Modern medicine has the desire to replace damaged tissue with newly grown tissue, such as to repair skin, bone, cartilage, or arteries. But what kinds of surfaces could be used to grow suitable tissues?

Suolong Ni, a graduate student in chemistry at Virginia Tech, has fabricated a biopolymer onto solid surfaces with a range of properties to enable the study of the effects of different surfaces on cell adhesion and tissue growth. He will present his research in the Excellence in Graduate Po

Simulation of local microstructure of amorphous alloys

Modern engineering places increasing demands on components. It is the job of the designers and materials scientists to create components that are up to the challenge.

Many new materials and components can be time consuming and expensive to manufacture with costs escalating if samples or trials prove unsuitable. Computer modelling goes some way to minimizing the developments costs and fast tracking development.

Why do so many companies fail to make use of the energy-saving technologies which are available? Dutch researcher Mark Koetse used a meta-analysis of various empirical studies to assess the relevance of two possible explanations.

Meta-analysis is a research method that has been gradually gaining ground within economics since the mid-1980s. The doctoral research of Mark Koetse focused on the problems associated with this methodology. That is why in his thesis he described the ne

Particulate emissions from diesel engines are currently measured by smoke darkness in motor vehicle inspections. This method is particularly unsuitable for measurement of the smallest particles, which are considered as being the most dangerous. There are over 100,000 vehicle inspection stations in Europe using smoke darkness to measure particulate emissions.

The authorities have noticed the shortcomings in measuring diesel smoke in this way and have been fervently seeking new met

“Hydrogen power engineering — is energy of the future”, efforts are being undertaken in the US, Europe and Russia to implement the above postulate. We have tried to calculate the quantity of hydrogen needed to transfer to it all transport of big cities, i.e. the quantity that will be required to replace engine fuels. All calculations were based on maximum coefficients of efficiency and the most optimistic figures. The conclusions made from the obtained figures seem interesting not only for scientis

In the twenty years since the discovery of high-temperature (Tc) superconductors, scientists have been trying to understand the mechanism by which electrons pair up and move coherently to carry electrical current with no resistance. “We are still at the beginning,” says Tonica Valla, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, who will give a talk on his group’s latest results at the American Physical Society meeting in Baltimore, Maryland on Thursday,

Grocers, florists and even pharmacists may soon have a better way to monitor the quality of the products they get from suppliers: a sensor that will tell how long before a product spoils or passes its expiration date.

A team of University of Florida engineering students has designed and built a prototype of the new smart sensor, which can also record and wirelessly transmit information to retailers about when and where glitches occur as a product is being shipped.

“We t

Fatronik has launched the most rapid robot in the world at the BIEMH (International Machine-Tool Biennial) in Bilbao.

What is involved here is a high-performance handling robot the structure of which is basically four actuators working in a co-ordinated manner with the goal of achieving maximum dynamic performances.

The robot has four degrees of freedom, displacements along three translations and rotates on its vertical axis. It is a cylinder with a diameter of 1200mm an

Experiment reveals layers of data missed by traditional ink fingerprints

In the future, law enforcement officials may take full-colour fingerprints using new technology developed by a University of Toronto-led team of international researchers.

Far from the basic black-and-white fingerprints collected today, the new technology would use elastic photonic crystals to capture data-rich fingerprints in multiple colours, but the fingerprinting technique is just one potent

ANTENNESSA of France has launched the INSITE box, a cheap and efficient electromagnetic-field continuous-measuring box. The INSITE box’s technology allows for continuous selective measuring on nine frequency bands (FM, GSM, UMTS, FM, TV3, TV4&5 and DCS). The box uses EME SPY dosimeter technology (patented by France Telecom and ANTENNESSA), based on a filtering principle that enables the emission bands to be identified. The measurements come to between 0.05V/m and 5V/m.

The INSITE box

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found how coffee can reduce the risk of alcohol-induced pancreatitis.

Pancreatitis is a condition in which the pancreas becomes inflamed, causing severe abdominal pain. It is often triggered by alcohol consumption which causes digestive enzymes to digest part of the pancreas.

Scientists have known for some time that coffee can reduce the risk of alcoholic pancreatitis, but have been unable to determine how. Researchers at

As scientists learn more about the potentially harmful effects of indoor air pollution, nations around the world are imposing increasingly strict regulations on chemical emissions from furnishings, paints and building materials.

Using a new room-sized environmental test chamber, more than a dozen smaller chambers and a mass spectrometric center able to measure ultra-trace concentrations of airborne chemicals being emitted from products, scientists at the Georgia Tech Research In

Probabilistic system on chip technology reduces energy consumption by a factor of more than 500 for some applications

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology announce energy savings by a factor of more than 500 in simulations with their ultra energy efficient embedded architecture based on Probabilistic CMOS (PCMOS). The research team’s PCMOS devices take advantage of noise, currently fabricated at the quarter-micron (0.25 micron) level, and uses probability to extract

The interest rate setting in the past 2-3 years has contributed to a strong development of the Norwegian economy. Now, the issue is when and by how much monetary policy should be tightened, concludes “Norges Bank Watch 2006”, published by BI The Norwegian School of Management.

The Centre for Monetary Economics (CME) at the BI Norwegian School of Management has for the seventh time invited a committee of leading economists for Norges Bank Watch with the objective of evaluating monetary polic

Materials science gets a nitride boost

Like modern day alchemists, materials scientists often turn unassuming substances into desirable ones. But instead of working metal into gold, they create strange new compounds that could make the electronic components of the future smaller, faster, and more durable. Alexander Goncharov of the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory and colleagues* have used extreme temperatures and pressures to make two durable compounds call

For Europe’s 300 million drivers and other vulnerable road users, new Information and Communication Technologies-based technology cannot come fast enough. Concerted effort from researchers aims to fast track intelligent-car technology for improved road safety to ultimately save lives.

Although safety is improving on European roads, every year over 40,000 people die on Europe’s roads and 1.4 million accidents occur. Clearly, there is still plenty of work to be done if the EU is to