Silver cars are less likely to be involved in a crash resulting in serious injury than cars of other colours, finds a study in this week’s Christmas issue of the BMJ.

Researchers in New Zealand examined the effect of car colour on the risk of a serious injury in over 1,000 drivers who took part in the Auckland car crash injury study between 1998 and 1999.

Factors that could affect the results, such as age and sex of driver, seat belt use, vehicle age, and road conditions, were taken

Wind power is the most rapidly growing form of energy in the world today. European wind power accounts for the greatest share, with Denmark, Germany, and Spain as leading countries. In Denmark, for example, wind power provides roughly 12 percent of production of electricity. In Sweden, too, wind power has increased, although to a more limited extent. Between 1996 and 2003 the number of plants doubled from 300 to 631, while annual production trebled from 0.15 to about 0.5 TWh. However, wind accounts f

Natural warning sounds may be the future in airplanes and perhaps in cars as well. A “slurp” when fuel is low works better than a monotonous beeping sound. In a dissertation at The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden, Pernilla Ulfvengren has studied how warning sounds function, how we associate sounds, and how new sounds can be designed.

In the cockpit of an airplane there are a large number of warning units. If something happens to the plane, some twenty alarms may go off simultan

Hundreds of thousands of animals are killed in traffic every year. The threat traffic represents to badgers is greater than was previously known. A new dissertation at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) illuminates the conflict between traffic and animals in Sweden and provides models that predict the risk of accidents involving wild animals.

It is only in recent years that the impact of traffic on animal populations has been taken seriously. Today increasing traffic is re

Even without noticing this, everyday we all make use of many magnetic gadgets and devices, both at home and at work. There are dozens of magnets working in our cars and household appliances and billions of tiny magnets keep records on computer hard disks. These are just a few examples of the importance of magnetic materials in supporting our modern lifestyle.

Whether a particular material can be used in a simple appliance, such as an electric bell, or can be a part of a sophisticated electr

Researchers have developed a process to create wires only 50 nanometers (billionths of a meter) thick. Made from silica, the same mineral found in quartz, the wires carry light in an unusual way. Because the wires are thinner than the wavelengths of light they transport, the material serves as a guide around which light waves flow. In addition, because the researchers can fabricate the wires with a uniform diameter and smooth surfaces down to the atomic level, the light waves remain coherent as they

As notebook computers become thinner and lighter, the ever-present bulky power adapters used for line current approach the weight of the laptops, but smaller and lighter adapters may be on the way, thanks to piezoelectric technology, according to a Penn State electrical engineer.

“Electromagnetic transformers are shrinking slightly, but there are theoretical limitations in reducing the general size,” says Dr. Kenji Uchino, professor of electrical engineering. “A piezoelectric motor and tran

USC nanotube device uses ’Stochastic Resonance’ to enhance subthreshold signals

Paradoxical as it seems, a team of University of Southern California researchers has built a signal detector that only works when noise is added.

The device uses a novel kind of transistor made from carbon nanotubes. The principal investigator, Professor Bart Kosko of the USC department of electrical engineering, claims that the series of experiments reported in the December issue of the American

Australian scientists have developed a ’brain’, which enables the production of a world-first low-cost, intelligent small helicopter, set to end many difficult and dangerous tasks undertaken by humans.

The CSIRO Mantis can simply be told where to go and what to do, and it will go off, do the job and find its own way home, unassisted.

The low-cost CSIRO Mantis, described as a vertical take-off, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), provides a host of new ways of doing things.

A tiny nanowire sensor — smaller than the width of a human hair, 1,000 times more sensitive than conventional DNA tests, and capable of producing results in minutes rather than days or weeks — could pave the way for faster, more accurate medical diagnostic tests for countless conditions and may ultimately save lives by allowing earlier disease detection and intervention, Harvard scientists say.

In preliminary laboratory studies demonstrating the capability of the new sensor, the researchers

Robot researchers have long looked at the science of Kinematics and particularly how it applies to parallel robotics as providing novel solutions to robotic problems. But now researchers at the University of Warwick and China’s Tianjin University have used kinematic theory to produce a hybrid “rapid pick and place” robot that draws useful traits from both parallel and series robots and costs a third less than similar robots on the market.

The Diamond 600 robot uses parallel motors to drive i

Department of Energy-funded researchers have decoded and analyzed the genome of a bacterium with the potential to bioremediate radioactive metals and generate electricity. In an article published in the December 12th issue of Science, researchers at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, report that Geobacter sulfurreducens possesses extraordinary capabilities to transport electrons and “reduce” metal ions as part of its energy-generating metabolism.

For the first time, an international research program involving the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey has proven that it is technically feasible to produce gas from gas hydrates. Gas hydrates are a naturally occurring “ice-like” combination of natural gas and water that have the potential to be a significant new source of energy from the world’s oceans and polar regions.

Today at a symposium in Japan, the successful results of the first modern, fully integrated p

As utility companies search for ways to avoid blackouts, like the one that shut down the northeastern corner of the United States last summer, one idea comes from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Researchers from the College of Engineering have designed a system where a small network of local generators can reliably disconnect from the rest of the power supply, enabling locations where electricity is critical to stay in operation.

Most buildings receive their electrical power

For the first time since 1960, US scientists will be able to explore the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, up to seven miles below the surface, with a novel underwater vehicle capable of performing multiple tasks in extreme conditions. Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are developing a battery-powered underwater robot to enable scientists to explore the ocean’s most remote regions up to 11,000 meters (36,000-feet) deep.

The hybrid remotely operated vehicle

Ionizing radiation isn’t generally thought of as good for you, but it’s good for artificial hips. A new reference material from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will help researchers determine what methods of irradiating the plastic parts in joint replacements during manufacturing will best increase their wear resistance.

Reference Material 8457 is intended to help address concerns about the long-term durability of orthopedic hip implants amid growing use