Applied Physics

Algae Gets Another Endorsement As Biofuel Of The Future

In the world of alternative fuels, there may be nothing greener than pond scum. Algae are tiny biological factories that use photosynthesis to transform carbon dioxide and sunlight into energy so efficiently that they can double their weight several times ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 15 2008 - 11:41am

Sawing Off The Wings: What’s That Sound Beneath The Plane?

As I was sitting patiently in Long Beach waiting to exit the plane and listening to that weird sawing sound that I hear every time I fly on an Airbus A320, I was wondering two things: 1) Why does it sound like Paul Bunyon is attacking my plane with a drywa ...

Article - Matthew Brown - Apr 17 2015 - 2:10am

LHC Start-up

After the Olympics, the next big thing is the international Large Hadron Collider. There's a lot of excitement at CERN. The first injections, and without a hitch, of low energy protons shot through an eighth of the 27 km LHC ring. Back to back for th ...

Article - Alan Gillis - Sep 1 2008 - 9:38pm

Liquefaction- When Earthquakes Happen Near Rivers, Solids Become Liquids

As Dr. Ronaldo Luna, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, watches a machine shake silt from the Mississippi River until it liquefies, he says, "This is what would h ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 24 2011 - 3:20pm

Agile Methodology Takes Hold In Europe Test Cases

Use of embedded software in electronics devices is growing even faster than advances in electronics themselves. Yet human capabilities for producing software have not increased in Europe over the past decade. “The amount of software is growing very rapidly ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 20 2008 - 9:19am

Fine-Tuning Flavors May Also Lead To Environmentally Terrific Pesticides

University of Texas Medical School Assistant Professor C.S. Raman and colleagues say they have been able to manipulate flavor enzymes found in a popular plant model, Arabidopsis thaliana, by genetic means. The enzymes—allene oxide synthase (AOS) and hydrop ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 20 2008 - 5:57pm

Multipurpose Goodness: Biodiesel Waste Converted Into Omega-3 Fatty Acids

There are two big problems we face; energy and health. Zhiyou Wen, assistant professor of biological systems engineering in Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has found a way to tackle both using biodiesel. The typical American ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 21 2008 - 1:29pm

Sign Language On A Mobile Phone

A group at the University of Washington has developed software that for the first time enables deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans to use sign language over a mobile phone. UW engineers got the phones working together this spring, and recently received a Na ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 21 2008 - 6:35pm

Can I Back Order My Mr. Fusion Now?

If you were a young-ish science student in the mid-1980s there are two movies that remain in your collection to this day; Back To The Future and, of course, Buckaroo Banzai: Across The Eighth Dimension. 'Buckaroo Banzai' was completely inplausibl ...

Article - Cash Simpson - Aug 21 2008 - 11:33pm

Cyanobacteria- The 'Big Bang' Of Evolution Could Save Our Energy Future

The perfect clean, renewable energy will utilize the sun's light energy for efficient conversion into fuels and electric power and so attention is focusing on one of the most ancient groups of organism, the cyanobacteria. 3.7 billion years ago photosy ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 25 2008 - 11:09am