Heather Hall

Viruses are probably the most peculiar “life forms” known to us, with each species having unique characteristics. One thing common to all viruses is that they attack a “host” cell and hijack its machinery, using it for its own replication. A type of large virus, called “giant virus,” has interesting ways of attacking its host…

Researchers at Purdue University have created a technology to address the thickness issue for wearable power generation. They developed a woven, thermoelectric, flexible fabric that is potentially thinner than a millimeter. “This wearable power generator is well-suited for body or other heat recovery while also offering great mechanical flexibility and comfort,” said Kazuaki Yazawa, a…

New from plastic tubing manufacturer NewAge Industries is Clearflo 70 PVC tubing, a phthalate-free product. Clearflo 70 was developed in response to customers’ interest in fluid transfer products that do not contain leachable phthalates such as DEHP (Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate) or BPA (bisphenol A). Some studies indicate that phthalates–chemicals used to make certain plastic materials more…

Southwest Research Institute is introducing Floodlight™, a novel software tool that efficiently discovers the vast numbers of chemical components—previously known and unknown—present in the food, air, drugs and products we are exposed to every day. This cheminformatics machine learning tool integrates algorithms with analytical chemistry software to provide deep analysis of gas chromatography mass spectrometry…

By Jennifer Morgan and Michael Chusid   “What about the mice?” That was the first response of a postdoctoral fellow when asked what a lightning strike could do to her lab at a major biomedical research institute. In addition to electrocution, fire, and other animal welfare concerns, she is worried about the thousands of hours…

Scientists from Cornell University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have successfully demonstrated the world’s first capture and reuse of energy in a multiturn particle accelerator, where electrons are accelerated and decelerated in multiple stages and transported at different energies through a single beamline. This advance paves the way for…

An innovation that helps speed the design of fishing rods, skis and cell phone electronics soon will help NASA do its work in space. AnalySwift LLC, a Purdue University-affiliated commercial software provider, has received a $125,000 Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from NASA. The STTR award will help the company further develop its SwiftComp…

Mercom Capital Group, a global clean energy research and communications firm, released its report on funding and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity for the Battery Storage, Smart Grid, and Energy Efficiency sectors for 2019. Global VC funding (venture capital, private equity, and corporate venture capital) for Battery Storage, Smart Grid, and Efficiency companies in 2019…

Southwest Research Institute is now the home of a reciprocating compressor flow loop that is capable of recreating real-life gas pipeline pressures, temperatures and horsepower levels. The flow loop is one of only a handful of its kind available for industry research, development and testing and will play a central role in an ongoing SwRI…

If we think about the major challenges facing engineering in the next few decades, virtually every one comes down to questions about materials. From an environmental perspective we’re facing resource shortages in common materials, such as oil, lithium, and cobalt, as well as rare metals, like platinum, that are essential components of computer hard drives…

Concerns about the scarcity of lithium and other materials necessary in the now ubiquitous lithium-ion batteries have recently driven many researchers to look for alternatives, such as sodium and potassium. Professor Shinichi Komaba from Tokyo University of Science, Japan, and his team have worked for over a decade on this topic. In his latest review…

Sandia National Laboratories pumped an all-time high of nearly $3.68 billion into the economy in fiscal year 2019 by spending on goods, services, payroll, taxes and other payments, Labs Director James Peery announced today. “Sandia is proud of the past success but will not rest,” Peery said. “We will keep building on these successes and…

Sustainable chemical applications need to be able to employ renewable energy sources, renewable raw materials, and Earth-abundant elements. However, to date many techniques have only been possible with the use of expensive precious metals or rare earth metals, the extraction of which can have serious environmental impacts. An international team of researchers led by Professor…

“Agricultural fertilizer runoff is contaminating ground and surface water, which causes ecological effects such as algae blooms as well as significant adverse effects for humans, including cancer, hypertension, and developmental issues in babies,” said Wong, professor and chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in Rice’s Brown School of Engineering. “I’ve been very…

Eight of the top 10 selling drugs in the United States are biologics, which are produced from living organisms or certain components of living organisms. Subcutaneous injection – where the drug is injected into the tissue layer between the skin and the muscle – is emerging as an effective delivery route alternative to intravenous infusion…

A modern airplane’s fuselage is made from multiple sheets of different composite materials, like so many layers in a phyllo-dough pastry. Once these layers are stacked and molded into the shape of a fuselage, the structures are wheeled into warehouse-sized ovens and autoclaves, where the layers fuse together to form a resilient, aerodynamic shell. Now…

Written by Peter Christey, PhD, co-founder and CEO of General Automation Lab Technologies Inc.   Thanks to exciting new insights into the nature and importance of microbiomes, the field of microbiology is being reinvigorated. Indeed, significant R&D resources are being committed to realizing the promise of microbiome-based diagnostics and therapeutics. Scientific papers consistently report advances…

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) named Brookhaven National Laboratory, on Long Island, as the site for building an Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a one-of-a-kind nuclear physics research facility. This announcement, following DOE’s approval of “mission need” (known as Critical Decision 0) on December 19, 2019, enables work to begin on R&D and the conceptual…

Eli Lilly and Company and Strateos today unveiled a new robotic laboratory in San Diego designed to accelerate the drug discovery process. The Lilly Life Sciences Studio lab was conceptualized and designed by Lilly as part of a $90 million investment made in 2017 to expand Lilly’s research footprint in San Diego. Strateos will utilize…

This winter, you can carve the fresh powder of the backcountry on a pair of high-performance, eco-friendly skis designed by world-famous athletes and made from a material produced by microscopic algae. Yes, algae. The skis, made by a rather unconventional Bay Area biotech company, are a new addition to the long list of products currently…

Researchers across the scientific spectrum crave data, as it is essential to understanding the natural world and, by extension, accelerating scientific progress. Lately, however, the tools of scientific endeavor have become so powerful that the amount of data obtained from experiments and observations is often unwieldy. In other words, it is possible to have too…

Electricity production is one of the industries that uses the most water in the country each day. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are helping the largest power plant in the United States identify the most efficient and cost-effective strategies to reduce water use. They developed a first-of-its-kind comprehensive system dynamics analysis that can show power…

Americans discard as much as 40% of their food, worth about $200 billion a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A simple new method from Purdue University scientists could help cut down that amount of waste – and provide another renewable source of clean energy. The Purdue scientists developed a method to improve…

To better determine the potential energy cost savings among connected homes, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed a computer simulation to more accurately compare energy use on similar weather days. “Since no two weather days are alike, we created a simulated weather identification model that keeps environmental impacts such as temperature changes and sunlight…

Evaporation ponds, which are commonly used in many industries to manage wastewater, can span acres, occupying a large footprint and often posing risks to birds and other wildlife. Yet they’re an economical way to deal with contaminated water because they take advantage of natural evaporation under sunlight to reduce large volumes of dirty water to…