• Cooling coal emissions would clean air, lower health, climate-change costs

    In the United States there are about 1,400 electric-generating unit powered by coal, operated at about 600 power plants; the estimated health costs of burning coal in the United States are in the range of $150 billion to $380 billion, including 18,000-46,000 premature deaths, 540,000 asthma attacks, 13,000 emergency room visits, and two million missed work or school days each year; scientists estimate that implementing large-scale cryogenic systems into coal-fired plants would reduce overall costs to society by 38 percent through the sharp reduction of associated health-care and climate-change costs

  • Maldives to build floating islands to save country from rising sea levels

    The Maldives Islands, a low-lying chain of twenty-six atolls in the Indian Ocean, are sinking; more precisely: due to global warming, the sea level is rising over the islands, most of which sit lower than three feet above the rising water; the Maldives government has embarked on an ambitious project: build floating islands, anchor them to the ocean floor, then relocate most of the population of 300,000 – and some of the tourist attractions – to them

  • New hurricane simulator to help find way to minimize storms’ destruction

    Hurricanes in Miami can range from just rain and light wind to shredded houses, overturned cars, massive flooding, and death. Now, almost twenty years after Hurricane Andrew, Florida International University is using a new simulator to find ways to prevent the massive damage a hurricane can create

  • Decline and fall: all built structures are destined to break down or fail

    A series of infrastructure-related accidents in Ontario this summer has caused people to ask: Just how safe are the structures that we build? The answer a materials science and engineering professor offers may not be reassuring: “Nature always looks for ways to use energy in a favorable state — gravity always pushing things downwards is an example. Any built structure naturally goes against nature. Therefore, all structures will eventually be broken or destroyed — given the right amount of time, they will break down or fail.”

  • U.S. risks losing out to Asia in medical research

    Medical research saves lives, suffering, and dollars — while also creating jobs and economic activity; the United States has long led the world, with hundreds of thousands of jobs and marketable discoveries generated by government research funding every year; this is now changing: strong, sustained growth in research spending in Asian nations contrasts with U.S. cuts and short-term approach, and a brain drain could result

  • Electric plants challenged by high temperatures, drought

    The hottest July on record since 1895, along with the most wide-spread drought in the country since 1956, have nuclear plants struggling with finding enough water — cool water — to keep key parts of the plants cool; if the water gets too warm, operators have to dial back production — for reactor safety, and also to regulate the temperature of discharge water, which affects aquatic life

  • Glass offers a better way of storing U.K. nuclear waste

    Researchers have shown, for the first time, that a method of storing nuclear waste normally used only for High Level Waste (HLW) could provide a safer, more efficient, and potentially cheaper solution for the storage and ultimate disposal of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW)

  • No-till could help stabilize crop yields despite climate change

    Reducing tillage for some Central Great Plains crops could help conserve water and reduce losses caused by climate change, according to studies at the U.S. Department of Agriculture

  • New camouflage makeup shields soldiers from searing heat of bomb blasts

    The new camouflage makeup protects the face and hands for up to fifteen seconds before its own temperature rises to the point where a first-degree burn, which is a mild burn, might occur; in some tests, the new face paint can protect for up to sixty seconds, which could be important in giving soldiers time to move away from blast-related fires and also for use by civilian firefighters

  • ONR’s augmented-reality project progresses

    The Office of Naval Research (ONR) yesterday demonstrated the next phase of an augmented-reality project which will change the way soldiers view operational environments — literally

  • Electronic nose detects airborne toxins down to the parts per billion level

    Research create an electronic nose device with applications in agriculture, industry, homeland security, and the military; the device can detect small quantities of harmful airborne substances

  • Mystery of dramatic leveling off of methane in the atmosphere solved

    Increased capture of natural gas from oil fields probably accounts for up to 70 percent of the dramatic leveling off seen in atmospheric methane at the end of the twentieth century; methane has twenty times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, although CO2 is filling the atmosphere in far larger amounts

  • Engineering students build U.K. first hydrogen powered locomotive

    Engineering students and staff at the University of Birmingham have designed and built a prototype hydrogen powered locomotive, the first of its kind to operate in the United Kingdom

  • Simple new test combats counterfeit drugs in developing countries

    The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that at least 10 percent of the drug supply in developing countries consists of counterfeit medicines, causing thousands of deaths every year; many of the deaths occur among people who unknowingly take counterfeit antibiotics and anti-malaria medicines that do not contain the active ingredient to combat those diseases; in addition to lacking the active ingredient, counterfeit medicines may harm people by containing ingredients that are potentially toxic

  • Border Patrol kiosk detects liars trying to enter U.S.

    The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is using border crossing stations in Arizona to test new technology to detect liars as they attempt to enter the country; travelers are subjected to a 5-minute interview with the kiosk, while microphones monitor vocal pitch frequency and quality, an infrared camera monitors eye movement and pupil dilation, and a high definition camera monitors facial expression