Under its new moniker, UD’s Center for Fuel Cells and Batteries will be a hub of energy innovation
Alternative fuels will power our future—and that future is coming fast. Earlier this month, General Motors announced that it plans to launch at least 20 all-electric vehicles by 2023. (more…)
There is still quite a bit of interest in cloud services, and still no small demand for them. Due to this, there’s been a rush by all manner of service providers, both old and new, to provide cloud offerings to hungry customers. Indeed, of the roughly 20,000 North American service providers, just about 20 percent of these offer cloud services at this time, and this number is expected to grow sharply over the next few years. Yet at the same time, there will be a lot of attrition among these providers, if only because many of these organizations are only regional in nature, and offer only a small array of products — most of them just one or two.
At least that’s what Ashar Baig, a research director at Gigaom predicts. He provided his view on the near future and the recent past of cloud services at the recent ITEXPO in Las Vegas, Nevada. (more…)
U chemists explain new reaction, demonstrating how quantum mechanics can help design more energy-efficient catalysts.
You’ve probably worn polyester clothes, and you’ve certainly used plenty of plastic objects and paint. But did you know that they come from natural gas?
The main component of natural gas, methane, has just one carbon atom and is the smallest fossil fuel. But as the ultimate source material for the above products and many others it packs an enormous punch. First, however, it must be converted to methanol, an alcohol—and there lies the challenge. (more…)
A new study of sharks that lived in warm Arctic waters millions of years ago suggests that some shark species could handle the falling Arctic salinity that may come with rising temperatures.
The Arctic today is best known for its tundra and polar bear population, but roughly 38 to 53 million years ago during the Eocene epoch, the Arctic was like a huge temperate forest with brackish water, home to a variety of animal life, including ancestors of tapirs, hippo-like creatures, crocodiles and giant tortoises. Much of what is known about the region during this period comes from well-documented terrestrial deposits. Marine records have been harder to come by. (more…)
Berkeley Lab Researchers Discover New Rules for Single-Particle Imaging with Light-Emitting Nanocrystals
The term a “brighter future” might be a cliché, but in the case of ultra-small probes for lighting up individual proteins, it is now most appropriate. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered surprising new rules for creating ultra-bright light-emitting crystals that are less than 10 nanometers in diameter. These ultra-tiny but ultra-bright nanoprobes should be a big asset for biological imaging, especially deep-tissue optical imaging of neurons in the brain.
Working at the Molecular Foundry, a DOE national nanoscience center hosted at Berkeley Lab, a multidisciplinary team of researchers led by James Schuck and Bruce Cohen, both with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, used advanced single-particle characterization and theoretical modeling to study what are known as “upconverting nanoparticles” or UCNPs. Upconversion is the process by which a molecule absorbs two or more photons at a lower energy and emits them at higher energies. The research team determined that the rules governing the design of UCNP probes for ensembles of molecules do not apply to UCNP probes designed for single-molecules. (more…)
“A mood of anxiety seems to pervade American society today,” according to award-winning author and journalist Fareed Zakaria ’86.
“There is a sense in America that the future is not going to be like the past,“ he said. “So much of the energy, so much of the dynamism in the future is no longer quite as true.” (more…)
Reckoning with high rental fees, the onslaught of online shops and multinationals, brick-and-mortar fashion retailers are realising the perks of a pop-up shop.
Wait, pop-up what?
A pop-up is a store that takes up retail space temporarily (i.e. a few days to several months) as opposed to one taking on a year- or decades-long lease. The setup effectively frees the lessee from the constraints of a lengthy contract. (more…)
When Michigan State University’s Wolfgang Bauer travels past unused farmland in Michigan, he sees untapped energy resources and opportunities for tremendous economic development.
Bauer studies the ways in which renewable energy from animal waste, energy crops like corn or switch grass, and even food waste can be transformed into biogas. He also has researched the effectiveness of biogas power plants and found they can be instrumental in creating clean energy for homes, businesses and transportation. (more…)
