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The Lead
Train Collision Disrupts Service
May 20, 2013 | by John Christoffersen, Associated Press | Comments
Connecticut commuters planned for long, slow trips to and from work Monday following last week's train collision that that injured 72 people and disrupted rail service into New York City. It took Gary Maddin of Milford an hour to make what is normally a 20 minute drive from his home to the Bridgeport train station. From there, he planned to board a shuttle bus to Stamford where he could catch a train to Grand Central Station in New York.
Boeing 787s Flying Again
May 20, 2013 9:20 am | by Joshua Freed, AP Business Writer | Comments
The planes are returning after being grounded for four months by the federal government because...
Canada Trying to Lure Silicon Valley Tech Workers
May 20, 2013 9:01 am | by The Associated Press | Comments
The Canadian government has launched an aggressive campaign to lure Silicon Valley...
Is It Possible to Bring Manufacturing Back to the U.S.?
May 17, 2013 9:33 am | by David Mantey, Executive Editor, PD&D | Comments
Several factors come into play when manufacturers make the decision to move or reshore (see...
Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Faster, Stronger, Lighter
May 20, 2013 1:43 pm | by Jennifer Chu, MIT | CommentsThese days, aerospace engineering is all about the light stuff: building airplanes with lighter wings, fuselage and landing gear in an effort to reduce fuel costs.Advanced carbon-fiber composites have been used in recent years to lighten planes’ loads.
Kinks and Curves at the Nanoscale
May 20, 2013 1:38 pm | by Joshua Brown, University of Vermont | CommentsOne of the basic principles of nanotechnology is that when you make things extremely small—one nanometer is about five atoms wide, 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair—they are going to become more perfect.
Robots Learn to Take a Proper Handoff
May 20, 2013 1:35 pm | by Jennifer Liu, Disney Research | CommentsA humanoid robot can receive an object handed to it by a person with something approaching natural, human-like motion thanks to a new method developed by scientists at Disney Research, Pittsburgh in a project partially funded by the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies (interACT) at Carnegie Mellon University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
Add Boron for Better Batteries
May 20, 2013 1:32 pm | by Mike Williams, Rice University | CommentsFrustration led to revelation when Rice University scientists determined how graphene might be made useful for high-capacity batteries. Calculations by the Rice lab of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson found a graphene/boron anode should be able to hold a lot of lithium and perform at a proper voltage for use in lithium-ion batteries. The discovery appears in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
Dream Chaser Testing Begins
May 20, 2013 1:28 pm | by NASA | CommentsSierra Nevada Corporation's (SNC) Space Systems Dream Chaser flight vehicle has arrived at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, CA, to begin tests of its flight and runway landing systems. The tests are part of pre-negotiated, paid-for-performance milestones with NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP), which is facilitating U.S.-led companies' development of spacecraft and rockets that can launch from American soil.
UW-Milwaukee, Johnson in High-Voltage Pairing
May 20, 2013 9:29 am | by Thomas Content, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | CommentsThe climb the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee faces to make a name for itself in research and local economic development can best be seen at the site of an abandoned staircase. On the ground floor of the engineering building on Cramer Street, where that stairwell once stood, is the Energy Advancement Center - the largest "dry lab" at any academic institution in North America.
Bernanke Forecasts Gains From Computer Technology
May 20, 2013 9:26 am | by Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer | CommentsFederal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says pessimists forecasting that the economy will not reap sizable benefits from the computer revolution are likely to be proven wrong. Bernanke told a college graduating class Saturday that the long-range practical consequences of innovations such as faster computers and the Internet are hard to predict.
Photos of the Day: Trains Collide
May 20, 2013 9:14 am | by The Associated Press | CommentsMetro-North employees work at the site of Friday's train derailment in Bridgeport. Conn. on Sunday, May 19, 2013. Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people, Metro-North President Howard Permut said Sunday.
Silicon Valley-Area Hub Becomes Factory Town
May 20, 2013 8:57 am | by Martha Mendoza, AP National Writer | CommentsIn a busy factory, machinists move sheets of aluminum roll in the back door to be molded, stamped, twisted and notched into high-tech electric cars that sell for more than $60,000 each. Welcome to Fremont, Calif., a nondescript suburb of 217,000 tucked in the high-tech region between San Francisco and the Silicon Valley where something unique is happening: manufacturing.
Judge Delays Ex-BP Engineer's Trial
May 17, 2013 4:48 pm | by Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press | CommentsA federal judge in an order Friday agreed to postpone the trial of a former BP engineer charged with deleting text messages about the company's response to its 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The judge also had some stern words for attorneys on both sides.
H.B. Fuller Enters the Electronic & Assembly Materials Market with New “Eco-system” Approach
May 17, 2013 2:22 pm | by H.B. Fuller Company | H.B. Fuller Co. | CommentsH.B. Fuller Company has announced that the company is entering the growing electronics and assembly materials market with a total solutions “eco-system” approach that includes materials, processes and equipment support from the concept phase to the consumer’s hands.
World’s Smallest Droplets
May 17, 2013 2:21 pm | by David Salisbury | CommentsPhysicists may have created the smallest drops of liquid ever made in the lab. Evidence of the minuscule droplets was extracted from the results of colliding protons with lead ions at velocities approaching the speed of light. These short-lived droplets are the size of three to five protons. To provide a sense of scale, that is about one-100,000th the size of a hydrogen atom or one-100,000,000th the size of a virus.
Chaos Group’s V-Ray 1.6 for SketchUp Now in Open Beta
May 17, 2013 2:06 pm | by Chaos Group | CommentsArtists, architects and designers always want their software to do more. More detail, more speed, more quality. With the announcement of Chaos Group’s V-Ray 1.6 for SketchUp open beta, these users now have the biggest expansion to SketchUp’s rendering capabilities right at their finger tips. More is here.
TTI, Inc. Earns Distributor of the Year Award from API Technologies
May 17, 2013 2:03 pm | by TTI, Inc. | Tti, Inc. | CommentsAdding to the list of top supplier awards received at the Electronic Distribution Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, TTI, Inc. has announced the company has garnered the Distributor of the Year Award from API Technologies, formerly Spectrum Advanced Specialty Products.
The Missing Piece of Einstein's Theory
May 17, 2013 1:43 pm | by Mike Wolterbeek, University of Nevada, Reno | CommentsA new window into the nature of the universe may be possible with a device proposed by scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno and Stanford University that would detect elusive gravity waves from the other end of the cosmos. Gravitational waves represent one of the missing pieces of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
