Sustainability of the built environment

In times of limited resources and continued evidence of significant climate change, sustainability is increasingly regarded as a topic of global importance. Consider areas such as design, energy, and materials: These core ...

Scientists use nanoparticles to control growth of materials

(Phys.org) —Growth is a ubiquitous phenomenon in plants and animals. But it also occurs naturally in chemicals, metals and other inorganic materials. That fact has, for decades, posed a major challenge for scientists and ...

Researchers report nanoscale energy-efficient switching devices

By relentlessly miniaturizing a pre-World War II computer technology, and combining this with a new and durable material, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have built nanoscale switches and logic gates that operate ...

Cold-formed steel rebuilds earthquake-resistant architecture

Academia and industry are collaborating in a new effort to engineer earthquake-ready buildings. The effort based at Johns Hopkins University aims to design and test a single structure primarily built from cold-formed steel, ...

A protein's life, up close and personal

(Phys.org)—An EPFL team has developed a technique for spying on the inner lives of cells. For the first time, scientists have used a near-infrared, light-sensitive biocompatible molecule to mark and observe the activity ...

'Shaky' plan: Quake experiments may lead to sturdier buildings

Cold-formed steel has become a popular construction material for commercial and industrial buildings, but a key question remains: How can these structures be designed so that they are most likely to remain intact in a major ...

How Solid Is Concrete's Carbon Footprint?

(PhysOrg.com) -- Many scientists currently think at least 5 percent of humanity's carbon footprint comes from the concrete industry, both from energy use and the carbon dioxide (CO2) byproduct from the production of cement, ...

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