The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) introduces a new driving simulator, Driving Simulator III, after several years of intensive development work.

We at The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute are very proud to have introduced this driving simulator that is unique in many ways. The new driving simulator will play an important role in research about roads and transportation, comments Urban Karlström, Director General at The Swedish National Road

An increasing number of new auto buyers choose diesel engines. For asthmatics and those with allergies this is very unfortunate. Particles in diesel exhaust can both worsen and trigger allergic reactions.

“Tough, raw and macho”. Such is the advertising for many new off-road vehicles on the market today. They can drive in the mud as well as on pavement and they most often use diesel. It is no longer the “macho boys” that drive these vehicles – now they have also become very popular as family

The largest single research project into solar power ever funded by the UK research councils was launched this month and could help make the energy source much more widely used in Britain.

The University of Bath is among six universities and seven companies in the UK that began the £4.5 million project this month (April) to halve the cost of converting the sun’s rays to electricity using solar cells.

The four-year research project could make solar power a viable alternative to

A Penn State study has shown that there are U.S. oils that can match or exceed the characteristics of the European leader for temporary corrosion protection of concrete bridge tendons.

Dr. Andrea Schokker, the Henderson professor of civil engineering, who led the project, says, “The North American post-tensioning industry was considering importing the European product, possibly at higher cost than the oils available in the U.S. market. Our study established that there are adequate products

In a development that brings the promise of mass production to nanoscale devices, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists have transformed carbon nanotubes into conveyor belts capable of ferrying atom-sized particles to microscopic worksites.

By applying a small electrical current to a carbon nanotube, they moved indium particles along the tube like auto parts on an assembly line. Their research, described in the April 29 issue of Nature, lays the groundwork for the high-throughput

Scientists have demonstrated, for the first time, that transistors made from single-walled carbon nanotubes can operate at extremely fast microwave frequencies, opening up the potential for better cell phones and much faster computers, perhaps as much as 1,000 times faster.

The findings, reported in the April issue of Nano Letters, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, add to mounting enthusiasm about nanotechnology’s rev

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are developing a system to rapidly produce hydrogen from gasoline in your car. “This brings fuel cell-powered cars one step closer to the mass market,” said Larry Pederson, project leader at PNNL. Researchers will present their developments at the American Institute for Chemical Engineers spring meeting in New Orleans, on April 27th, 2004.

Fuel cells use hydrogen to produce electricity which runs the vehicle

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a nanoscale technology for investigating biomolecular processes in single living cells. The new technology enables researchers to monitor and study cellular signaling networks, including the first observation of programmed cell death in a single live cell.

The “nanobiosensor” allows scientists to physically probe inside a living cell without destroying it. As scientists adopt a systems approach to st

Actually, doctoral candidate Alexandre Ermoline, North Arlington, NJ and NJIT Assistant Research Professor Mirko Schoenitz , PhD, Princeton, NJ, took four rides over four days aboard a KC-135 aircraft operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA operates the craft at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston which advances research in microgravity.

“Moving without gravity is an unusual sensation,” recently recalled Schoenitz. “I’ve heard people describ

At the nano-level, gold acquires a new shine, a new set of properties and a host of potential new applications

All that glitters is not gold, goes the old adage.

But the shrinking frontiers of science require a qualifier: Gold itself does not always glitter.

In fact, if gold is created in small enough chunks, it turns red, blue, yellow and other colors, says Chris Kiely, who directs the new Nanocharacterization Laboratory in Lehigh’s Center for Advanced Materi

The same stuff that stains your coffee mug could reduce pollution in the computer hard-drive industry, while saving drive makers millions of dollars in manufacturing costs.

The compound is derived from the tannin phytochemicals commonly found in plants. Green tea has a lot of them.

John Lombardi, president of Tucson-based Ventana Research Corp. combined phytochemicals from green-tea extract, synthetic proteins and an abrasive to produce a lapping slurry that is three to four times f

Possible uses include biological labeling, laser light, catalysts, memory storage, and relief for physicists

A wish list for nanotechnologists might consist of a simple, inexpensive means – actually, any means at all – of self-assembling nanocrystals into robust orderly arrangements, like soup cans on a shelf or bricks in a wall, each separated from the next by an insulating layer of silicon dioxide.

The silica casing could be linked to compatible semiconductor devices. The

Public transport systems of the future will feature high-tech vehicles supported, behind the scenes, by revolutionary control and scheduling systems that will make timetables redundant say CSIRO scientists.

CSIRO has developed software that simulates the movement of passengers and vehicles around track-based public transport networks that are designed to carry large numbers of people.

The software, called RTSim (Rapid Transit Simulator), lets researchers study the effects of changin

If you need bright blue light at a very specific wavelength, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can make it—and fast.

In the world of color, this is no small accomplishment. NIST’s traditional light sources, such as incandescent lamps, are thermal. A blue thermal source would need to function at such a high temperature that components would melt. Lack of blue light sources introduces uncertainty when calibrating instruments that measure the color of things like

New technology which can create ’natural’ sunlight in offices and homes and save billions on energy bills will soon be in everyday use, scientists will announce this week.

Researchers from the University of Bath will give details of work which will help change fundamentally the way that mobile phones, TVs, cars and buildings use lighting.

The new technology, called Solid State Lighting, will save billions of pounds by reducing the amount of electricity needed to li

Moscow scientists have managed to do simply and inexpensively something which normally proves complicated and expensive. The concept thought out and then implemented is a device which allows you to check the quality of ground and polished surfaces with unprecedented precision and rapidity and to detect every single defect of such surfaces. The effort has been funded by both the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Foundation for Promotion of Small-Size Enterprises in Research and Technical A