Located at the University of Utah, the High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) is an experiment to study the highest energy cosmic rays to determine the energy, direction, and chemical composition of the incident particle.

Final results show that the most energetic particles in the universe rarely reach Earth at full strength because they come from great distances, so most of them collide with radiation left over from the birth of the universe.

The findings are based on nine years of observations at the now-shuttered observatory on the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground. They confirm a 42-year-old prediction – known as the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) “cutoff,” “limit” or “suppression” – about the behavior of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, which carry more energy than any other known particle.

A shape comparison of the most complete fossil femur (thigh bone) of one of the earliest known pre-humans, or hominins, with the femora of living apes, modern humans and other fossils, indicates the earliest form of bipedalism occurred at least six million years ago and persisted for at least four million years.

William Jungers, Ph.D., of Stony Brook University, and Brian Richmond, Ph.D., of George Washington University, say their finding indicates that the fossil belongs to very early human ancestors, and that upright walking is one of the first human characteristics to appear in our lineage, right after the split between human and chimpanzee lineages.

A cheap alternative to silicon solar cells can be found in dye-sensitized solar cells. This type of cell imitates the natural conversion of sunlight into energy by plants and light-sensitive bacteria. Annemarie Huijser has succeeded in substantially improving a process in this type of solar cell, which is similar to Grätzel cells.

The use of solar cells is increasing very slowly. One of the reasons is that the most commonly used type, made from silicon, is quite expensive to manufacture. That is why there has been a great deal of research into alternative solar cells over the past few years.

The tuatara, Sphendon punctatus, is found only in New Zealand and is the only surviving member of a distinct reptilian order Sphehodontia that lived alongside early dinosaurs and separated from other reptiles 200 million years ago in the Upper Triassic period.

In a study of New Zealand’s “living dinosaur”, evolutionary biologist David Lambert and his team recovered DNA sequences from the bones of ancient tuatara, which are up to 8000 years old. They found that, although tuatara have remained largely physically unchanged over very long periods of evolution, they are evolving - at a DNA level - faster than any other animal yet examined.

For statues, hidden stress and fractures result from standing in place for hundreds of years. Researchers have now developed a way to predict such fracturing, applying the procedure to Michelangelo's David in an analysis that proved simpler, faster and more accurate than previous methods.

In applying the technique to other objects -- including human bones -- the researchers are also gaining new perspective on how these structures are likely to fail.

On March 18, 2008, Vadim Shapiro of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Igor Tsukanov of Florida International University and their colleagues will present their latest results from their Scan and Solve technique at the International Conference on Computational and Experimental Engineering and Sciences in Honolulu, Hawaii.

A silent, ultra-thin, low-power and low maintenance cooling system for laptop computers and other electronic devices has been developed based on silent air purifier techniques.

The compact, solid-state fan is the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size. It produces three times the flow rate of a typical small mechanical fan and is one-fourth the size.

Dan Schlitz and Vishal Singhal of Thorrn Micro Technologies, Inc., of Marietta, Ga. will present their RSD5 solid-state fan at the 24th Annual Semiconductor Thermal Measurement, Modeling and Management Symposium (Semi-Therm) in San Jose, Calif., on March 17, 2008. The device is the culmination of six years of research that began while the researchers were NSF-supported graduate students at Purdue University.