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| BROOKHAVEN LAB AND ARGONNE LAB SCIENTISTS. INVENT A PLASMA VALVE. |
| Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory have received U.S. patent number 6,528,948 for a device that shuts off airflow into a vacuum about one million times faster than mechanical valves or shutters that are currently in use. The new device, called a plasma valve, was developed through research funded by DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the Office of Science. |
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| NEW METALLIC MUSCLES FLEX WITH LITTLE HEAT |
| Tiny and efficient metal muscles made of nanoscale-size platinum particles have been created by German researchers, and could one day used to develop robotic limbs. |
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| WALKING ON SHAKY SHOES |
| Feeling unsteady on your feet? Vibrating shoes that use random noise to amplify subtle signals to the brain could keep you upright. When someone leans or sways to one side, pressure on the soles of the feet increases on that side. Normally the nervous system detects these changes and automatically corrects posture. But some people, particularly the elderly, have trouble picking up these signals and sway much more than normal even when they think they are standing still. |
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| NEW LIGHT-WEIGHT ENGINE BLOCK |
| Australian researchers have developed a new magnesium alloy they say is a "frontrunner" in the race to make a new generation light-weight engine block. |
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| BETTER THAN BARCODES |
| That bar code on your cereal box holds information read by a laser scanner. It's not much information, but it's enough to let the supermarket take your money, keep track of inventory, follow trends in customer preference, and restock its shelves. Scanners and bar codes speed up checkout, but they've got a few limitations. The scanning laser needs a direct line of sight to the bar code, and the bar code itself needs to be reasonably clean and undamaged – one reason your cashier might have to swipe that bag of spuds four or five times before the scanner reads it. |
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| LASER BEAMS HELP TAKE THE TWINKLE OUT OF STARLIGHT |
| If you have ever peered down a highway on a sunny day, you have probably seen the rising, wavelike ripples of heated air that distort the appearance of objects near the horizon. Similar disturbances in the atmosphere above us make stars twinkle as their light is distorted on the way down to Earth. |
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| A PERSONALLY TRAINABLE HEARING AID |
| An Australian engineer has developed a hearing aid that can be "trained" by its users to adjust automatically to their individual preferences for different sound environments. |
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| DRIP FREE TEA NOW A REALITY |
| The age-old problem of dripping teapots has finally been solved by a young English inventor.
Product design engineer Ms Damini Kumar, a guest of the Australian Innovation Festival, invented the D-Pot, the "world's first non-drip teapot", as part of her Masters degree at South Bank University in London. |
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| BUILT IN BRAKES FOR SKIS AND SNOWBOARDS |
| Sheer terror. Blind panic. Whatever you call it, it's that gut-wrenching feeling known to all newcomers to skiing and snowboarding as they hurtle helplessly downhill. But help is at hand for beginners to the pistes. A new generation of skis or snowboards will be fitted with built-in electronic brakes that slow them down before things get too scary. |
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| WORLD’S SMALLEST MICROCHAIN DRIVE FABRICATED AT SANDIA |
| A microchain that closely resembles a bicycle chain — except that each link could rest comfortably atop a human hair - has been fabricated at the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories. (The distance between chain link centers is 50 microns. The diameter of a human hair is approximately 70 microns.) |
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| DEVICE COULD MAKE FOR FASTER INTERNET, BETTER TELECOMMUNICATIONS |
| Whether you're waiting for a computer to download the latest movie trailer, or just holding for a long-distance phone call to connect, you may one day get faster service as the result of a new device invented by Ohio State University engineers. |
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| RESEARCHERS IMPROVE THERMAL STABILITY OF FUEL CELL MATERIALS |
| Electrochemical energy is released when hydrogen combines with oxygen to produce water. Fuel cell technology can capture this energy to power cars, houses, and cell phones. Why aren't we using fuel cells? |
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| PLASTIC TUBE MAY HELP TREAT PARALYSIS |
| Canadian researchers have created a plastic tube that fits around the spinal cord and restores some movement in paralyzed rats, according to research presented at the 222nd national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society. The researchers say the work could lead to a new treatment for paralysis in humans. |
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| INEEL'S SUPER-HARD STEEL ONE OF THIS YEAR'S TOP 100 TECHNOLOGICAL ACHIEVEMENTS |
| Super Hard Steel forms a tough, low cost, wear and corrosion resistant coating that outperforms traditional high-performance coatings. Developed at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, this coating offers a wealth of possibilities for new industrial applications. |
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