Aerogels are incredibly lightweight (nearly lighter than air) and strong materials, and one of this blog’s most popular posts is a video demonstrating some amazing aerogel properties. Although it’s not a new material, I’ve felt that only recently have R&D techniques been able to mature enough to match aerogel’s capabilities. Indeed, now there is news…
Read MoreVia Gizmag, two Fraunhofer Institutes have teamed up to develop a clever and simple way of treating window glass to make it sensitive to motion and, thus, perfect for security purposes. The combination hardware-software system is able to discriminate between expected motion, i.e., a passing car, and suspicious movement that would warrant an alarm. The…
Read MoreNIST and Johns Hopkins University researchers have unveiled a new speedy and sensitive probe that may prove to be a godsend for nano scientists and related businesses. The NIST-JHU team calls the equipment a Multi-Axis Crystal Spectrometer. It is built on the technology developed in prior spectrometers at NIST’s Center for Neutron Research, where MACS…
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One of the most prevelant forms of ceramic armor currently in use by the United States military is the IOTV. It went into large-scale use by the Marines in 2007 (nee, the MTV), and his since been relatively popular, as personal armor goes. It is lighter than the older Interceptor body armor and it is…
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The staff at Science Friday, too, senses the masses growing interest in all things oobleck and is shamelessly trying to ignore this blogs leadership efforts and elbow us out of the way. SciFri does trump us by getting two experts, University of Michigan’s Robert Deegan and University of Texas’ Harry Swinney, to unravel what is…
Read MoreLondon’s Science Museum has a great new exhibit – Fast Forward: 20 ways F1 is changing our world. The “F1” reference is, of course, to auto racing, which has always been a testing ground of sorts for cutting edge materials and applications. The show has lots of examples of how F1 carbon composites are being…
Read MoreOrganizers have announced that, due to high demand, the submission deadline for Materials Science & Technology 2009 Conference & Exhibition, slated for Oct. 25-29 in Pittsburgh, has been extended to March 31. MS&T is the leading forum in the United States addressing structure, properties, processing and performance across the materials community. Potential presenters are asked…
Read MoreThe Commerce Science and Technology Fellowship program, now managed by NIST, was established in 1964 give senior federal employees a look behind the scenes of science and technology policy-making and management in Washington, and at the highest levels of industry and academia. Those selected for the program get to study the national and international issues…
Read MoreApropos to the new MS&T symposium on materials and the effects of electric and magnetic fields, I received a notice that there will be a paper presented tomorrow (March 17) at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society the explores possible routes for improving bone growth, grafts and implants, and looks at the role…
Read MoreIs this still the 1990s? I am no expert on concrete, but is it true that major highway departments still typically manually count air voids in concrete, as this story seems to indicate? “They look at 1,300 points across the surface and count the number of entrained and entrapped voids,” she said. “It is a…
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