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GM Names DuPont Supplier of the Year for Automotive Finishes

DuPont Automotive OEM Coatings has been named a General Motors Supplier of the Year for 2008 in recognition of its performance as a global provider of finishes. This is the second year in a row that DuPont Automotive OEM Coatings has earned this distinction.

12 Aug 2009

Hot Rolled Steel Coils Produced Directly from Liquid Steel for the First Time

For the first time ever, hot-rolled coils can now be commercially produced in a thin-slab casting/rolling plant directly from liquid steel in a continuous and uninterrupted manufacturing process. This plant, based on Arvedi technology and implemented by Siemens VAI Metals Technologies, allows the thermal energy of liquid steel to be fully exploited.

From Primetals Technologies Limited 12 Aug 2009

LED Street Lights Put to the Test in Nuremburg

A total of six lamps with the latest LED technology from OSRAM demonstrate street lighting of the future in Fürth near Nuremberg, Germany. The city's traffic and energy supply company infra fürth GmbH, lumi...

12 Aug 2009

Archaeologists Unearth London's Oldest Timber Structure

London's oldest timber structure has been unearthed by archaeologists from Archaeology South-East (part of the Institute of Archaeology at UCL). It was found during the excavation of a prehistoric peat bog adjacent to Belmarsh Prison in Plumstead, Greenwich, in advance of the construction of a new prison building.

12 Aug 2009

Metamaterials Make Fictional Hidden Portals Seem Possible

While the researchers can't promise delivery to a parallel universe or a school for wizards, books like Pullman's Dark Materials and JK Rowling's Harry Potter are steps closer to reality now that researchers ...

12 Aug 2009

Thirteen Companies Shortlisted for 2009 ICIS Chemical Business Innovation Awards

Thirteen companies have been shortlisted for the 2009 ICIS Chemical Business Innovation Awards, lead sponsored by Dow Corning. Winners in each category and an overall winner will be announced in the October 19 issue ...

12 Aug 2009

New Insights into the Strange Properties of Water

Recent work at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and several universities in Sweden and Japan, however, is shedding new light on water's molecular idiosyncrasies, offering insight into its strange bulk properties.

11 Aug 2009

Secrets of How Bacteria Create Cellular Magnets Could Impact Bio and Nanotechnology

The smallest organisms to use a biological compass are magnetotactic bacteria, however mysteries remain about exactly how these bacteria create their cellular magnets. In a study published online in Genome Research, scientists have used genome sequencing to unlock new secrets about these magnetic microbes that could accelerate biotechnology and nanotechnology research.

11 Aug 2009

First Images of What Happens at the Crystal-Liquid Interface

Imagine you're a water molecule in a glass of ice water, and you're floating right on the boundary of the ice and the water," proposes Emory University physicist Eric Weeks. "So how do you know if you're a solid or a liquid?

11 Aug 2009

New Process Promises More Efficient Solar Cells

Growing - and precisely aligning - microscopic, spear-shaped zinc oxide crystals on a surface of single-crystal silicon, researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology may have developed a method to make more efficient solar cells.

11 Aug 2009

Nanoscale Imaging Tool Works Differently in Watery Environments

Researchers in the United States and Spain have discovered that a tool widely used in nanoscale imaging works differently in watery environments, a step toward better using the instrument to study biological molecules and structures.

11 Aug 2009

Innovative Temperature Calibration Improves NIST Microhotplate Technology

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new calibration technique that will improve the reliability and stability of one of NIST’s most versatile technologies, the microhotplate. The novel NIST device is being developed as the foundation for miniature yet highly accurate gas sensors that can detect chemical and biological agents, industrial leaks and even signs of extraterrestrial life from aboard a planetary probe.

From NIST Standard Reference Materials 11 Aug 2009

NIST Overcome Hurdles on the Way to Quantum Computing

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated sustained, reliable information processing operations on electrically charged atoms (ions). The new work, described in the Aug. 6,...

From NIST Standard Reference Materials 11 Aug 2009

Updated Guidelines for Measuring the Size of Nanoparticles in Solutions

As a result of a major inter-laboratory study, the standards body ASTM International has been able to update its guidelines for a commonly used technique for measuring the size of nanoparticles in solutions. The study, w...

11 Aug 2009

Ytterbium Atomic Clocks Amongst the Most Accurate

An experimental atomic clock based on ytterbium atoms is about four times more accurate than it was several years ago, giving it a precision comparable to that of the NIST-F1 cesium fountain clock, the nation’s civilian time standard, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report in Physical Review Letters.

11 Aug 2009