Power and Electrical Engineering

Light can carry data at much higher rates than electricity, but it has always been too expensive and difficult to use light to transmit data among silicon chips in electronic devices. Now, electrical engineers at Stanford have solved a major part of the problem. They have invented a key component that can easily be built into chips to break up a laser beam into billions of bits of data (zeroes and ones) per second. This could help chips output data at a much higher rate than they can now.

You fill up your “empty” fuel tank at the gas station and the pump charges you for more gallons than the tank’s rated capacity. Are you being deliberately overcharged?

Unauthorized tampering with pumps does happen, even though state and local weights and measures officials regularly check gasoline pumps to ensure their accuracy. But there are also legitimate reasons for a discrepancy between the amount of fuel metered by a gas pump and an automobile’s rated fuel ta

Berkeley Scientists Synthesize Cheap, Easy-to-Make Ultra-thin Photovoltaic Films

Imagine a future in which the rooftops of residential homes and commercial buildings can be laminated with inexpensive, ultra-thin films of nano-sized semiconductors that will efficiently convert sunlight into electrical power and provide virtually all of our electricity needs. This future is a step closer to being realized, thanks to a scientific milestone achieved at the U.S. Department of Energy

Penn State researchers have developed a prototype sonic gas analyzer that automatically and continuously tracks the concentration of a gas in an air/gas mixture based on changes in pitch.

Miguel Horta, doctoral candidate in acoustics who is currently working on the sonic gas analyzer as part of his dissertation, says, “The system automatically cancels out the background and flow noise and can detect changes in gas concentration as low as 0.003 percent – plenty sensitive enough,

A NASA study is offering new insight into how the Earth’s water cycle might be influenced by global change.

In recent years, scientists have warned that the water cycle may be affected by temperature changes, as warmer temperatures can increase the moisture-holding capacity of air.

The global water cycle involves the transfer of water molecules between the Earth’s land masses, cryosphere, oceans and atmosphere. It’s a gigantic system powered by the su

The EU is launching a new research project to develop cost-effective and environmentally friendly methods to mass produce ethanol as fuel for motor vehicles. The commitment is a major step toward the goal of an EU directive of replacing fossil fuels in the transport system by 5.75 percent by 2010. The initiative for the project comes from Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden and the French research institute Institut Français du Petrol.

The project, funded with €12.8 million,