Category Archives: Engineering

New Iron Based Superconductors

Research Suggests Novel Superconductor Is in a Powerful Class All its Own

discovered surprising magnetic properties in the new superconductors that suggest they may have very powerful applications — from improved MRI machines and research magnets, to a new generation of superconducting electric motors, generators and power transmission lines. The research also adds to the long list of mysteries surrounding superconductivity, providing evidence that the new materials, which scientists are calling “doped rare earth iron oxyarsenides,” develop superconductivity in quite a new way
…
Early this year, Japanese scientists who had been developing iron-based superconducting compounds for several years, finally tweaked the recipe just right with a pinch of arsenic. The result: a superconductor, also featuring oxygen and the rare earth element lanthanum, performing at a promising -413 degrees F (26 K). The presence of iron in the material was another scientific stunner: Because it’s ferromagnetic, iron stays magnetized after exposure to a magnetic field, and any current generates such a field. As a rule, magnetism’s effect on superconductivity is not to enhance it, but to kill it.

Iron based superconductors might resist magnetic fields over 100 Tesla

The new superconductors seem like they will be able to make improved MRI machines and research magnets, a new generation of superconducting electric motors, generators and power transmission lines. Tesla is a unit of magnetic field strength; the Earth’s magnetic field is one twenty thousandth of a tesla.

Quake Lake Danger

Quakes lakes risk ‘slurry tsunami’

This month’s 7.9 magnitude tremor spawned 34 so-called quake lakes, according to the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research expert. The vast pools of water were created when the earthquake triggered landslides down plunging valleys, clogging rivers and turning them into fast-rising lakes. Twenty-eight quake lakes are at risk of bursting, according to Chinese state media agency Xinhua. But the one at Tangjiashan – on the Jianjiang river above the town of Beichuan – is the most precarious.
…
The delicate, tortuous work involves heavy machinery gingerly shifting debris from the dam, and engineers blasting dynamite to carefully punch holes in the mountain of rubble and soil – although experts warn this risks further destabilising the structure. Nearly 160,000 people in the disaster zone have already been evacuated in case the Tangjiashan quake lake bursts.
…
Troops and engineers are racing to carve a 500 metre (1,640 ft) channel out of the landscape and divert the water towards the Fujiang river. They aim to complete the giant sluice and begin draining the 300 million cubic metre capacity lake within 10 days. “Once the water begins to flow over the top of the dam there’s nothing you can do to stop it,” said Dr Alex Densmore, of Durham University’s Institute of Hazard and Risk Research.
…
Little wonder then that Premier Wen Jiabao says he regards draining the swelling quake lakes at China’s ground zero as the nation’s most urgent task.

Women Choosing Other Fields Over Engineering and Math

graph of science and engineering degrees by gender in the USA 1966-2005

The graph shows college degrees granted in the USA. This topic sets up one for criticism, but I believe it is more important to examine the data and explore the possible ideas than to avoid anything that might be questioned by the politically correct police. An import factor, to me anyway, is that women are now graduating from college in far higher numbers than men. And in many science fields female baccalaureate graduates outnumber male graduates (psychology [67,000 to 19,000], biology[42,000 to 26,000], anthropology, sociology [20,000 to 8,000]) while men outnumber women in others (math [7,000 to 6,000], engineering [53,000 to 13,000], computer science [39,000 to 11,000], physics [3,000 to 900]).

Data on degrees awarded men and women in the USA in 2005, from NSF*:

Field	Bachelors		Master’s		Doctorate
	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women	Men
Biology	42,283	25,699	4,870	3,229	3,105	3,257
Computer Science	11,235	39,329	5,078	12,742	225	909
Economics	8,141	17,023	1,391	2,113	355	827
Engineering	13,197	52,936	7,607	26,492	1,174	5,215
Geosciences	1,660	2,299	712	973	243	470
Physics	903	3,307	427	1,419	200	1,132
Psychology	66,833	19,103	12,632	3,444	2,264	211
Sociology	20,138	8,438	920	485	343	211
All S&E	235,197	230,806	53,051	66,974	10,533	17,405

What does this all mean? It is debatable, but I think it is very good news for the efforts many have made over the last few decades to open up opportunities for women. I still support efforts to provide opportunities for girls to get started in science and engineering but I think we have reached the day when the biggest concern is giving all kids better math and science primary education (and related extracurricular activities). Also continued focus and effort on the doctorate and professional opportunities for women is warranted.
Continue reading →

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander

The successful landing of NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander is well documented: Soft landing on a rough Mars terrain – Mars Lander Transmits Photos of Arctic Terrain – Phoenix Mars Lander prepares to begin excavation – Scientists Excited After Safe Mars Landing

View animation showing how NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander stays in contact with Earth

As NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter passes overhead approximately every two hours, Phoenix transmits images and scientific data from the surface to the orbiter, which then relays the data to NASA’s Deep Space Network of antennas on Earth. Similarly, NASA’s Deep Space Network transmits instructions from Earth to Odyssey, which then relays the information to Phoenix.

The Phoenix mission is to explore the north polar region of Mars.

Solar Thermal in Desert, to Beat Coal by 2020

Google, Chevron Build Mirrors in Desert to Beat Coal With Solar

Along a dusty two-lane highway in California’s Mojave Desert, 550,000 mirrors point skyward to make steam for electricity. Google Inc., Chevron Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are betting this energy will become cheaper than coal.

The 1,000-acre plant uses concentrated sunlight to generate power for as many as 112,500 homes in Southern California. Rising natural gas prices and emissions limits may make solar thermal the fastest-growing energy source in the next decade, say backers including Vinod Khosla, the founder of computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. Costs for the technology will fall below coal as soon as 2020, the U.S. government estimates.
…
“Solar thermal can provide a substantial amount of our power, more than 50 percent,” says Khosla
…
Nine solar thermal plants built in the California desert from 1985 to 1991 still operate, with Juno Beach, Florida-based FPL Group Inc. running seven. They have combined capacity of 354 megawatts, enough to power 230,000 Southern California homes. Development slowed when Congress eliminated tax credits for alternative energy in the early 1990s. Laws put in place in 2005 give solar investors a 30 percent tax credit.

Great progress is being made adding wind and solar capacity. And the increasing oil prices are encouraging much faster adoption of these technologies. The promise of widespread adoption is rapidly becoming a reality.

High School Student Isolates Microbe that Eats Plastic

WCI student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags

Daniel Burd’s project won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He came back with a long list of awards, including a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and recognition that he has found a practical way to help the environment.
…
First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees.

After three months of upping the concentration of plastic-eating microbes, Burd filtered out the remaining plastic powder and put his bacterial culture into three flasks with strips of plastic cut from grocery bags. As a control, he also added plastic to flasks containing boiled and therefore dead bacterial culture.

Six weeks later, he weighed the strips of plastic. The control strips were the same. But the ones that had been in the live bacterial culture weighed an average of 17 per cent less.
…
The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide — each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide, said Burd.

“This is a huge, huge step forward . . . We’re using nature to solve a man-made problem.” Burd would like to take his project further and see it be used. He plans to study science at university, but in the meantime he’s busy with things such as student council, sports and music.

Brian Cox Particle Physics Webcast

TED webcast of Brian Cox discussing his work at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. He does a very good job of explaining some of the basic science in understandable terms.

Engineering Graduates Again in Great Shape

Once again engineering and computer science graduates are receiving the highest starting salaries. Previous posts: Lucrative college degrees (2006) – starting salaries for engineers (2005) – High Pay for Engineering Graduates 2007.

According to a survey, these are the top-paying majors for 2007-08 bachelor degree graduates:
$63,616 — Chemical engineering (up 6.5%)
$59,962 — Computer engineering
$59,873 — Computer science (up 14.7%)
$58,252 — Industrial/manufacturing engineering
$57,821 — Mechanical engineering (up 5.7%)
$57,999 — Aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical engineering

Source: Spring Survey, National Association of Colleges and Employers

Engineering Jobs Top U.S. Skills Shortage List

Engineering positions are the most difficult jobs to fill for U.S. employers, according to Manpower Inc.’s 2008 Talent Shortage Survey released April 24. Of 2,000 U.S. firms responding, 22% said they had difficulty filling positions, ranking engineers, machinists/machine operators and skilled manual trades as the top three toughest positions to fill, respectively

Grads’ job prospects weakening by degrees

In one year, the former hydraulic repairman will have a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University Calumet. And, as far as he can tell, he can write his own ticket.

“I’m finding jobs pulling at me left and right,” he said last week at a manufacturing industry job fair at the college. “The professors told us there’s such a demand, if you go to a job fair, you can walk out with a job.”

Vela, 35, happens to be in a field where demand remains strong, despite the uneven economy. Overall starting wages for mechanical engineering grads will be up 3.4 percent this year, with an average salary offer of $56,429, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. For many other college grads looking for a job at this time of year, the prospects are not as sweet.

Starting salaries: What the future holds (UK)
Continue reading →

Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve Photos

photo of Tree at the Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve
The Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve in Ohio is quite a nice short hike. Photos by John Hunter. If anyone knows what the green beetle is, please add a comment.

I visited the preserve last year. Other sites from the trip include: Rocky Gap State Park, Maryland and Coopers Rock State Forest, West Virginia.

More photos: North Cascades National Park Photos – Mason Neck State Park, Virginia – travel photo directory – Olympic National Park – The Cloisters Museum and the Museum of Modern Art

Larry Page on How to Change the World

photo of larry page
Larry Page on how to change the world

The question is, How many people are working on things that can move the needle on the economy or on people’s quality of life? Look, 40,000 people a year are killed in the U.S. in auto accidents. Who’s going to make that number zero or very, very small? There are people working on it.
…
In practice that’s not an issue. I’ve told the whole company repeatedly I want people to work on artificial intelligence – so we end up with five people working on it. Guess what? That’s not a major expense. There’s a reason we talk about 70/20/10, where 70% of our resources are spent in our core business and 10% end up in unrelated projects, like energy or whatever. [The other 20% goes to projects adjacent to the core business.] Actually, it’s a struggle to get it to even be 10%. People might think we’re wasting money or whatever. But that’s where all our new stuff has come from.
…
Solar thermal’s another area we’ve been working on; the numbers there are just astounding. In Southern California or Nevada, on a day with an average amount of sun, you can generate 800 megawatts on one square mile. And 800 megawatts is actually a lot. A nuclear plant is about 2,000 megawatts.
…
Whose obligation is it to make this kind of change happen? Is it Google’s? The government’s? Stanford’s? Kleiner Perkins’?

I think it’s everybody who cares about making progress in the world. Let’s say there are 10,000 people working on these things. If we make that 100,000, we’ll probably get 10 times the progress.

Posts on Google engineering: Larry Page and Sergey Brin Interview Webcast – Google Investing Huge Sums in Renewable Energy – Marissa Mayer Webcast Google Innovation – High-efficiency Power Supplies