MCE-5 of France has launched the MCE-5 VCR engine block – a mechanical solution that allows the mass production of VCR (Variable Compression Ratio) engines to the required environmental standards. The MCE-5 VCR engine block is designed to replace traditional fixed-compression engine blocks. The MCE-5 technology is an all-in-one VCR engine block that combines power transmission and compression-ratio control.

VCR is a major technical innovation that makes it possible to tackle the

Watching lumber dry may be as boring as watching paint dry, but soon, the amount of time needed to dry a piece of wood might decrease dramatically, according to Penn State forest resources expert.

Charles Ray, assistant professor of forest resources, devised a process potentially to decrease the amount of time it takes to dry wood products, by combining traditional drying techniques with more modern ones. This process lowers the amount of time needed to dry lumber.

“A com

Is your cup of coffee suffering from fertility problems? If you’re drinking the instant variety it may very well be! The Robusta crop (Coffea canephora), which is the main variety for producing instant coffee, suffers from ‘self-incompatibility’ so can’t pollinate itself. This presents a dilemma for coffee farmers who have to grow it in mixed plantings so that cross-pollination takes place – but which varieties to cross with which?

Sylvester Tumusiime (University of Nottingham, UK) wil

Seeing how rain falls from top to bottom and how heavy the rain falls throughout parts of a tropical cyclone is very important to hurricane forecasters. NASA has sped up the process of getting this data within three hours, and making it appear in 3-D. The new process now gives information quickly enough for forecasters to use.

Scientists at NASA have developed a way to process radar data from NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mi

For the first time, NASA has the tools and expertise to understand the rate at which sea level is changing, some of the mechanisms that drive those changes and the effects that sea level change may have worldwide.

“It’s estimated that more than 100 million lives are potentially impacted by a one-meter increase in sea level,” said Dr. Waleed Abdalati, head of the Cryospheric Sciences Branch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “When you consider this information,

For the first time, researchers have the tools and expertise to understand the rate at which sea level is changing and the mechanisms that drive that change.

Sea levels rise and fall as oceans warm and cool and as ice on land grows and shrinks. Other factors that contribute to sea level change are the amount of water stored in lakes and reservoirs and the rising and falling of land in coastal regions.

“From the Mississippi Delta to the Maldives Islands off the coast of Indi

Do you enjoy eating oysters on a hot sunny afternoon? Make the most of it – it may not last forever. Research has shown that global warming increases the sensitivity of oysters to metal pollution, causing a deadly threat to populations in polluted areas.

Dr. Gisela Lannig from the University of North Carolina, USA, will present her work on cadmium poisoning in eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) on Monday 11th July at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Main Meeting in Barcel

For asthmatics and for anyone with respiratory problems, air pollution can significantly impair simple everyday activities. NASA is trying to tie together satellites and stations on the ground to develop a “sensor web” to track this pollution and improve air quality forecasts.

Understanding how tropospheric or near-surface-level ozone is produced, distributed and transported from city to city, region to region and continent to continent is an important step toward improving the

The Gulf of Mexico, 130 miles south of Galveston, Texas — An international team of marine research scientists working for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) have found new evidence that links catastrophic sand avalanches in deep Gulf waters to rapid sea level changes. By analyzing downhole measurements and freshly retrieved sediment cores, IODP scientists are reconstructing the history of a basin formed approximately 20,000 years ago, when sea level fell so low that the Texas shor

Álvaro Corral, a physicist at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, has discovered that the structure of the recurrence time of earthquakes, which is the time interval between successive earthquakes, is similar to the spatial structure of physics systems when they change phase in the “critical points”. The research has been published in Physical Review Letters and shows that the time interval between successive earthquakes depends on the time that elapsed between previous earthquakes. Although

Spaniards could be sunning themselves on British beaches and Greeks could be cruising down the Rhine if global warming patterns continue, a report revealed today.

Southern Europeans could be heading northward for their summer break and British holidaymakers could be boycotting Benidorm as temperatures rise to unbearable levels within the next twenty years.

Scientists from eight European countries have spent the past three years estimating extreme climate change and its impa

A shifting diet of two flightless birds inhabiting Australia tens of thousands of years ago is the best evidence yet that early humans may have altered the continent’s interior with fire, changing it from a mosaic of trees, shrubs and grasses to the desert scrub evident today, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team.

The unprecedented ecosystem disruption is now thought to have led to the extinction of Australia’s large terrestrial mammals, which disappea

Research into the genetics of barley could lead to improved varieties of the crop most commonly used in the production of whisky and beer. Scientists funded in part by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) are beginning a new programme to uncover key genes that control the specific characteristics of different barley varieties.

The research, being carried out at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, Birmingham University and NIAB, involves almost a

Cattle move, dirt stirs, dust rises – it’s an inevitable part of the livestock industry.

But it’s something feedlot management and researchers are working to minimize and control.

The Texas Beef Cattle Air Quality Emphasis, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service as a part of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, is a partnership with Texas A&M University and Texas Cattle Feeders Association. “W

Mars is a rocky planet with an ancient volcanic past, but new findings show the planet is more complex and active than previously believed – at least in certain places. Finding those places, however, turns out to be trickier than just looking at landforms like river valleys or lakebeds or searching for specific minerals.

“Context is everything,” said Philip Christensen, Principal Investigator for the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) on Mars Global Surveyor and for the Therma

A burst of mesospheric cloud activity over Antarctica in January 2003 was caused by the exhaust plume of the space shuttle Columbia during its final flight, reports a team of scientists who studied satellite and ground-based data from three different experiments. The data also call into question the role these clouds may play in monitoring global climate change.

“Our analysis shows that the Columbia’s exhaust plume approached the South Pole three days after launch,” said M