Michigan State University researchers believe, using thermoelectric generation technology, a 5% improvement in bsfc for and on highway truck is a reasonable 5 year goal 10% improvement possible with new Thermoelectric materials. They currently have a 40 watt thermoelectric generator for gathering waste heat from a truck exhaust. They can get an engine about 1-3.5% …
Welcome to the Carnival of space week 23. We have two articles inspired by the 50th anniversary of Sputnick, then we have a mixed bag of articles on raising pigs on Mars, habitable planets, another look at the Apollo program, Nasa colorizing of space photos, the Carancas meteorite, Type 1a Supernovae, my own submission on …
At the current efficiencies of thermoelectric devices, 7 to 8 percent, more than 1.5 billion gallons of diesel could be saved each year in the U.S. if thermoelectric generators were used on the exhaust of heavy trucks. More than 60 percent of the energy that goes into an automotive combustion cycle is lost, primarily to …
Six web pages feature at IEEE Spectrum, that describes the technical achievement of High-K insulation for computer chips.
Using conventional e-beam lithography, IBM has successfully fabricated graphene FETs with very narrow nanoribbon channels. FETs are field-effect transistors. So far, the bandgaps opened were relatively small, compared with the excellent properties of nanotubes. This IBM attributes to the imperfections in its method of cutting the nanoribbons. However, by supercooling the device the researchers were …
The Milken institute has calculated the cost of the seven major chronic diseases and broken it down by state and projected those costs to 2023 by year and also to 2030 and 2050 The seven major diseases are:Cancers: 10.6 million cases (3.6% percent of US population) Diabetes: 13.7 (4.7%) Heart Disease: 19.1 (6.6%) Hypertension: 36.8 …
Using enzymes from E. coli bacteria, Duke University chemists and engineers have introduced a hundred-fold improvement in the precision of features imprinted to create microdevices such as labs-on-a-chip. Their inkless microcontact printing technique can imprint details measuring close to 1 nanometer, or billionths of a meter, the Duke team reported in the Sept. 24, 2007 …
There is need for more responsive and effective close air support for US troops in Iraq. C-27J transport plane War is boring discusses converting $25-30 million C27 transport planes into slightly scaled down versions of the AC-130 gunship. AC-130 gunship There has been a proposal to use AC-130’s in a roving mode over Iraq. This …
Successful recent ground tests of jet-fueled, ramjet/scramjet demonstrator engines by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and Aerojet represent important progress toward flight-testing of three separate hypersonic-vehicle programs. Using JP-7 jet fuel, PWR ran the combustor successfully at a variety of Mach numbers from Mach 2.5 to Mach 6.0, demonstrating “desired operability and performance” at each speed, …
BioNanomatrix Inc. and Complete Genomics Inc. said Thursday they have formed a joint venture that has received an $8.8 million government grant to develop a system capable of sequencing the entire human genome in eight hours at a cost of less than $100. Today, the cost of sequencing the roughly 3 billion base pairs in …
Ultrafast pulses of terahertz radiation has been used to change a manganite crystal from an electrical insulator into a conductor This work is using terahertz radiation to change the properties of a solid crystal material by 100,000 times at super high speeds. It is better and more useful than ancient dreams of alchemy. The ability …