• U.S. aging bridges in critical condition

    There are an estimated 18,000 bridges in the United States that are classed as fracture-critical bridges, requiring continual inspections; the need for increased inspection and maintenance runs against shrinking state and federal budgets for infrastructure improvements; bridges must also be closed for maintenance – but at least for that there is now a solution: instant bridges

  • Honda to reuse rare Earth metals from used parts

    Rare Earth elements are essential to advanced technological application and to green technology products; China controls 97 percent of the world’s production of these elements, and has been using its near-monopoly to hobble non-Chinese companies and for political blackmail; in response, two Japanese companies announce a new process allowing them to extract as much as 80 percent or more of rare Earth metals contained in used nickel-metal hydride batteries

  • Bridges get a quick check-up with new imaging technique

    EPFL engineers have developed a new imaging technique which allows engineers  to see the insides of massive concrete bridges; much like a sonogram, this technique provides quick, easy-to-interpret images, so that the health of these expensive structures can be assessed and monitored

  • California quake test shows promise of new building code

    Researchers place a model hospital on a shake table to assess the structure’s ability to withstand earthquake; in accordance with California latest building code, base isolators, which are rubber bearings intended to absorb the shock of the motion, were installed underneath the structure; the hospital passed the 6.7-magnitude and 8.8-magnitude tests with flying colors

  • £5 million investment in U.K. rail technology, business innovation

    The U.K. government is leading on an investment of £5 million to accelerate business innovation and growth in the U.K. rail industry, using the funds to support the development of technologies to address technological and business challenges

  • Southern sea levels rise dramatically

    Sea levels have risen about twenty centimeters in the South West Pacific since the late nineteenth century, a new scientific study shows

  • Industry insiders: insufficient security controls for smart meters

    False data injection attacks exploit the configuration of power grids by introducing arbitrary errors into state variables while bypassing existing techniques for bad measurement detection; experts say current generation of smart meters are not secure enough against false data injection attacks

  • Stormy weather in Europe's future

    Europeis likely to be hit by more violent winter storms in the future; a new study into the effects of climate change has found out why

  • 2012 National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition kicks off 20 April

    The National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NCCDC) is returning to the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) for the seventh consecutive year; the 3-day national championship will kick off 20 April

  • U.S. power and water utilities face daily cyberattacks

    American water and energy companies deal with a constant barrage of cyberattacks on a daily basis; these incidents usually take the form of cyber espionage or denial-of-service attacks against the utilities’ industrial-control systems

  • Cyberweapon blowback

     

    The real concern about Stuxnet is that its existence demonstrates what is achievable; security analysts are confident that they can stop anything that is a variant of Stuxnet, but the real challenge is stopping something in the style of Stuxnet; this is where the confidence ends

  • Containing a tunnel flood with an inflatable giant plug

    Researchers have developed a giant plug to contain tunnel floods; the plug inflates (with water or air) to dimensions of roughly 32-feet-long and by 16-feet-wide, and holds 35,000 gallons, about the same capacity as a medium-sized backyard swimming pool

  • New laws help cut metal thefts

    Metal thefts have become a plague to businesses throughout the country; some states pass laws which require licenses and permits to buy and sell non-ferrous metals; Spartanburg, South Carolina, also requires that buyers pay for the purchases with checks rather than cash, in order to create a paper trail to the seller of the metal

  • A swarm of small satellites to deflect menacing asteroids

    New research suggests that the best way to divert an asteroid hurtling toward Earth is using a swarm of relatively small satellites flying in formation and cooperatively firing solar-powered lasers onto an asteroid; this would be a more effective way than the current methods being contemplated, which are focused on large unwieldy spacecraft

  • 1930s technology to become 21st century tool against CO2 emissions

    Human activity releases 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year; a new approach to dealing with the problem has a back-to-the-future glint, leveraging technology that the petroleum industry has used since the 1930s to remove carbon dioxide and other impurities from natural gas