2% of buildings capable of having solar air-conditioning installed, could stop emitting 27,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere

The Basque Energy Authority (BEA) has been participating in the European ALTENER programme for the encouragement of renewable energies since their creation in 1992. Along these lines, the BEA has been chosen to develop a project involving the air-conditioning of buildings using renewable energies as an alternative to the traditional systems based on energies

Fog-related pileups such as last month’s 71-car collision in Texas could become a thing of the past with roadside “smart beacons” that use the latest wireless technology to sense wrecks and warn motorists of danger ahead.

So say three University of Florida engineering researchers who this month applied for a patent on the concept for the beacons, which would be placed at regular intervals on roadside rights of way and would flash red or yellow lights to indicate a hazard ahead.

Details published in Jan. 10 issue of the journal Science

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a series of novel techniques in nanotechnology that hold promise for applications ranging from highly targeted pharmaceutical therapies, to development of nutrition-enhanced foods known as “nutraceuticals,” to nanoscopic sensors that might one day advance medical imaging and diagnostics. The research, published in the Jan. 10 issue of Science, was funded by

Nanoshell sensor opens door for new methods to exam single molecules

Nanotechnology researchers at Rice University have demonstrated the ability to precisely control the electromagnetic field around nanoparticles, opening the door for chemical screening techniques that could allow doctors, life scientists and chemists to routinely analyze samples as small as a single molecule.

The research is detailed in the current issue of Applied Physics Letters. It builds upon a widely u

RIT scientists develop nanomaterials for NASA program

Someday, large-scale solar power stations in space could beam electricity to the surface of the moon, the earth and other planets, decreasing our dependence on a dwindling fossil-fuel supply.

Scientists at Rochester Institute of Technology are developing the next generation of solar cells, advancing the technology that could put a solar power system into earth’s orbit.

The National Science Foundation recent

The University of the Basque Country, IBERDROLA (an electricity utility supplying the Basque Country), the enterprises INGETEAM and INDAR and innovative energies company EHN have participated jointly in this research project. The project has put forward an innovative use of wind-sourced energy to control fluctuations on the grid. The research site where measurements were made was the Salajones wind park in Sanguesa (Navarre).

In recent years the electricity utilities have shown much greater

Technique could help bring efficiency of biology to man-made materials

A Princeton chemist has developed a general mathematical system for designing materials that perform two functions at once, even when the desired properties sometimes conflict with each other.

Salvatore Torquato and colleagues used computers to calculate the optimum structure for any material that is a composite of two substances with differing properties. The achievement is the first simple example of a

The Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) experiment got off to a successful start this week aboard the International Space Station.

Hard as a rock, yet able to absorb liquids and gases like a sponge, zeolites form the backbone of the chemical processes industry. Virtually all the world’s gasoline is produced or upgraded using zeolites. Improving zeolites could make gasoline production more efficient or lead to ways of storing clean-burning hydrogen for fuel. Zeolites can also be applied to

POLYMAT, the University of the Basque Country’s Institute of Polymer Materials, is helping to solve the problem of contamination of polymers obtained through polymerisation processes involving emulsions. With European funding obtained four years ago, the project on removing monomer residues from polymers was undertaken. POLYMAT has been working in this field with the collaboration of three other universities (from Germany, Greece and Switzerland) as well as three foreign companies.

Unfortun

Today in Brussels the European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC) presented a comprehensive Strategic Rail Research Agenda (SRRA), which identifies key scientific and technological priorities for both passenger and freight rail transport over the next 20 years.

ERRAC was created one year ago in Cologne, initiated by European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin. It is the first time that a long-term plan for rail research and technological development has been jointly devised a

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have transformed ordinary polyurethane packaging foam into a superfoam that not only refuses to be crushed but also actually increases in thickness when stretched. Under the same stresses conventional foam loses its resilience and its protective qualities, so the superfoam’s benefits for the packaging industry are obvious.

The secret lies in a new “cooking” technique and in the cooking oil, which has to be organic; olive oil, for example, will do ni

When you buy a bottle of wine for the holidays, you are actually paying for more than a bottle. That’s because during the months or years that the wine was aging, as much as 15 percent of it was lost to evaporation.

Now, that loss of good wine can be prevented — and wine prices reduced — with an atomizer system that keeps the humidity inside and outside the barrels equal, thereby eliminating the evaporation that occurs as nature works to maintain equilibrium.

The system, develop

A study of airflow in pipes may help solve a mystery concerning the ears of fast-swimming sharks. The results could also lead to new audio technologies, according to an engineer at Ohio State University.

Konrad Koeltzsch, a postdoctoral researcher in chemical engineering and the Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at Ohio State, and his colleagues investigated grooves in sharkskin called riblets.

Koeltzsch began to study sharkskin while he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Dresden Uni

For several years, Caisa Andersson has been trying to create a better barrier against moisture and oxygen in our food packaging. On December 20, she will submit her doctoral dissertation at Karlstad University in Sweden.

Latex has long been used for various types of surface treatment of paper. In recent years, interest has been focused on the polymer’s characteristic of forming a protective coating on the surface of paper.

“Surface treatment is used to create a barrier against mois

High-power ultrasound, currently used for cell disruption, particle size reduction, welding and vaporization, has been shown to be 99.99 percent effective in killing bacterial spores after only 30 seconds of non contact exposure in experiments conducted by researchers at Penn State and Ultran Labs, Boalsburg, Pa.

In the experiments, bacterial spores contained in a paper envelope, were placed slightly (3mm) above the active area of a specially equipped source of inaudible, high frequency (70

Nanotechnology could make life easier for computer manufacturers and tougher for terrorists, reports a Purdue University research team.

A group led by Jillian Buriak has found a rapid and cost-effective method of forming tiny particles of high-purity metals on the surface of advanced semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide. While the economic benefits alone of such a discovery would be good news to chip manufacturers, who face the problem of connecting increasingly tiny com