Materials & Innovations

Measuring nanomaterials as they grow

By / December 6, 2008

Thanks to researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., scientists now have a way to measure nanomaterials as they grow. According to an RPI press release, the newly discovered…

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One BAM good nanocoating!

By / December 5, 2008

(Also – see BAM Update here.) What’s almost as hard as diamond, slicker than Teflon and “green” enough to reduce the United States’ industrial energy consumption by trillions of BTUs…

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Video of the week – Oodles of Oobleck

By / December 3, 2008

Today we feature a classic experiment/weird experience in materials science, rheology, shear stress, strain rate, non-Newtonian fluid mechanics – and gooey fun: the Oobleck Run, AKA (with a great deal…

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New pre-approved contracts speed access to DOE labs

By / November 24, 2008

DOE has developed two pre-approved, standardized contracts that will now make it easier for academia and industry to use its world-class research facilities. One of the model contracts covers proprietary…

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Waterless concrete to cut building costs on moon

By / November 23, 2008

If you think building a house on Earth is expensive, try building a space station on the moon. That’s what NASA hopes to be doing in 2020, as part of…

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‘Dancing’ atoms may lead to logic switches, nano-scale detectors

By / November 21, 2008

Two Johns Hopkins researchers believe they have developed a new method to use lasers to manipulate electrons in a crystal array, and if the discovery holds up to testing, it…

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Video of the week – Nanotube speakers

By / November 19, 2008

We posted about this novel use of carbon nanotubes as audio speakers on Monday, but today we have a video of the real deal, courtesy of the American Chemical Society.…

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CO2 sequestration leaps forward with new basalt study

By / November 18, 2008

Federal scientists working at PNNL today unveiled results of research that appear to show that carbon dioxide can be permanently stored in deep underground basalt formations with little or no…

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Nanotube speakers – The next “big” thin thing

By / November 17, 2008

What’s transparent, stretchable, nearly weightless, flexible enough to be sown onto a shirt and plugs into your iPod? Maybe, soon, this may describe one of the best and most durable…

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Energy ‘harvesting,’ structure monitoring confab at Virginia Tech

By / November 15, 2008

Virginia Tech’s Center for Energy Harvesting Materials and Systems is hosting its 4th Annual Energy Harvesting Workshop Jan 28-29 in Blacksburg, VA. Energy harvesting refers to efforts to tap unused…

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