New Arizona State center brings science to policy on issues of water resources and urban growth
...ability causing droughts and floods, and the urban heat island effect, which has raised nighttime summer low temperatures almost 10 degrees in the past 50 years." "Our team of scientists from geography, anthropology, sociology, management, psychology, math, computer science and public affairs wi...Groundbreaking research could ignite new solutions to heat transfer in nano-devices
...ccessfully completed a detailed measurement of how heat energy is created at the molecular level, an appro...ed not only to be small and fast, but also to move heat effectively. There is no reason that this technique is not applicable to just about any molecule." K...Secretary of Energy announces seven E.O. Lawrence Award Winners
...tegory for developing the theory of thermoacoustic heat engines and for designing and building these engines and refrigerators that use the power of sound to operate at high efficiency with no moving parts. Swift is a technical staff member in LANL's Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics Group as well as ...Environmental decontamination, greenhouse gases, and the genome of a methane-loving bacterium
...e gases, methane is far more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Like increasing carbon dioxide levels, rising levels of atmospheric methane have been attributed to human activity, mostly in the form of landfills, natural gas and oil processing (about 60%), domesticated livestock (cattle account...Wastewater could treat itself, power city
...ed bomb calorimetry, a technique that measures the heat content of materials, to determine the amount of energy stored in wastewater's organic matter. The city plants currently use aerobic treatment, a process by which microbes decompose organic matter in the presence of oxygen. By using anaerobic digesti...DuPont developing new protective suits for military, first responders
...-- this membrane allows sweat evaporation and body heat to escape to keep wearers cooler while blocking harmful agents from entering the suit. The new suits for the military are expected to be up to 50 percent lighter than existing protective gear, are impermeable to aerosols and biological agents and wi...Two Virginia Tech energy-related inventions win R&D 100 awards
...lar level, they developed copolymers with improved heat tolerance, conductivity, strength, and life. Then they began to experiment with processing to make production of improved fuel cell materials economically feasible. In the fall of 2002 and winter of 2003, a Virginia Tech alumnus and entrepreneur, Ch...The search for a kinder, gentler chemotherapy
...l absorb the nanoparticles. By applying a targeted heat source - like ultrasound - only to the tumor, doctors should be able to avoid killing healthy cells that happen to take in the nanoparticles. "The possibility for using these nanoparticles as vehicles to target and kill only cancer cells is particula...Select research highlights from current AACR journals
... fibrosarcomas, Abdel-Wahab et al. documented that heat treatment with warm water heightened the response of tumors to high doses of melphalan. The effect was synergistic, but not related to heat-promoted increased uptake of the drug. The studies were conducted at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N...Virginia Tech professor honored with DeLaval Award
...stry and especially for his research in electronic heat detection that resulted in the development of the Heatwatch system, a way to identify dairy and beef cattle ovulation that allows cattle producers to efficiently identify cattle in heat. Nebel, a Virginia Cooperative Extension specialist and dairy pr...Environmental costs of home construction lower with wise choice, reuse of building materials
...sil fuels wherever lumber mills generate power and heat using bark, sawdust and other byproducts of milling. More than half the energy required by mills currently comes from these residuals, a renewable source of energy compared to fossil fuels. Two designs of typical houses were analyzed in the study by...Near-zero-energy buildings blessing to owners, environment
...panel systems, insulated precast concrete walls, a heat pump water heater, geothermal systems, grid-connec... heating and cooling this house with an air source heat pump was 45 cents. Adding the cost of operating the water heater and all of the appliances brought t...Evolvability could be a driving force in drug resistance
...ironmental changes -- imagine rapid shifts between heat waves and cold snaps or heavy rains and droughts -- they saw an increased likelihood of survival among proteins that mutated more frequently. "Selection for evolvability would help explain a growing body of experimental results including the evolutio......ruption, such as landslides and 800 degree Celsius heat of pyroclastic flows and the ways in which they altered the landscape. His talk "Geological and ecological settings of Mount St. Helens before and after May 18, 1980" will describe the link between the reshaped geophysical landscape and the plants a...Virginia Tech's smelly 'corpse plant' due to bloom Aug. 4
...e plant invests a lot of energy during blooming to heat up the sulfur-based compound in the flower stalk so the carrion-like odor will spread several feet away from the plant to attract pollinators. The plant blooms seldom because of the amount of energy needed to bloom. To add to the plant's humiliation,...New study to investigate demise of coral reef ecosystems
...getting worse. Bleaching occurs when tropical seas heat up above there normal maximums, killing the corals. These events are equally catastrophic for the quarter of all known marine species which make their home in the reefs and for the coastal communities which depend on them for their livelihoods. Sci...Spring through fall, cities are greener longer than neighboring rural regions
...by humans contribute to what is known as the urban heat island effect. The researchers found this influence to be far-reaching. Taken together, the heat island effect for the areas studied ripples beyond urban boundaries to create an ecological "footpri...Urban heat islands make cities greener
...er artificial surfaces retain heat, creating urban heat islands. Satellite data reveal that urban heat islands increase surface temperatures compared to rural surroundings. Using information from NAS...Forest fire sensor inspired by nature
...t Bonn's Institute of Zoology. He is examining the heat sense of reptiles in a project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Nowhere else in the world are all the known IR-sensitive animals being studied under the roof of one research institute....Growing new breed of vaccine-producing plants to fight human diseases worldwide
...or lower costs, oral-administration (needle-free), heat stability, and they must include combination vaccines including those that protect against diseases that occur predominantly in developing countries, he added. Over the last decade, the team working with Arntzen has shown that a set of g...