Coatings used to protect the exposed wooden parts of buildings have to withstand all kinds of weather. To avoid over-frequent renovation, architects, builders and house-owners are advised to look for a reliable quality label. The relevant European standard is being revised.

A weather-beaten mountain chalet might look charming – but assaults by heat and cold, rain and sunshine, will eventually destroy even highly weather-resistant timber like larch. Outdoor paint or varnish is expecte

The corrosiveness of a specific atmosphere can be established in a few weeks by thin slices of special glass. The sensors are capable of monitoring the outdoor environment as well as indoors, for instance in sensitive production processes such as chip fabrication.

Where does a Landrover develop rust faster: in the dusty Sahara or parked in front of an English stately home? The answer’s obvious: In rainy Britain of course. But the rate at which corrosion sets in is not only dependent

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have taken a giant step toward realizing the promise of laser wakefield acceleration, by guiding and controlling extremely intense laser beams over greater distances than ever before to produce high-quality, energetic electron beams.

For a quarter of a century physicists have been trying to push charged particles to high energies with devices called laser wakefield accelerators. In theory, particles ac

New Environmentally-Conscious Battery Sparks a Revolution in the Watch Market

Sony announced today the launch of the world’s first (as of September 29th, 2004) mercury-free Silver Oxide battery. Considered one of the most difficult challenges within the industry, the introduction of the battery heralds a revolution for millions of watch owners around the world and a major advance for the environment. As a leader in the watch battery market, Sony has utilized its expertise to develo

The University of Alaska Fairbanks and Fuel Cell Technologies of Kingston, Ontario, have announced that the five-kilowatt solid oxide fuel cell installed in Fairbanks has successfully passed the one-year field operational mark.

UAF has been testing fuel cell systems, which convert natural gas to grid-compatible AC electricity, for more than six years. Fuel cells promise highly reliable and efficient small-scale systems for remote power applications that may mean a significant reduc

Over the next 17 months, Virginia Tech will lead a team of researchers exploring the development of a new class of materials that will use plant protein structures in an attempt to mimic biological systems. The Defense Science Office of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) is funding the $2.1 million project.

DARPA is specifically interested in a group of hard polymers called nastic materials. In biology, nastic refers to the natural movement of plants in response to

For the first time, an innovative research technique successfully completed a detailed measurement of how heat energy is created at the molecular level, an approach that could have far reaching implications for developing nano-devices.

Research results to be published in the upcoming issue of Science, detail a collaborative effort involving The University of Scranton, a Jesuit university in Pennsylvania, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a research institution in

EUREKA project E! 2007 FACTORY PACK 2000 developed much more than a new packaging process for large items such as furniture and stone flooring. The system includes an advanced vision system, uses only one recyclable packaging material, offers additional environmental benefits by using less material and producing less waste – and is set to generate a 30% increase in turnover for the Italian lead partner, Aetna.

The project initially developed a new recyclable plastic packaging materi

At the 2004 Paralympics this week, Wojtek Czyz, the world record holder for long jump, will be trusting in space technology and expertise to help him win his first Olympic medal. For the competition, parts of the prosthesis he will be using are made from material designed for space to make it both stronger and lighter.

Czyz lost part of his left leg in a sports accident three years ago and in order to continue his passion for “everything that has to do with sport”, this meant that h

For the first time, MIT researchers have incorporated a plant’s ability to convert sunlight to energy into a solid-state electronic “spinach sandwich” device that may one day power laptops and cell phones.

At the heart of the device is a protein complex dubbed Photosystem I (PSI). Derived from spinach chloroplasts, PSI is 10 to 20 nanometers wide. Around 100,000 of them would fit on the head of a pin. “They are the smallest electronic circuits I know of,” said researcher Marc A. Bal

U of T research offers hope for environment

The energy stored in Toronto’s municipal wastewater could be harnessed to run water treatment facilities and contribute power to the city grid, says new U of T research. The study, published in the August issue of the Journal of Energy Engineering, is the first to measure the energy content of the raw municipal wastewater in the Ashbridges Bay, North Toronto, Highland Creek and Humber plants. The research revealed that the wastewater conta

Imagine having your own annual greenhouse gas allowance which you ’spend’ each time you fill up with petrol or pay an electric or gas bill. It sounds like a scene from a futuristic movie, but this scenario could really happen in the next few years according to researchers at the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Prediction.

Dr Kevin Anderson and Richard Starkey are investigating a system of personal trading for carbon emissions. Instead of people being forced to pay a carbo

Using a carbon nanotube, Cornell University researchers have produced a tiny electromechanical oscillator that might be capable of weighing a single atom. The device, perhaps the smallest of its kind ever produced, can be tuned across a wide range of radio frequencies, and one day might replace bulky power-hungry elements in electronic circuits.

Recent research in nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) has focused on vibrating silicon rods so small that they oscillate at radio frequenc

Untapped reserves of methane, the main component in natural gas, may be found deep in Earth’s crust, according to a recently released report* in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). These reserves could be a virtually inexhaustible source of energy for future generations.

The team of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory, Harvard University, Argonne Nation

A research institute to examine ways to improve security systems at airports and other transportation hubs is being established at the University at Buffalo under a $538,000 grant from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to a UB engineering professor who is an expert in human factors that affect aviation inspection.

To be led by Colin Drury, professor and chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the UB Resea

Whether the search for alternative energy sources is driven by our concern about global fossil fuel supplies or over the atmospheric effects of burning of fossil fuels, the government has laid out its aim to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60% of 1990 levels by 2050, and aims to over- achieve its goal of sourcing 10% of energy from renewables by 2010.

In a significant step to achieve these targets, an enormous £4.5 million award has been made under the UK SuperGen programme to drive