• Engineers awarded $2.2 million grant for research on new toilet design

    A University of Toronto engineering team has received a major grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to continue work on designing for a waterless, hygienic toilet that is safe and affordable for people in the developing world

  • “Intra-seasonal” variability in sea-level change

    The effects of storm surge and sea-level rise have become topics of everyday conversation in the days and weeks following Hurricane Sandy’s catastrophic landfall along the mid-Atlantic coast; new research is throwing light on another, less-familiar component of sea-level variability — the “intra-seasonal” changes that occupy the middle ground between rapid, storm-related surges in sea level and the long-term increase in sea level due to global climate change

  • American West's changing climate means economic changes, too

    The State of the West Symposium, hosted by the Bill Lane Center for the American West and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, featured a discussion of the Western United States’ future of extreme heat, declining snowpack, and what it all means for the region’s industry, electricity generation, and policy

  • New sensor detects undetonated bombs on sea floor

    More than ten million acres of the world’s coastal waters are contaminated by undetonated explosives, according to the U.S. government; typically these small explosives rust and corrode at sea, making them even more dangerous; scientists have developed a sensor to detect undetonated explosives on the sea floor; the sensor is based on technology used to find mineral deposits underground

  • Technology to help weather bushfires, floods and more

    Natural disasters have increased in severity and frequency in recent years; in 2010, 385 natural disasters affected 217 million people worldwide at a cost to the global economy of $123.9 billion; there is an on-going research into digital technologies and services for disaster planning, preparation, rescue, and recovery; these technologies can help emergency services better manage natural disasters and minimize their effects on people, infrastructure, and the environment

  • Blame, responsibility, and demand for change following floods

    New research shows concerns about governmental failure to act effectively and fairly in the aftermath of extreme weather events can affect the degree to which residents are willing to protect themselves; the findings could prove key to establishing how society should evolve to cope with more turbulent weather and more frequent mega storms

  • Water resources management in a changing world

    Visualize a dusty place where stream beds are sand and lakes are flats of dried mud; are we on Mars? In fact, we are on arid parts of Earth, a planet where water covers some 70 percent of the surface; how long will water be readily available to nourish life here? In the United States, more than thirty-six states face water shortages; other parts of the world are faring no better

  • World’s great rivers running on empty

    Four of the world’s great rivers are all suffering from drastically reduced flows as a direct result of water extraction, according to new research; the researchers found that in all four river basins, over a long period of time, outflows have greatly reduced as a direct result of increased water extractions, and that urgent changes in governance of water are needed to ensure the systems remain healthy and viable

  • Israel successfully tests David’s Sling mid-range missile defense system

    During the just-ended Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel made military history by successfully employing a missile defense system to protect the country’s population: during the 8-day war, Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched 1,506 rockets and missiles at Israeli towns and cities; of those, 1,057 fell harmlessly in empty fields, but 449 were headed toward populated centers; of the 449, Israel’s Iron Dome system intercepted 421, and 28 hit buildings, killing five; yesterday Israel announced the successful test of David’s Sling, a mid-range missile defensive system; the system is designed to protect against missile with a range of up to 180 miles, like the missiles in the hands of Syria and Hezbollah

  • Tetrapod robot developed for investigative, recovery work inside post-accident nuclear plants

    Toshiba has developed a tetrapod robot able to carry out investigative and recovery work in locations which are too risky for people to enter; the multiple joints of its legs are controlled by a dedicated movement algorithm which enables the robot to walk on uneven surfaces, avoid obstacles, and climb stairs, securing access into areas which are challenging to be reached by wheeled robots or crawlers

  • Improved technology to detect hazardous chemicals

    Scientists have developed a system quickly to detect trace amounts of illegal drugs, explosives, pollutants in rivers, or nerve gases released into the air; the new system can pick out a single target molecule from 10,000 trillion water molecules within milliseconds, by trapping it on a self-assembling single layer of gold nanoparticles

  • Humble microbes fighting harmful greenhouse gas

    The environment has a more formidable opponent than carbon dioxide; another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, is 300 times more potent and also destroys the ozone layer each time it is released into the atmosphere through agricultural practices, sewage treatment, and fossil fuel combustion; luckily, nature has a larger army than previously thought combating this greenhouse gas

  • Warming to shift heavy rainfall patterns across U.K.

    Researchers investigating the potential changes in extreme rainfall patterns across the United Kingdom as a result of global warming have found that in some regions of the country, the time of year when we see the heaviest rainfall is set to shift

  • Classroom of the future: next generation of school desks boost math skills

    Researchers designing and testing the classroom of the future have found that multi-touch, multi-user desks can boost skills in mathematics; new results from a 3-year project working with over 400 pupils, mostly 8-10 year olds, show that collaborative learning increases both fluency and flexibility in math; it also shows that using an interactive ‘smart’ desk can have benefits over doing mathematics on paper

  • Nanotech detection device emulates dog's nose to detect explosives

    Inspired by the biology of canine scent receptors, scientists develop a chip capable of quickly identifying trace amounts of vapor molecules; the chip is part of a device which is both highly sensitive to trace amounts of certain vapor molecules, and able to tell a specific substance apart from similar molecules