Penn State and Philips researchers have merged the best features of their respective approaches to produce a new mathematical model that describes the behavior of the MOS transistor in a wide class of integrated circuits found in the majority of electronic devices from computers to digital watches to communications systems.

Certain circuits can only be simulated accurately using the new approach, known as the PSP model, including passive mixers used in mobile phones to increase bat

The impact that the nature and condition of the UK’s roads have on the country’s businesses is getting worse, a monthly internet survey has revealed.

Nearly 59 per cent of firms quizzed by the UK Business Barometer, run by The University of Nottingham Institute of Enterprise and Innovation, said they felt that the effect that the state of the nation’s road has on their operations is either getting worse or much worse. Less than five per cent of panellists in the UKBB said they bel

In collaboration with KEMA, two postgraduate students from Eindhoven University of Technology have developed a device that continuously monitors cables to localize weak points in distribution networks. Data on weak point development and location enables an electricity company to pre-empt problems by timely intervention. This in turn enhances network reliability and reduces costs. With their invention, Jeroen Veen and Peter van der Wielen received in April their doctorate degree at the Eindhoven

Team members are former senior energy or security advisors in Democratic and Republican administrations from Carter to Clinton

MIT faculty members and colleagues, all former senior energy or security advisors in Democratic and Republican administrations from Carter to Clinton, have proposed a pragmatic plan that would allow the world to develop nuclear power without increased risk of weapons proliferation.

Under their plan, which appears in the winter 2004-2005 issu

A paper published in Nature, by scientists at the Universities of Sheffield and Warwick and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, describes how experts have used X-rays to see structures in unprecedented detail at the atomic scale. The technique is 100 times more sensitive than any other method, and has the potential to allow scientists to improve things like data storage, healthcare sensors and security systems.

Prof Mike Gibbs, of the Department of Engineering Materials at the

Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health have examined the effect of eating nuts on cardiovascular health, reports the Harvard Men’s Health Watch. “Their work shows that nuts really are healthy, especially for men at risk for heart disease,” says Dr. Harvey B. Simon, editor.

Studies show that healthy men, and those who have already suffered a heart attack, can reduce cardiovascular risk by eating nuts regularly, reports the Harvard Men&

Relatively few good examples exist of buildings that have excellent energy performance. Often “green buildings” are developed and publicized, but then actual energy functioning is not reported, sometimes because performance is less than anticipated. Having inhabited its new green headquarters for the first year, The Woods Hole Research Center is addressing those issues by tracking, and making publicly available, information on the performance of its building.

Because the Researc

New coating becomes water repellant when wet; applications include medical diagnostic equipment

Virginia Commonwealth University chemical engineering team has developed a novel material that becomes water repellent when wet, setting the stage for advances in engineering, medicine and diagnostics.

In the April 26, 2005, issue of the journal Langmuir, a publication of the American Chemical Society, Kenneth J. Wynne, Ph.D., a professor in the VCU School of Engineering’

American Journal of Cardiology to publish study on May 2

The American Journal of Cardiology reports in its May 2, 2005, issue that the Transcendental Meditation technique, a non-drug stress-reduction method, reduces death rates by 23% and extends lifespan.

The first-of-its-kind, long-term, randomized trial evaluated 202 men and women, average age 71, who had mildly elevated blood pressure. Subjects in the study participated in the Transcendental Meditation program; beha

May provide opportunity to convert finite oil resource to long-term production of natural gas

Luca Technologies LLC today announced that its researchers have confirmed the presence of a resident, methane-generating community of microorganisms (“microbial consortium”) in substrate samples taken from the 110,000 acre Monument Butte oilfield located in North Eastern Utah. This site represents the latest in a series of active “GeobioreactorsTM” that Luca Technologies has identified

Low-temperature fabrication and high-quality results could reduce electronics’ reliance on silicon

Chemists and engineers at Harvard University have made robust circuits from minuscule nanowires that align themselves on a chip of glass during low-temperature fabrication, creating rudimentary electronic devices that offer solid performance without high-temperature production or high-priced silicon.

The researchers, led by chemist Charles M. Lieber and engineer Donhee

In 2002, nuclear engineers Rusi P. Taleyarkhan of Purdue University and Richard T. Lahey Jr. of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced that they had produced thermonuclear fusion by imploding tiny deuterium-rich gas bubbles with sound waves and neutrons. The news about their fusion method–dubbed sonofusion–made headlines worldwide. Yet many skeptics greeted it with scoffing. Now, after repeating the experiments with an improved apparatus, Taleyarkhan and Lahey have more convincing evidence

Imagine a car engine that saves you gas money and protects the environment. That may soon be a reality. Researchers at Karstad University in Sweden, working with the Swedish company Mecel, have developed a new method to make internal combustion engines more efficient and environmentally friendly.

To be able to tune internal combustion engines optimally, information is needed from the combustion process in the engine’s cylinders. This isn’t easy, because it’s hard

Traditional silicon chips in computers and other electronic devices control the flow of electrical current by modifying the positive or negative charge of different parts of each tiny circuit. However it is also possible to use of the mysterious magnetic properties of electrons – know as “spin” – to control the movement of currents. Many large companies have spent millions of dollars trying to solve some of the problems faced by this technology, but progress has remained slow. Discoveries ma

MIT researchers have announced an innovation that could greatly improve explosives detection for military and civilian security applications.

Scientists have developed a new polymer that greatly increases the sensitivity of chemical detection systems for explosives such as TNT (trinitrotoluene). In the April 14 issue of Nature, they describe a polymer that undergoes lasing action at lower operating powers than previously observed, and they demonstrate that the stimulated light emiss

A giant leap forward in the realism of virtual reality (VR) may be just around the corner as a team of European researchers near the completion of a pioneering project to add textures, lighting effects and ‘feel’ to computer-generated 3D models.

Launched in 2002, the RealReflect project was the first attempt to use a new image acquisition technique known as Bidirectional Texture Function (BTF) that captures the look and feel of different materials. When this IST programme funded-