Want Better Mileage? Simple Device Which Uses Electrical Field Could Boost Gas Efficiency Up To 20%

With the high cost of gasoline and diesel fuel impacting costs for automobiles, trucks, buses and the overall economy, a Temple University physics professor has developed a simple device which could dramatically improve fuel efficiency as much as 20 percent.

According to Rongjia Tao, Chair of Temple’s Physics Department, the small device consists of an electrically charged tube that can be attached to the fuel line of a car’s engine near the fuel injector. Read more

Artificial Nose’ Progress: Engineers Mass-produce Smell Receptors

MIT biological engineers have found a way to mass-produce smell receptors in the laboratory, an advance that paves the way for “artificial noses” to be created and used in a variety of settings.

The work could also allow scientists to unlock the mystery of how the sense of smell can recognize a seemingly infinite range of odors. Read more

Hot Laptops: Engineers Aim To Solve ‘Burning’ Computer Problem

If you’ve balanced a laptop computer on your lap lately, you probably noticed a burning sensation. That’s because ever-increasing processing speeds are creating more and more heat, which has to go somewhere — in this case, into your lap.

Two researchers at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science aim to lay the scientific groundwork that will solve the problem using nanoelectronics, considered the essential science for powering the next generation of computers.

“Laptops are very hot now, so hot that they are not ‘lap’ tops anymore,” said Avik Ghosh, an assistant professor in the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “The prediction is that if we continue at our current pace of miniaturization, these devices will be as hot as the sun in 10 to 20 years.”

To head off this problem, Ghosh and Mircea Stan, also a professor in the department, are re-examining nothing less than the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The law states that, left to itself, heat will transfer from a hotter unit to a cooler one — in this case between electrical computer components — until both have roughly the same temperature, a state called “thermal equilibrium.”
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Meat-eating Dinosaur From Argentina Had Bird-like Breathing System

The remains of a 30-foot-long predatory dinosaur discovered along the banks of Argentina’s Rio Colorado is helping to unravel how birds evolved their unusual breathing system.

University of Michigan paleontologist Jeffrey Wilson was part of the team that made the discovery, to be published Sept. 29 in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE and announced at a news conference in Mendoza, Argentina.

The discovery of this dinosaur builds on decades of paleontological research indicating that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Birds have a breathing system that is unique among land animals. Instead of lungs that expand, birds have a system of bellows, or air sacs, which help pump air through the lungs. This novel feature is the reason birds can fly higher and faster than bats, which, like all mammals, expand their lungs in a less efficient breathing process.
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Guest Speaker – Dr. Anastas

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Oraganic Garden Part-3

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Engineers Work To Clean And Improve Engine Performance

The five engines in Song-Charng Kong’s Iowa State University laboratory have come a long way since Karl Benz patented a two-stroke internal combustion engine in 1879.

There are fuel injectors and turbochargers and electrical controls. There’s more horsepower, better efficiency, cleaner burning and greater reliability.

But Kong — with the help of 15 graduate students and all kinds of sensors recording engine cylinder pressure, energy release and exhaust emissions — is looking for even more.

Kong, an Iowa State assistant professor of mechanical engineering who keeps a piston by his office computer, is studying engines with the goal of reducing emissions and improving efficiency.

“There is still a lot of work to be done to improve engine performance,” Kong said. “All of this work will lead to incremental improvements.”
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Deadly Rugby Virus Spreads In Sumo Wrestlers

Rugby players may get more than just the ball out of a scrum – herpes virus can cause a skin disease called “scrumpox” and it spreads through physical contact. Researchers have studied the spread of the disease among sumo wrestlers in Japan and have discovered that a new strain of the virus could be even more pathogenic, according to a new article.
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What do you know about the digestive system?

What do you know about the digestive system?
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Organic Garden – Part 2

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