R & D articles from March 2006

R & D archives from March 2006

Terror in the sky.(bioterrorism and environmental aspects)(Editorial)
March 1, 2006... "The U.S. air transportation system is an attractive target for attacks with chemical of biological weapons, yet no federal agency has been assigned clear responsibility for developing a strategy for defense against such attacks." That's one of...

Storing hydrogen in sponges.(research done by University of California (Los Angeles) and University of Michigan)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Teams of chemists from the Univ. of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Univ. of Michigan, have uncovered a new "crystal sponge" material capable of storing hydrogen nearly three times more than any other known substance (at a temperature of...

China pledges S&T funding boost.(science and technology spending)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Officials from the Chinese government have pledged to increase its science and technology (S&T) spending by nearly 20% in 2006. This allocation will translate into an increase of 71.6 bln yuan ($8.9 billion), a jump of 19.2% over last year. The...

Analytica 2006 marks milestone.(Scientific equipment industry's trade shows)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... This spring will mark the 20th anniversary of the international lab equipment trade fair, Analytica. The event, which will be held during April 25-28 in Munich, Germany, is an opportunity for decision-makers and users in laboratories for...

NOAA breaks ground on 'crown jewel' facility.(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has officially broken ground on its new $50 million Center for Weather and Climate Prediction. According to NOAA, the facility will serve as the crown jewel in a new 50-acre section of...

Nanocapsules demonstrate potential.(University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) research on drug delivery systems)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Using a combination of lipids and nanoparticles, researchers from the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have devised a potentially new variant on drug delivery systems with their nano-size capsules. "This is a new way to make...

Zeiss microscopy unit undergoes change.(MICROSCOPY)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... In early March, the Microscopy Group of Carl Zeiss was merged to form the company Carl Zeiss MicroImaging GmbH. According to officials, the new company will further expand its global activities in the fields of microscopy solutions and systems...

Pharma R&D stats released.(Pharmaceutical industry's research investments)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... New statistics released by pharmaceutical trade/lobbying group PhRMA, Washington, D.C., shows an increase in the amount of R&D investments made by its biotechnology and pharmaceutical members. Specifically, 2005 saw a record level of...

SAIL technique shows promise within NMR.(Stereo-array isotope labeling)(Nuclear magnetic resonance )(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometry has long been as used as a means to obtain information on the structure of small proteins. Its application to large protein studies, however, has proven difficult due to the inherent complexities...

Neutron Source takes another step.(at Department of Energy )(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Dept. of Energy (DOE) officials recently marked the latest addition to the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) with the commissioning of a new proton accumulator ring. According to officials, the accumulator ring is the final step in a proton's...

Thin-films on tap in May.(Upcoming: Conferences & Events)
March 1, 2006... The American Vacuum Society (AVS) will be holding its annual International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings &Thin Films (ICMCTF) at the Town and Country Hotel, San Diego, Calif., on May 1-5. This conference integrates fundamental and...

IBM reaches DUV litho milestone.(International Business Machines Corp. used optical lithography to manufacture integrated circuits)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The ever increasing need to create integrated circuits (ICs) with smaller feature sizes continues to be the framework by which the semiconductor industry and industry groups, such as SEMATECH, work toward. For its part, IBM, Yorktown Heights,...

Thin film battery market poised for growth.(VACUUM)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Market research firm, Research and Markets, Dublin, Ireland, has released a new forecast for thin film NiCad batteries extending beyond 2011. According to the report, thin film battery markets in the trial stage in 2005 are anticipated to...

Supercomputing for drug discovery.(Center for the Study of Systems Biology using supercomputers made by International Business Machines Corp.)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... A powerful supercomputing cluster will anchor the Center for the Study of Systems Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. The cluster, capable of performing more than 8.5 trillion calculations per second, would place it as the...

New viewer promotes collaboration.(OriginLab Corp.'s Origin Viewer)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Researchers who use Origin scientific graphing and analysis software from OriginLab, Northampton, Mass., have a new tool to share their data with their colleagues around the world: the Origin Viewer. A free application, the Viewer allows anyone...

Semiconductor growth.(forecasts)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The worldwide semiconductor market is gradually improving, and the market will be in a pattern of modest growth during the next few years. Worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to reach $257.7 billion in 2006, a 9.5% increase from 2005...

MEMS market accelerates.(Microelectromechanical systems)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The global market for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices and production equipment was worth an estimated $5 billion in 2005 and is forecast to increase to $12.5 billion through 2010, at an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of more...

Korea increasing R&D infrastructure.(Science and technology policy)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The government of South Korea recently announced a number of plans aimed at increasing its overall science and technology capabilities and international standing. First among these plans was a more than 15% increase in its government-funded...

More Chinese women physicists.(R&D[TM] ASIA)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Over the past few years, the Institute of Physics in Beijing, China, has seen steady increases in the number of women enrolled in its graduate student body, where the ratio has now stabilized at 30% women. This has been an encouraging trend...

Singapore ups R&D funds.(R&D[TM] ASIA)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Singapore's Ministry of Trade & Industry has indicated that it will commit $7.5 billion over the next five years to support R&D in materials technologies, microelectronics, biotechnology, and photonics. Singapore's Science and Technology Plan...

DaimlerChrysler increases Indian R&D.(R&D[TM] ASIA)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... DaimlerChrysler, Stuttgart, Germany, has indicated that it will increase outsourcing of its R&D to India. It plans to significantly augment its work at its existing Research Centre in Bangalore where it works in areas of encryption, image...

Microsoft India patents.
March 1, 2006... Microsoft India expects to file 70 patents this year, up from just 40 last year. With more than 3,000 employees in India and 4,000 expected by the end of 2006, Microsoft finds itself entering a new phase--the realization of potential driven by...

Building a nano-friendly facility: the rise of nanotechnology has created the need for lab planning and design solutions to better serve the instruments and the researchers themselves.(Cover story)
March 1, 2006... With the increasing emphasis on research and development in nano-scale subjects--including nanomedicine, nanofabrication, and the imaging of nano-scale structures in bioengineering, proteomics/genomics, and other emerging fields--facilities...

Computing the light fantastic: photons move quantum computing toward practicality.(research done by Oxford University's David Deutsch)
March 1, 2006... Quirky properties of matter at the scale of atoms and molecules underlie the next leap in computational capability: quantum computers. Oxford Univ.'s David Deutsch developed the framework for quantum computing in a seminal paper published in...

Auto tunable resonant dipole in EMC and EMI testing: a new antenna design simplifies broadband testing.(electromagnetic compliance)
March 1, 2006... A dipole is the most fundamental, precise, and predictable type of antenna. While this antenna is conceptually clear and analytically predictable, its practical use is limited due to the need to manually tune it for narrow band measurements....

Clean Digital DAQ: even the most qualified engineer may have to start over if basic concepts are neglected.(digital data acquisition)
March 1, 2006... When acquiring low data rate signals such as temperature, engineers can sometimes forget that low data rate sampling does not guarantee an uncontaminated recording. Regardless of the sample rate employed in digital data acquisition (DAQ)...

Advancing Pirani gauges: engineers take Pirani gauges to a new level of performance.
March 1, 2006... Since 1906, Pirani gauges based on the principle of heat-conduction have been used to measure absolute pressure in the fine vacuum range. In most cases, a stationary operated sensor in a controlled bridge circuit is used, where its filament is...

Protecting stem cell patents: legal experts weigh in on the best strategies in stem cell patent prosecution.
March 1, 2006... Stem cell research and the intellectual property derived from it demands an especially high level of consideration from a business and patent prosecution perspective. As with other truly revolutionary technologies, ordinary risks are amplified,...

Flight recording revamped; industry groups rework the standards by which digital flight data recorders perform their vital tasks.
March 1, 2006... Digital technology has the potential to greatly enhance the accuracy and manageability of flight data recording while significantly lowering the cost. Until recently, however, users have not been able to fully realize the benefits of digital...

GE crop growth stunted.(Genetically modified crops regulations)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Agricultural biotechnology burst onto the scene with assurances of heartier, more nutritious, and better-tasting crops. Back in 2000, Hendrik Verfailie, then president and CEO of Monsanto Co., St. Louis, Mo., stated that "This technology holds...

Teflon safety a sticky situation.(Science Advisory Board regulates use of perfluorooctanoic acid for manufacturers)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... After years of pressure from environmentalists and consumer groups, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Science Advisory Board (SAB), has asked manufacturers that use perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, to discontinue its use, saying it...

China adopts TD-SCDMA.(Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... In an effort to "prevent dependence on Western technology," China is developing a home-grown third generation (3G) mobile telecommunications standard. In January, China's Ministry of Information Industry announced that Time Division-Synchronous...

Does size matter?(Institute of Food Science & Technology contends regulations for food packaging)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The UK-based Institute of Food Science & Technology (IFST) contends that when it comes to the impact of nanotechnology on food and food packaging, size does matter. The independent institute claims there are flaws in current regulations and...

Building in energy efficiency.(regulations for energy efficient buildings)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... China's Ministry of Construction estimates that about 2 billion [m.sup.2] of new floor space is being built each year in the country--nearly half the world total. And just as daunting is the effort the government is putting into making the...

Producing entangled light.(Toshiba Research Europe Ltd.'s Quantum Information Group developed a new semiconductor device)
March 1, 2006... A simple semiconductor device that emits light possessing quantum entanglement has been developed by researchers at the Quantum Information Group of Toshiba Research Europe Ltd (TREL), Cambridge, UK, and the Univ. of Cambridge, UK. This...

Growing ordered crystals.(researched by International Business Machines Corp. and Columbia University)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Scientists at IBM, White Plains, N.Y., and Columbia Univ., New York, N.Y., have created conditions necessary for the successful self-assembly of at least 10 novel crystal arrangements, helping scientists grow ordered superlattice crystals as...

Hard polycarbonate coating.(Ecology Coatings developed new coatings for polycarbonate plastics)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... A new coating for polycarbonate plastics that is three to four levels harder than conventional organic coatings has been developed by Ecology Coatings, Akron, Ohio. The key to the coating's strength and transparency are oxide nanoparticles...

Detecting photons.(Hewlett-Packard Laboratories's Quantum Information Processing Group research on photon detection)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Typically, in the process of detecting a photon, the photon itself is destroyed. However, researchers in the Quantum Information Processing Group of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK, have developed a method for both detecting photons...

Creating biocompatible fibers.(Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University research on nonwoven fibrous mats )
March 1, 2006... Researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, have developed a single-step process for creating nonwoven fibrous mats from a small organic molecule--creating a new nanoscale material with potential...

Safe drug delivery.(Rutgers University created drug delivery systems)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Tiny chemical cages created by researchers at Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J., show potential for delivering drugs to organs or tissues where they are needed--without causing harm elsewhere. These octahedral molecules have a cavity volume of...

Forming 3-D nanostructures.(discovered by University of Wisconsin-Madison's Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Scientists at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center have discovered that materials known as block copolymers will spontaneously assemble into intricate 3-D shapes when deposited onto particular 2-D surface...

High-speed nano imaging.(Georgia Institute of Technology created atomic force microscopy technology)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, have created a highly sensitive atomic force microscopy (AFM) technology capable of high-speed imaging 100 times faster than current AFM. Not only is FIRAT (Force sensing Integrated...

Accelerating space propulsion.(European Space Agency and Australian National University tested new spacecraft ion engines)
March 1, 2006... Researchers at the European Space Agency (ESA), Noordwijk, the Netherlands, and the Australian National Univ., Canberra, have successfully tested a new design of spacecraft ion engine that dramatically improves performance over present...

Seeing through solids.(University of London. Imperial College of Science and Technology's invented new transparent solids)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... A new transparent material has been created by researchers at Imperial College London, UK, and the Univ. of Neuchatel, Switzerland. The material exploits the way atoms in matter move, making them interact with a laser beam in an entirely new...

Desalinating water.(method researched by New Jersey Institute of Technology )(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... A new method to desalinate water has been developed by researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Newark. The process, which is fueled with low-grade, inexpensive waste heat, will work especially well with brines holding salt...

Sifting for hydrogen.(research on processing hydrogen by University of Texas)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... A new material for processing hydrogen has been developed by scientists at the Univ. of Texas at Austin and Research Triangle Institute, N.C. Larger gas molecules and polar molecules pass through the film, while the much smaller hydrogen...