mines and inspecting harbors--and for that they are hoping to mimic the action of the bluegill sunfish.

"If we could produce AUVs that can hover and turn and store energy and do all the things a fish does, they'll be much better than the remotely operated vehicles we have now," said James Tangorra, an MIT postdoctoral associate working on the project.

The scientists chose to copy the bluegill sunfish because of its distinctive swimming motion, which results in a constant forward thrust with no backward drag. In contrast, a human performing the breaststroke inevitably experiences drag during the recovery phase of the stroke.

Tangorra and others in the Bio-Instrumentation Systems Laboratory, led by Professor Ian Hunter of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, have broken down the fin movement of the bluegill sunfish into 19 components and analyzed which ones are critical to achieving the fish's powerful forward thrust......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 22:33:05 GMT

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Your Smartphone or PDA

(image source)

Have you watched image source? Read the last book of the Harry Potter series? No matter. If you've got $7 to spare, and some time to waste, you might wanna check out the boy wizard's mobile game.

The Java-driven game, also called Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is all about secretly moving Harry around Hogwarts without getting caught, magically dueling evil magic-users, and even sending out your trusty owl, Hedwig to scout the area for you.

Interested? Then head over to image source for instructions on how to purchase and download this game. Really wished they gave you a chance to try things out though, much like image source. Posted by: Rico Mossesgeld      Read more     Source

July 26, 2007, 4:48 AM CT

NanoWaste needs attention of EPA

he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must make key decisions about how to apply the two major end-of-life statutes to nanotechnology waste in order to ensure adequate oversight for these technologies, concludes a new report from the Wilson Centers Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. However, the report notes that the Agency lacks much of the data on human health and eco-toxicity that form the basis for such determinations, creating some tough challenges ahead in EPAs decision-making process.

In addition, firms that manufacture nanomaterials, investors, and insurers should consider the new kinds of liabilities and environmental risks that may emerge as a result of the release and disposal of waste nanomaterials into the environment. The report, Where Does the Nano Go" End-of Life Regulation of Nanotechnologies, written by environmental law experts Linda Breggin and John Pendergrass of the Environmental Law Institute, was commissioned by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, an initiative of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts. The report is available online at: www.nanotechproject.org/132.

The report provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of two key EPA-administered laws that regulate the end-of-life management strategies for nanotechnology materials and products. These are the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund statute......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source