• Warming to reduce snow water storage 56 percent in Oregon watershed

    A new report projects that by the middle of this century there will be an average 56 percent drop in the amount of water stored in peak snowpack in the McKenzie River watershed of the Oregon Cascade Range — and that similar impacts may be found on low-elevation maritime snow packs around the world. The snowpack reduction may have significant impacts on ecosystems, agriculture, hydropower, industry, municipalities, and recreation, especially in summer when water demands peak.

  • La. flood protection agency sues 97 energy companies for wetland destruction

    A Louisiana state agency on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against ninety-seven energy companies, charging that the companies have inflicted severe damage on fragile coastal wetlands, damage which left New Orleans and other Louisiana cities more vulnerable to hurricanes and storm surges. The agency wants the court to order these companies to pay steep penalties which would help the state restore the wetlands and thus recreate the natural buffer which had protected New Orleans.

  • Humanoid robot ready for DARPA’s Robotics Challenge trials

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    A Korean research institution joins with nine U.S. universities to enter the team’s DRC-HUBO, a humanoid robot, in DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). The competing robots will have to fulfill eight tasks at the competition, among them driving a utility vehicle, walking across rough terrain, climbing a ladder, and using hand tools.

  • Overconfident, introverted people more likely to be e-mail phishing victims

    New study shows that people who are overconfident, introverted, or women are less able accurately to distinguish between legitimate and phishing e-mails. Phishing is the use of fraudulent e-mail correspondence to obtain passwords and credit card information, or to send viruses.

  • Harnessing energy from wind whipping through urban concrete canyons

    Two Drexel University students developed a wind-harvesting concept which would exploit the wind whipping through “concrete canyons” between buildings and skyscrapers in large urban centers. Their concept involves a system of wind turbines that could be installed in streets and spaces between buildings, using flexible sails to divert otherwise turbulent winds into a more useful stream.

  • Motivating businesses to adopt building resiliency standards

    Increased resilience for buildings in the face of hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorism, or cyberattacks has been a major national security focus over the past decade. Such resilient buildings not only would be less susceptible to damage and work interruption but could become community gathering places in a general crisis. It will not be easy, however, to secure voluntary adoption of resiliency standards by industry and builders without adequate justification.

  • Tick rover robot kills ticks dead

    The day may not be too far away when homeowners can schedule monthly tick clearing service, drastically reducing the risk of tick-borne illness in their pets and children. This is because the “tick rover” robot has just cleared a major hurdle. Testing last month indicated unequivocally that the device kills between 75 and 100 percent of the ticks in its path.

  • Teachers honored for inspiring tomorrow’s generation of engineers

    The future of the engineering profession received a boost when the National Engineers Week Foundation announced the three winners of the 2013 DiscoverE Educator Awards on 3 June. Now in its second year, the program recognizes educators teaching grades 6 through 12 for their effective methods to interest kids in engineering through math and science. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is a sponsor of the award.

  • Harvesting carbon dioxide to produce electricity

    Electric power-generating stations worldwide release about twelve billion tons of CO2 annually from combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas. Home and commercial heating produces another eleven billion tons. Researchers developed a technology which would make the CO2 react with water or other liquids and, with further processing, produce a flow of electrons that make up electric current.

  • UMaine student develops affordable option for shoring up Maine’s aging bridges

    The State of Maine Department of Transportation is responsible for 2,772, or 70 percent, of the bridges in the state. A 2007 report found that of those bridges, 205 are more than 80 years old, 244 were considered in poor condition, and 213 were found to be structurally deficient. Additionally, 288 bridges were at risk of closure or weight restrictions between 2007 and 2017. Replacing all these bridges would be too costly. Researchers developed software designed specifically to assess the load rating of flat-slab bridges to determine which bridges can be repaired instead of replaced. For the bridges that can last a few more years with reinforcing instead of replacing, the researchers engineered a retrofitting system which could be applied to increase the bridge’s strength and weight limits.

  • Water purifier for soldiers, first responders successfully tested in the field

    A new easy-to-carry water purifier that could give Marines and first-responders access to clean water wherever they go successfully completed its first operational test. The new purifier was developed to help reduce enormous logistical burdens already faced by forward-deployed personnel. There are two versions — one that can treat 1,000 gallons per day and one that can handle 5,000 gallons per day.

  • Making power lines safer

    Last year, blackouts left 620 million people in India without power for a couple of days, and cost the U.S. economy more than $120 billion. Electric sparking has been blamed for major bushfires in Australia. Researchers have invented and patented a way of detecting and locating potential electrical faults along long stretches of power line before they occur.

  • Wildfires to get more common, harder to control

    Wildfires are getting worse, as evidenced by the devastation caused in Australia in 2009 and again last year, in Russia in 2010, in Canada’s Slave Lake and Colorado Springs in 2011, and in Arizona earlier this year. The world’s wildfires annually burn between 350 million and 600 million hectares of forest, an area equivalent to the size of India. Researchers predict that global warming will increase severity of wildfires threefold by end of century.

  • New iceberg theory points to rapid disintegration, exacerbating sea level rise

    In events that could exacerbate sea level rise over the coming decades, stretches of ice on the coasts of Antarctica and Greenland are at risk of rapidly cracking apart and falling into the ocean, according to new iceberg calving simulations from the University of Michigan.

  • Climate forecasts predict crop failures

    Climate data can help predict some crop failures several months before harvest, according to a new study. Scientists found that in about one-third of global cropland, temperature and soil moisture have strong relationships to the yield of wheat and rice at harvest. For those two key crops, a computer model could predict crop failures three months in advance for about 20 percent of global cropland.