R & D articles from June 2006

R & D archives from June 2006

Collecting data is not enough.(study of climate change)(Editorial)
June 1, 2006... During and just after last year's hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast, a large number of respected researchers tried to link global warming with the increases in North Atlantic hurricane number and intensity seen over the past several years....

SPHERES go space-bound.(synchronized position hold engage reorient experimental satellites)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, have reached a milestone within their SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold Engage Reorient Experimental Satellites) project with its recent successful deployment in the...

NASA science program suffers from lack of resources.(United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... NASA does not have the resources necessary to maintain a vigorous science pro-gram, complete the International Space Station, and return humans to the moon, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies' National...

Introducing Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.(acquisition)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Analytical instrumentation giant, Thermo Electron Corp., Waltham, Mass., has acquired laboratory equipment heavyweight, Fisher Scientific, Hampton, N.H., to form Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. The merger, which is expected to close in the fourth...

HPCC '06 comes to Munich.(High Performance Computing and Communications)(Calendar)
June 1, 2006... The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of powerful parallel and distributed systems and an ever increasing demand for practice of high performance computing and communications (HPCC). With that, organizers of the HPCC-06 conference...

Algorithm displays potential in cancer detection.(LIFE SCIENCE)
June 1, 2006... The search for effective methodologies to detect cancer genes has provided the backdrop for a newly developed algorithm, produced by researchers at New York University's (NYU), N.Y., Courant Institute and computer science department. The...

Lasers lock in on erbium.(usage )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Recent developments in laser cooling and trapping at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Md., have produced some interesting results pertaining to the "rare earth" element erbium. Until now, the process of laser...

FDA petitioned to regulate nanotech.(United States. Food and Drug Administration regulation of certain consumer products)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... A consortium of consumer and environmental groups recently petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to increase its regulation of certain consumer products containing nanoparticles. Specifically, the groups are asking that the agency...

Better data centers.(new Data Center Observatory facility)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, Pa., recently marked the dedication of its new Data Center Observatory (DCO) facility. The new 18.5[m.sup.2] lab will serve as both a working data center and a research vehicle for the study of data center...

Industry delivers record-setting scope.(LABORATORY EQUIPMENT)
June 1, 2006... Electronic test giant, LeCroy Corp., Chestnut Ridge, N.Y., has recently announced the availability of the SDA 18000 oscilloscope. According to LeCroy, the new instrument is capable of delivering "a true breakthrough in signal analysis that...

BASF invests in nanotech.(BASF Group's new nanotech research center in Asia)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Industry giant, BASF Germany, recently opened its first nanotech research center in Asia. The new $16 million facility, dubbed The Competence Center for Nanostructured Surfaces, will be based in Singapore and will employ a staff of nearly two...

ELITE garners tech transfer award.(Easy Livermore Test for Explosives)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... An explosives detection system developed by researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Calif., has recently garnered the Federal Laboratory Consortium's award for excellence in technology transfer. The system, dubbed ELITE or...

Virtual reality gets real.(virtual reality room opened in university)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... The C6, the 3-m by 3-m six-sided virtual reality room that opened in June 2000 at Iowa State Univ., Ames, is getting more than $4 million in equipment upgrades, and thus will produce virtual reality at the world's highest resolution. More than...

Sharing data--protecting privacy.(Data Management and Analysis)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Organizations such as government agencies, non-profits, and corporations routinely need to access data belonging to other organizations, but due to the fact that databases are constructed using different terms or vocabularies, sharing data is...

Semiconductor growth.(market research)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Led by back-end equipment segments, the worldwide semiconductor capital equipment market is forecast to total $38.8 billion in 2006, a 14.3% increase from 2005. In the memory segments, increases are due to second-tier DRAM producers...

Display market increases.(market research)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) and paper-like display technologies are rapidly leading to new opportunities in the display industry. Combined sales of OLED and paper-like displays are forecast to reach $10.2 billion by 2011 and $14.7...

USDA animal ID plan unveiled.(United States. Department of Agriculture's plan for National Animal Identification System )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... With the ongoing threats of avian flu and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, the USDA has implemented a plan for a National Animal Identification System (NAIS). With this system, USDA animal health officials will be able to...

Using minutiae in smart cards.(study of fingerprints and its usage in smartcards)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... A study conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, Md., shows that computerized systems that match fingerprints using interoperable minutiae templates--mathematical representations of a fingerprint...

Cut your grass and smog.(lawn mower engines's emissions)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... According to the California Air Resources Board, gallon for gallon, 2006 lawn mower engines released 93 times more smog-forming emissions into the air than 2006 cars. To decrease the amount of pollution caused by these small engines, the...

Riders face biotech security.(usage of Face Biometric Passenger Identification System )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Air-India plans to use a Face Biometric Passenger Identification System (FBPIS) to keep tabs on its annual throng of airline passengers. The airline is following the lead of several airlines that have begun using the system, including three...

Catching rays in Florida.(installation a new high-tech truck inspection station)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Florida's Dept. of Agriculture has recently installed a new high-tech truck inspection station to protect the Sunshine state against diseased plants, animals, pests, and criminal activity The new monitoring station can handle two trucks at...

Mobile labs in the field: all types and sizes of labs can now go to the samples, rather than the other way around, to improve response times, flexibility, costs, and health safety concerns.(laboratories)
June 1, 2006... While they're often not very visible, mobile research laboratories have become an invaluable resource for government, industry, medical, military, and homeland security applications. These labs-on-wheels come in all sizes and configurations....

Basic research analysis reveals lessons learned: R&D Magazine's 1997 White Paper pointed out ominous trends in the U.S.'s basic research infrastructure, with some changes made since then.
June 1, 2006... The May 1997 issue of R&D Magazine included a special 32-page Basic Research White Paper--Defining Our Path to the Future. This in-depth editorial study included the results of reader surveys, published research data, and interviews with more...

Nanocrystals enable scalable memory technologies: researchers have demonstrated the first 24-Mb memory array based on silicon nanocrystals, reducing the cost of embedded flash memory.( )
June 1, 2006... In 1984, Fujio Masuoka, a researcher at Toshiba's Research and Development Center, Kawasaki. Japan, developed a series of groundbreaking memory technologies. Masuoka, now a Prof. of Solid State Electronics at Tohuku Univ., Sendal, Japan, named...

Disk jockeys: researchers increasingly use disk-based confocal systems for life science and industrial imaging.
June 1, 2006... Confocal microscopes optically remove out-of-focus light coming from both above and below the focal plane. This improves the thinness of optical sectioning that can be obtained, and also keeps unwanted flare and haze from reaching the detector....

Glowing nanowires forged with molecular beam epitaxy: researchers sculpt a new set of nano-sized wires with 'glowing' results.(Institute of Standards and Technology)
June 1, 2006... The flurry of research activity in the nanotechnology arena has spawned a slew of potential device structures, such as nano-belts, ribbons, and rods. Included in this group are nanowires. As with its nano-scale brethren, nanowire research...

Enhancing composite materials.(Emerging Technologies in composite materials industry)
June 1, 2006... A team of researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, N.Y., and the Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Oahu, has created new composites with significantly improved properties compared to traditional materials by stacking layers of...

Boosting cancer drugs.(University of Illinois)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... A molecule that interferes with the internal scaffolding of cells may be a key in killing cancer cells, retarding the growth of tumors, and boosting the efficacy of chemotherapy drugs. Researchers at the Univ. of Illinois at Chicago found that...

Finding new superconductors.(research of compounds)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Researchers at Duke Univ., Durham, N.C., have discovered a theoretical compound that is expected to be a good superconductor. The researchers scoured a database of experimental and hypothetical compounds, looking for possible superconductive...

Corking nanotubes.(corking carbon nanotubes )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Scientists at the Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, have found a way to cork carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to be used in drug delivery. To accomplish this, the researchers applied an amino chemical group to the mouth of the CNTs and an aldehyde chemical...

Quantum encryption over fiber.
June 1, 2006... A team of scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, Md., led by Xiao Tang, have generated raw code for "unbreakable" quantum encryption over optical fiber at record speeds. The results of this work...

Nanotubes as catalysts.(Brookhaven National Laboratory)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, N.Y., have created cerium oxide-based nanotubes. These cerium oxide nanotubes release oxygen ions when immersed in a low-oxygen environment, a process that is critical to the nanotubes'...

Single-molecule diodes.(University of Chicago)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... A research team at the Univ. of Chicago, Ill., has created a single-molecule diode that is merely a few tens of atoms in size. Because the molecule in the diode is asymmetrical, the electronic response is also asymmetrical when voltage is...

Steering electrons.(femtosecond laser pulses put force on electrons)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... A team of scientists from the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the Universities of Bielefeld and Hamburg, all of Germany, have discovered that...