The fog today is hanging heavy on the Yangtze River making conditions for navigation rather difficult, however one ferry goes forward with no special worries. The captain is using the highly accurate satellite navigation system, EGNOS.

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is an initiative of the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Commission and Eurocontrol.
This boat trip is the first trial testing satellite navigation with EGNOS in China and is the first

Purdue University scientists have uncovered an unusual material that could lead to non-metallic magnets, which might be lighter, cheaper and easier to fabricate than magnets made of metal.

A team of researchers, including Paul G. Wenthold, has analyzed a radical hydrocarbon molecule whose electrons behave differently than they should, according to well-known principles. The compound is not the only molecule that exhibits such odd behavior in its surrounding cloud of electrons, but it is the

In a major advance for cryogenics, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a compact, solid-state refrigerator capable of reaching temperatures as low as 100 milliKelvin. The refrigerator works by removing hot electrons in a manner similar to an evaporative air-conditioner or “swamp cooler.”

When combined with an X-ray sensor, also being developed at NIST, the instrument will be useful in semiconductor manufacturing for identifying trace conta

If manufacturing is entering the “Golden Age” of nanotechnology, then carbon nanotubes are the “Golden Child.” In recent years, these tubes of graphite many times thinner than a human hair have become a much-touted emerging technology because of their potential ability to add strength and other important properties to materials.

Adding carbon nanotubes to plastics and other polymers has potential to make automobile and airplane bodies stronger and lighter, and textiles more tear-resistant.

A breakthrough broadcast technology designed to deliver Traffic and Travel Information (TTI) has been tested and validated by the TPEG project. Project partners have further developed a new and open international standard for broadcasting language independent multimodal TTI to be distributed over a wide range of digital media.

Use of TPEG industry-wide will allow the development of powerful systems to manage and display travel news. In addition, developers will be able to create systems and

A research team at the Department of Physics at the Public University of Navarre are developing new, “intelligent” materials which have the capacity for changing shape when a magnetic field is applied to them. These materials may be used for the generation of ultrasonic signals, in the manufacture of loudspeakers and sonars or in actuators, amongst other applications. The project is a three-year one.

Specifically, the group at the Public University of Navarre is working on the optimisation

Weizmann Institute scientists have created a new type of nanotube built of gold, silver and other nanoparticles. The tubes exhibit unique electrical, optical and other properties, depending on their components, and as such, may form the basis for future nanosensors, catalysts and chemistry-on-a-chip systems.

The study, published in Angewandte Chemie, was performed by Prof. Israel Rubinstein, Dr. Alexander Vaskevich, postdoctoral associate Dr. Michal Lahav and doctoral student Tali Sehayek,

Computer simulations play an essential role in the study of complex fluids – liquids that contain particles of different sizes. Such liquids have numerous applications, which depend on a fundamental understanding of their behavior. But the two main techniques for the atomistic simulation of liquids – the molecular dynamics technique and the Monte Carlo method – have limitations that greatly reduce their effectiveness.

As reported in the Jan. 23 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters,

LABEIN Tecnological Centre, based in the Basque Country, has developed an innovative system for verifying tunnel safety in the case of fire. The new system, developed at the request of the Gipuzkoa Provincial Government, has been successfully tested in the new Lezarri (Bergara) tunnel on the A1 Eibar-Vitoria motorway.

The novel element in the testing set up by LABEIN, compared to other systems used to date, is that the verification can be carried out in a short period (about 8 hours) and wit

EUREKA project E! 2339 EUROENVIRON GRINDING project has developed an alternative, flexible and environmentally friendly manufacturing technology for the production of gears that can reduce production times from months to a matter of days.
It can be used for all kinds of gears and joints made from treated alloyed steel, heat-resistant nickel or titanium alloys, such as those used in turbine and jet engine blades.

The current production process for industrial gears is expensive in terms of

European Commission President, Romano Prodi, today launched the “European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology” Platform, whose Advisory Council includes key players of the European hydrogen sector, at its first assembly in Brussels. The Platform has the task of drafting a blueprint to smooth the EU’s transition from a fossil fuel-based to a hydrogen-based economy. The creation of this platform follows the presentation of a report by an EU high-level expert group on June 16, 2003, and the inclusion of

The first Russian power system based on a solid-oxide fuel cell is tested in Snezhinsk. By importance, this event is comparable with the first automobile construction.

The first Russian power system based on a solid-oxide fuel cell had been tested in the All-Russia Research Institute of Technical Physics (Russian Federal Nuclear Center, Snezhinsk, Chelyabinsk oblast). In this system, hydrogen is obtained from natural gas, and oxygen – from the air. For the first time, such a system ha

By modifying the surface of tiny, fluorescent crystals called quantum dots, Carnegie Mellon University scientists have enabled them to circulate for hours in animals and to provide fluorescent signals for at least eight months, the longest that anyone has observed quantum dot fluorescence in a living animal. This technological feat overcomes a major limitation, making quantum dots finally practical for long-term studies in mammals.

Reporting in the January/February issue of Bioconjugate Che

Stronger or tougher? For designers of advanced materials, this tradeoff may complicate efforts to devise efficient methods for assembling nanometer-scale building blocks into exotic ceramics, glasses and other types of customized materials.

“Not all properties may benefit from microstructural refinement, so due caution needs to be exercised in materials design,” writes the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Brian Lawn in the January issue of Journal of Materials Researc

A waste product from rice has been used by Japanese scientists to produce surfacing materials that make for quieter, more resilient roads, reports Richard Butler in this issue of Chemistry & Industry Magazine.

Roads made using this method absorb noise better, drain faster and are less susceptible to extremes of temperature than traditional based road surfaces, according to Minebea, of Nagano, Japan. They may even be able to help traffic management.

The new traffic surfaces contain r

Just as roads need to be repaved and highways repaired, the technological infrastructure that guides traffic also has to be kept up-to-date. But updating traffic management systems can be costly, as new applications and devices are often not designed to interoperate with older systems. Overcoming this problem is the IST project OMNI’s prototype platform that allows traffic authorities to integrate the new while retaining the old, thereby protecting past investments.

“There are high inve