New easier-to-read road signs based on Penn State research are appearing across the U.S. and Canada.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has approved the interim use of a new typeface, called Clearview, for signs on all public streets, highways, and byways. New signs bearing Clearview, instead of the old familiar Highway Gothic, already appear on Routes 322 and 80 in Pennsylvania near Penn State, on highways throughout Texas and in Canada.

A decade in development,

Advanced ceramics are wonderful materials – they withstand temperatures that would melt steel and resist most corrosive chemicals. If only they weren’t so brittle. Poor resistance to fracture damage has been the major drawback to the widespread use of advanced ceramics as structural materials. Help, however, may be on the way.

A collaboration of scientists led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has uncovered cl

New microchip is 10 times smaller and 100 times more energy efficient than currently used chips

University of Alberta researchers have designed a computer chip that uses about 100 times less energy than current state-of-the-art digital chips. The greatly reduced energy consumption of this novel technology offers promise for many small devices with relatively low power needs. This technology could one day eliminate the need to recharge cellphones, help introduce smaller, ultra-high

Time is money, especially to the semiconductor industry. Electronics manufacturers use extremely sophisticated equipment to churn out the latest microchips, but they have a timing problem. It’s very difficult to get all the fabrication tools in a manufacturing line to agree on the time. Components within a single tool can disagree on the time by as much as two minutes, because of a lack of synchronization.

According to a new report by the National Institute of Standards and Tech

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and Ceramatec, Inc. of Salt Lake City are reporting a significant development in their efforts to help the nation advance toward a clean hydrogen economy.

Laboratory teams have announced they’ve achieved a major advancement in the production of hydrogen from water using high-temperature electrolysis. Instead of conventional electrolysis, which uses only electric current to separ

When Bart Watson leaves home to go on a business trip, his personal communication services will accompany him. The e-mails he studied on his PC at home will also be available on the terminal in his car, where they are read to him by his handheld device while he drives. This seamless handover from broadband internet connection at home to DVB-T connection in the car is one of the research results by EU project DAIDALOS, which will be demonstrated at a public workshop in Stuttgart on 14 December

MIT and Columbia University students and researchers have begun operation of a novel experiment that confines high-temperature ionized gas, called plasma, using the strong magnetic fields from a half-ton superconducting ring inside a huge vessel reminiscent of a spaceship. The experiment, the first of its kind, will test whether nature’s way of confining high-temperature gas might lead to a new source of energy for the world.

First results from the Levitated Dipole Experiment

A new technology developed by Russian scientists with support of the International Science & Technology Center allows to produce antennas and telescope mirrors, walls and partitions for a space station, solar panels and even houses on the Moon or the Mars. All the above can be produced quickly, strongly, reliably, with minimal consumption of time, place, energy and money.

These building materials or rather peculiar semi-manufactured articles for future constructions will be brou

Researchers at Purdue University have created a “unified model” for predicting the reliability of new designs for silicon transistors – a potential tool that industry could use to save tens of millions of dollars annually in testing costs.

The model is the first method that can be used to simultaneously evaluate the reliability of two types of transistors essential for so-called CMOS computer chips, the most common type of integrated circuits in use today. The two types of transi

Corrugated cardboard is an excellent packaging material that is widely used for transporting, storing and protecting goods. Through the new process developed by EUREKA project E! 1929 FACTORY FOLDHEX, corrugated cardboard can be transformed into a new honeycomb core that offers reduced weight, uses less raw material and achieves better crash absorption and higher compression resistance than double flute corrugated cardboard.

Honeycomb cores are already used in a variety of appl

Spider silks could become the intelligent materials of the future, according to a review article published this month in the journal Microbial Cell Factories. The characteristics of spider silk could have applications in areas ranging from medicine to ballistics.

The distinctive toughness of spider silk could allow manufacturers to improve wound-closure systems and plasters, and to produce artificial ligaments and tendons for durable surgical implants. The silk could also be wo

The University of Leicester is playing a key part in a network of 33 companies and universities, set up to develop pioneering new processes for metal coatings which will offer benefits to a wide range of industries, including automotive and aerospace component manufacturers.

The network uses ionic liquid technology developed at the University of Leicester, exploited through its spin-out company, Scionix Ltd.

Companies and academics from 11 European countries have been brou

In the future, the phrase smarty pants might be taken quite literally, referring to trousers embedded with electronic “intelligence” so that they change color, for example, in response to their surroundings.

The timing of this vernacular twist will depend on when plastic “chips” become practical–so cheap and reliable that electronic circuits can be printed not only on clothing but also on paper, billboards and nearly anything else. Unlike today’s largely silicon-based tech

New microengines would be smaller, last 10 times longer than batteries

It may be tiny, but a new microgenerator developed at Georgia Tech can now produce enough power to run a small electronic device, like a cell phone, and may soon be able to power a laptop. The microgenerator is about 10 millimeters wide, or about the size of a dime. When coupled with a similarly sized gas-fueled microturbine (or jet) engine, the system, called a microengine, has the potential to deliver more

A British engineer believes he can secure cost effective tidal power by innovatively placing existing turbine designs inside large bore underwater pipes. Don Cutler’s view is that it’s best to use everything that’s standard. “You don’t re-invent the wheel you improve it.”

“Sea water is a most aggressive environment, but using modern materials like carbon fibres, and Teflon, are about the only clever things about my design,” he says. Cutler’s design is specifically aimed at ta

In airports on both sides of the Atlantic, BioWise is taking off as a leader in the provision of multi-biometric and multi-modal identification and authentication middleware for safer air travel.

Working with SITA and UNISYS, the BioWise system is in use in the US’ large-scale registered traveller’s pilot programme for internal flights. “In return for registering,” explains André Oeyen, Managing Director of BioWise, “they will be considered as trusted travellers and will be gr