Applied Physics

As Dr. Ronaldo Luna, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, watches a machine shake silt from the Mississippi River until it liquefies, he says, "This is what would happen during a major earthquake along the Mississippi River." Researchers don’t fully understand the liquefaction process for silts (though they have a better understanding of how it works with sands) but Luna is confident, based on his tests, that a 6.5 magnitude earthquake or bigger would cause solid surfaces along the banks of the Mississippi…

As I was sitting patiently in Long Beach waiting to exit the plane and listening to that weird sawing sound that I hear every time I fly on an Airbus A320, I was wondering two things: 1) Why does it sound like Paul Bunyon is attacking my plane with a drywall saw, and 2) Who is going to be the first person to make some stupid joke, like “Oh no, Paul Bunyon is attacking our plane with a drywall saw!” Would it be the young woman to my right in 20D — we’ll call her “Cathy” — with whom I was fiercely trying not to make eye contact for the duration of the flight, for fear that I would be not…

SOFIA, Bulgaria, August 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Direct Petroleum Exploration Inc. (DPE) has finished the initial phase of the completion of its Deventci R1 gas discovery well in northern Bulgaria. Limited flow testing was undertaken on the high pressure Lower Jurassic Ozirovo zone on Sunday 17-August at the well site some 150 kilometers northeast of the capital, Sofia. Substantial gas and rich condensate flows were observed at the surface though no verifiable measurements were taken due to the limited availability of testing equipment for the high pressures encountered. The 12 hour shut-in tubing…

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, August 18 /PRNewswire/ -- - Mike Bartlett to Lead Mazu Networks' Aggressive Growth in the Application Performance Management Market for Enterprise IT - Mazu Networks, the leading provider of behavior-based, enterprise-class performance and availability solutions, today announced the addition of Mike Bartlett to the management team as vice president of sales. Bartlett joins Mazu Networks from HP Software where he continued his executive leadership position as vice president of sales after the acquisition of Mercury Interactive Corp(1). Bartlett will lend his strong…

PARIS, August 18 /PRNewswire/ -- - Deployment Includes CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A Technology and IP Backhaul Solution PARIS, August 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (Shentel) (NASDAQ: SHEN) and Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced an agreement valued at more than USD 30 million for equipment, services and software to upgrade Shenandoah Personal Communications Company's network in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The network upgrade includes the deployment of third-generation (3G) CDMA2000(R) 1xEV-DO Revision A (Rev. A)…

CALGARY, Canada, August 15 /PRNewswire/ -- - Expands 2008 Capital Budget and Increases Market Guidance CALGARY, Canada, August 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Orleans Energy Ltd. ("Orleans" or the "Company") (TSX:OEX) is pleased to announce record financial and operating results for the three month period ended June 30, 2008. Financial Highlights (all amounts in Cdn $ except share data) (6:1 oil Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, equivalent % % conversion) 2008 2007 Change 2008 2007 Change Petroleum 24,673,526 11,635,732 112% 43,709,697 23,823,388 83% and natural gas revenue (5) Per…

In the world of alternative fuels, there may be nothing greener than pond scum. Algae are tiny biological factories that use photosynthesis to transform carbon dioxide and sunlight into energy so efficiently that they can double their weight several times a day, producing oil in the process — 30 times more oil per acre than soybeans, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Like soybean oil, the algae oil can be burned directly in diesel engines or further refined into biodiesel. University of Virginia researchers have a plan to greatly increase algae oil yields by feeding the algae extra…

As lithographic materials and strategies come close to fundamental technical limits, increase performance and size could become prohibitively expensive. Further advances will require a new approach that is both commercially viable and capable of meeting the demanding quality-control standards of the industry. In a collaborative effort between academic and industry, chemical and biological engineering professors Paul Nealey and Juan de Pablo, and other colleagues from the UW-Madison NSEC partnered with researchers from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies to test a promising new twist on the…

What do a tree and the Eiffel Tower have in common? According to a Duke University engineer, both are optimized for 'flow.' In the case of trees, the flow is of water from the ground throughout the trunk, branches and leaves, and into the air. The Eiffel Tower's flow carries stresses throughout the structure without collapsing under its own weight or being downed by the wind. For most engineers, the laws governing fluid and solid mechanics like these examples are like oil and water – they just don't mix. A theory developed by Adrian Bejan, J.A. Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering at…

A multidisciplinary team at the University of Reading has developed a robot which is controlled by a biological brain formed from cultured neurons. This cutting edge research is the first step to examine how memories manifest themselves in the brain, and how a brain stores specific pieces of data. The key aim is that eventually this will lead to a better understanding of development and of diseases and disorders which affect the brain such as Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, stoke and brain injury. The robot’s biological brain is made up of cultured neurons which are placed onto a…