An MIT researcher has a vision: Four hundred huge offshore wind turbines are providing onshore customers with enough electricity to power several hundred thousand homes, and nobody standing onshore can see them. The trick? The wind turbines are floating on platforms a hundred miles out to sea, where the winds are strong and steady.
Technology news // 29 August, 2006 06:08:08
Gasoline, diesel, and turbine engines could soon burn cleaner or be more fuel efficient through the application of Plasma Assisted Combustion, a technology originated and developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and now poised to enter the marketplace.
Technology news // 28 August, 2006 06:08:09
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have conducted successful test flights of a hydrogen-powered unmanned aircraft believed to be the largest to fly on a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell using compressed hydrogen.
Technology news // 10 August, 2006 08:08:33
For the past three years a Sandia research team headed by Mat Celina has been investigating the performance of various piezoelectric polymer films that might one day serve as ultra-light mirrors in space telescopes.
Technology news // 01 August, 2006 06:08:13
In 1827, Robert Brown observed that pollen grains floating in a drop of water jiggled constantly. The phenomenon became known as Brownian motion. Over 75 years later, Einstein proposed that the pollen grains were being jostled by the molecules of water. The impurity (pollen grains) Brown had added to the water allowed Einstein to deduce the presence of individual water molecules and describe at least one of their properties.
Technology news // 18 July, 2006 09:07:07
New thin-film semiconductor techniques invented by University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers promise to add sensing, computing and imaging capability to an amazing array of materials.
Technology news // 14 July, 2006 12:07:27
An experimental atomic clock based on a single mercury atom is now at least five times more precise than the national standard clock based on a "fountain" of cesium atoms, according to a paper by physicists at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the July 14 issue of Physical Review Letters.
Technology news // 12 July, 2006 07:07:11
More than 2,000 years ago, craftsmen in China created a fiery-violet pigment from barium-copper silicates that historians now call Han purple.Once prized by artisans for painting such icons as the Xi'an terra cotta warriors, the pigment is now finding new fans in the world of physics and may help guide future research into high-temperature superconductivity, quantum computers and other materials at the forefront of technology research.
Technology news // 06 July, 2006 05:07:15
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have designed and built a novel electromagnetic trap for ions that could be easily mass produced to potentially make quantum computers large enough for practical use.
Technology news // 04 July, 2006 07:07:56
On or off the job, Susan Reyes, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) nuclear engineer, promotes the application of nuclear science and technology and encourages young students to seek careers in nuclear science-related fields.