Engineering in the News July 2011

Excerpts from Illinois in the News, a daily service provided by the University of Illinois News Bureau. This collection of July excerpts focuses on engineering topics and faculty contacted for their expertise by print and broadcast reporters around the world.

U of I ENGINEERING STUDENT AMONG FIRST WOMEN TO JOIN SUBMARINE SERVICE
Daily Illini (Champaign-Urbana, Ill., July 28) -- NPRE junior Kristin Schoemaker is among the first cohort of women accepted into the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate, or NUPOC, Program.

RESEARCH NETWORK
Times Union (Albany, N.Y., July 28) -- The U. of I. will lead a new $121 million effort to build a better technology network to link researchers. John Towns of the university's National Center for Supercomputing Applications is the project leader. He says the university is one of 17 institutions involved in building the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, or XSEDE. Also: Belleville News-Democrat (Illinois, July 28), Red Orbit.com (Dallas, July 28), R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., July 28),Scientific Computing (Rockaway, N.J., July 28). 

PANIC ATTACKS
e! Science News (Quebec City, July 27) -- Panic attacks that seem to strike sufferers out-of-the-blue are not without warning after all, according to new research. A study, based on 24-hour monitoring of panic sufferers while they went about their daily activities captured panic attacks as they happened. Enlu Zhou, a U. of I. professor of industrial and enterprise systems engineering, was a co-author on the study. Also: Bioscience Technology (Rockaway, N.J., July 27), News Medical.net (Sydney, July 28).

CHINESE TRAIN CRASH
Bloomberg Businessweek (July 28) -- A Chinese high-speed railway crash that killed 39 people was likely caused by a design flaw in a signaling system. China has improved its rail technology over the past few years as it invests in research and development, said T.C. Kao, an Illinois professor with the Railroad Transportation & Engineering Center.

NEW MATERIALS USE VASCULAR SYSTEM
Nanotechnology Now (Banks, Ore., July 25) -- Taking their cue from biological circulatory systems, U. of I. researchers have developed vascularized structural composites, creating materials that are lightweight and strong with potential for self-healing, self-cooling, metamaterials and more. Also: Red Orbit.com (Dallas, July 27), e! Science News (Quebec City, July 26), R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., July 26), Product Design & Development (Rockaway, N.J., July 27).

ELECTRONICALLY & OPTICALLY ACTIVE 3-D PHOTONIC CRYSTAL
Daily India.com (Jacksonville, Fla., July 25) -- Researchers at Illinois have demonstrated the first optoelectronically active 3-D photonic crystal, a finding that could open new avenues for solar cells, lasers, metamaterials and more. “We’ve discovered a way to change the three-dimensional structure of a well-established semiconductor material to enable new optical properties while maintaining its very attractive electrical properties,” said Paul Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering and of chemistry who led the research effort. Also: e! Science News (Quebec City, July 24), Nanowerk News (Honlulu, July 24), PhysOrg.com (Douglas, Isle of Man, July 24), TechEYE.net (London, July 25), AZoOptics.com (Warriewood, Australia, July 26), Compound Semiconductor Online (Bristol, England, July 25), Nanotechnology Now (Banks, Ore., July 25), Photonics Online (Erie, Pa., July 25), R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., July 25), Red Orbit.com (Dallas, July 25), OptoIQ (Nashua, N.H., July 26), MIT Technology Review (Cambridge, Mass., July 28), ASEE FirstBell (July 28).

AUTOMATIC SHIFT WHEELCHAIRS
Gizmag (Melbourne, Australia, July 21) -- Cyclists have been enjoying the benefits of gears for more than 100 years but the wheelchair-bound have been stuck with the single 1:1 speed ratio on manual wheelchairs since their invention centuries ago. Now Scott Daigle, a graduate engineering student at Illinois, is addressing this oversight with IntelliWheels AGS (Automatic Gear-Shift), an automated system that detects how the wheelchair is being pushed and changes gears accordingly. Also: Ubergizmo (San Francisco, July 25), Gizmodo.com (Sydney, July 25).

NANOMATERIALS
Technology Review (Cambridge, Mass., July 21) -- Making commercial products from nanomaterials is tricky. “You have to tune your dimensions very carefully to get the desired behavior,” says Placid Ferreira, associate director of the Center for Nanoscale Chemical-Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Systems at Illinois. “In order to exploit nanoscale phenomena in products, you need to have manufacturing tools that give you precision, in quantity, and cheaply.”

HOLONYAK DOCUMENTARY ON BTN
Carmi Times (Illinois, July 20) -- A new documentary about Nick Holonyak Jr., a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois, will be broadcast later this month on the Big Ten Network. The documentary was produced at Illinois by Tim Hartin and Alison Davis-Wood. Also: The News-Gazette (Champaign-Urbana, Ill., July 19), Associated Press (July 19), Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, July 19), The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill., July 19), The State Journal-Register (Springfield, Ill., July 19), Times Union (Albany, N.Y., July 19), The Republic (Columbus, Ind., July 20), Daily Journal (Franklin, Ind., July 20).

BATTERY TECHNOLOGY LICENSED
Nanowerk News (Honolulu, July 19) -- The U. of I. has signed a licensing agreement with Xerion Advanced Battery Corp. under which Xerion has the exclusive right to bring the Paul Braun’s StructurePore battery-charging technology to the market. Also: Sys.con Media (July 19), Automotive World.com (London, July 25).

THERMOCHEMICAL NANOLITHOGRAPHY
e! Science News (Quebec City, July 18) -- Using a technique known as thermochemical nanolithography, researchers have developed a new way to fabricate nanometer-scale ferroelectric structures directly on flexible plastic substrates that would be unable to withstand the processing temperatures normally required to create such nanostructures. The work involved scientists from the U. of I. and the University of Nebraska and Georgia Tech. Also: EE Times India (New Delhi, July 21).

PHYSICS
New Scientist (Cambridge, England, July 19) -- Tony Leggett, a U. of I. physics professor, comments on an ambitious experiment to make a glass sphere exist in two places at once.
 
TSUNAMI'S AIRGLOW SIGNATURE DETECTED
Indian Express (New Delhi, July 15) -- An airglow signature in the upper atmosphere produced by a tsunami has been recorded for the first time by U. of I. scientists using a camera system in Hawaii. Also: Daily India (Jacksonville, Fla., July 15), News Track India (New Delhi, July 15), The Hawaii Reporter (Honolulu, July 15), Hydro International (Amsterdam, July 18), MSN India (July 17), The Daily Mail (London, July 15), Zee News (Noida, India, July 17), Smart Planet (CBS Interactive; San Francisco, July 20), The Maui News (Wailuku, Hawaii; July 27).

ENGINEER GUY IS "WIRED"
Wired Magazine (July 15) -- ChemE professor Bill Hammack is mentioned as someone who is "changing the way that we learn" through his video series ("The new Way to Be a Fifth Grader"). Article appears in August 2011 edition of the magazine.

Related story: "Engineering made Engaging," Scientific American blog (July 26; by U of I's Joanne Manaster) -- In his videos and radio pieces Bill Hammack, The Engineer Guy, has explored the technological world. He’s revealed the secrets of his high-tech underwear, explored the mysteries of mood rings, probed the perils of nanotechnology, and examined the threats to privacy from technology.

ENTERPRISE WORKS LISTED IN INC. TOP 10
Inc. Magazine (July 2011) -- EnterpriseWorks at the University of Illinois is listed as one of the magazine's Top 10 Incubators to Watch. Part of the University of Illinois's Research Park, EnterpriseWorks hosts early-stage tech firms, and has had particular success with information and biotechnology companies. About 70 companies have had their start at EnterpriseWorks since the incubator opened its doors in 2003.

COMPUTER VISUALIZATION
New Scientist (Cambridge, England, July 11) -- U. of I. researchers are providing a “blend of visualizations of scientific data and best approximations” of what the cosmic events depicted in the Adler Planetarium’s “Deep Space Adventure” might look like up close.

BASEBALL
Tucson Citizen (Arizona, July 10) -- The physics of hitting a home run are complicated. First, the easy part – when air is less dense, the ball will travel farther. Two things that can reduce density in the air are heat and humidity. More measurable is altitude’s effect on the home run, says Alan Nathan, a professor emeritus of physics at Illinois. Also: The Arizona Republic (Phoenix, July 10).|

RAILROADS
California Watch (Berkeley, Calif., July 10) -- The Fresno Bee, as part of a project with California Watch, has examined the California rail authority’s 15-year budget history and current consulting contracts. By far, the largest chunks of cash have been paid to consultants and contractors hired by the authority, which has only a small in-house administrative staff. “Would California be able to hire hundreds of employees who are experts in high-speed rail?” said Christopher Barkan, director of the Rail Transportation and Engineering Center at Illinois. “And if it did, where on earth would they find them?” Also: The Sacramento Bee (California, July 11)

TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH
The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill., July 7) -- The Illinois Department of Transportation plans to spend $23 million over the next five years to fund research at the U. of I.’s Center for Transportation. Also: The Associated Press (July 6), St. Louis Post-Dispatch (July 7), The State Journal-Register (Springfield, Ill., July 7).
 
COMPUTER IMAGES
Chicago Sun-Times (July 6) -- Supercomputers at Illinois and a NASA facility provide detailed, accurate images of the universe.

FLEXIBLE CIRCUITS
Materials Views (July 6) -- U. of I. engineering professor John Rogers and colleagues are developing new systems for flexible electronic devices. In the journal Advanced Functional Materials they present their recent success with a new class of semiconductors that enables the integration of high-performance electronics on nearly any type of substrate.

ELECTRONIC INK PEN
Printed Circuit Design & Fab (Canton, Ga., July 1) -- U. of I. research scientists have designed a roller ball pen using real silver ink to draw functioning circuit boards, say published reports. The team says the ink is flexible in a way not previously seen; they are able to sketch electrical circuits on paper, wood and other flexible surfaces. They also have been able to add components to a hand-drawn circuit, including LED lights and a battery. When the ink dries, it leaves conductive silver pathways and maintains conductivity through multiple bends and folds. Also: MSNBC (July 1), BBC News (July 1).
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If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.