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Engineering Open House at Illinois highlights creativity
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Wild and wacky Rube Goldberg machines, robots launching mini basketballs, and more than 130 entertaining and educational exhibits are among the attractions awaiting visitors to the 85th annual Engineering Open House at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The event, organized by students in the Engineering Council at Illinois, will take place […]
Satellite data reveal immense pollution pool over Bihar, India
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Scientists studying satellite data have discovered an immense wintertime pool of pollution over the northern Indian state of Bihar. Blanketing around 100 million people, primarily in the Ganges Valley, the pollution levels are about five times larger than those typically found over Los Angeles. The discovery was made by researchers analyzing four […]
Molecular scale resolution achieved in polymer nanoimprinting technique
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Scientists using molds derived from carbon nanotubes have approached the ultimate resolution – defined by molecular scale dimensions – in a widely used polymer nanoimprinting technique. By accurately replicating features with nanometer dimensions, the technique could play future roles in fabricating structures in fields as diverse as microelectronics, nanofluidics and biotechnology. Polymer […]
Super-star clusters may be born small and grow by coalescing
Super-star clusters may be born small and grow by coalescing James E. Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor 217-244-1073; kloeppel@illinois.edu 1/7/2005 Story. Lower right: a blue image of the spiral galaxy M101 from the Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey. The box marks the location of NGC 5461.Lower left: A false color image of NGC 5461 made from […]
Selective coatings create biological sensors from carbon nanotubes
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Protein-encapsulated single-walled carbon nanotubes that alter their fluorescence in the presence of specific biomolecules could generate many new types of implantable biological sensors, say researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who developed the encapsulation technique. In a paper accepted for publication in the journal Nature Materials, and posted on its […]
Portable sampling cart monitors emissions from wood-burning cookstoves
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – A new method of measuring emissions from cookstoves could help improve human health and enhance the accuracy of global climate models. Wood-fueled cooking stoves are commonly used in Central America and other Third World nations. Producing copious amounts of noxious smoke, the stoves can be detrimental to human health. Lack of knowledge […]
Shutdown of circulation pattern could be disastrous, researchers say
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – If global warming shuts down the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean, the result could be catastrophic climate change. The environmental effects, models indicate, depend upon whether the shutdown is reversible or irreversible. “If the thermohaline shutdown is irreversible, we would have to work much harder to get it to restart,” […]
Goal of project is development of petroleum-free fuel
Developing a petroleum-free fuel from corn byproducts is one of the goals of a newly funded research project at the UI. Eight research laboratories will pool their expertise, attacking the problems from different directions in order to work to improve the efficiency of bioconversion of plant fibers into fuels and other value-added products. This is […]
New transistor laser could lead to faster signal processing
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated the laser operation of a heterojunction bipolar light-emitting transistor. The scientists describe the fabrication and operation of their transistor laser in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters. “By incorporating quantum wells into the active region of a light-emitting […]
Distinguished German astrophysicist to present public talk
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Reinhard Genzel, director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, will discuss black holes during a talk Nov. 17 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Genzel, who also is a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, will present the seventh talk in the […]
Munching microbes could cleanse arsenic-contaminated groundwater
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -Microbial processes ultimately determine whether arsenic builds to dangerous levels in groundwater, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Remediation may be as simple as stimulating certain microbes to grow. Arsenic contamination is a serious threat to human health. In the Ganges Delta of Bangladesh, for example, chronic exposure to arsenic […]
New surface chemistry may extend life of technology for making transistors
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a technique that uses surface chemistry to make tinier and more effective p-n junctions in silicon-based semiconductors. The method could permit the semiconductor industry to significantly extend the life of current ion-implantation technology for making transistors, thereby avoiding the implementation of difficult […]