USAFSAM Teams with Innova Systems, Inc. for New Vision Test

For people with hereditary and acquired color vision deficiency—sometimes referred as color blindness—it can be challenging or even impossible to hold certain jobs in either the military or civilian sector. In many occupations, the ability to accurately see colors is critical to success. In some cases, such as for Air Force pilot training, candidates are excluded if tests show that they have deficient color vision, regardless of the degree of deficiency. Read more

NASA Glenn Funds Technologies with Potential High Commercial Value

Four technologies developed at NASA's Glenn Research Center that involve advanced polymers, a life-saving biomedical device, innovative imaging and harsh environment sensor development have been selected to benefit from the 2010 Technology Transfer Fund. "It is expected that, with a minimal amount of effort from both Glenn and the commercial partner, these technologies will demonstrate significantly improved commercial potential," said Kathleen K. Needham, deputy chief of Glenn's Business Development and Partnerships Office. Read more

Mileage Markers: Argonne Researchers Recharge Plug-in Vehicle Standards

ARGONNE, Ill. (June 29, 2010) – Mike Duoba, a principal mechanical engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, and his colleagues are celebrating the recent approval of SAE J1711, the revised recommended practice for figuring out the fuel economy and exhaust emissions test procedures of hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). The Argonne engineers primarily revised the test procedures to better evaluate PHEV technologies. Read more

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Awards Woody Biomass Utilization Projects

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2010 -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the award of more than $4.2 million in grants to 13 small businesses and community groups developing innovative renewable energy projects and new product development using woody biomass from hazardous fuel reduction projects on National Forest land. Read more

Fermilab Scientists Find Evidence for Significant Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry

Scientists of the DZero collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) announced on May 14 that they have found evidence for significant violation of matter-antimatter symmetry in the behavior of particles containing bottom quarks beyond what is expected in the current theory, the Standard Model of particle physics. Read more

Los Alamos-Argonne Partnership Will Aid Understanding of Complex Materials

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, May 27, 2010—An intimate understanding of complex materials that lie at the heart of pharmaceuticals or even nuclear weapons can occur more quickly and efficiently thanks to an agreement between Los Alamos and Argonne national laboratories. Read more

Restoring Degraded Industrial Waterways

For decades, American waterways have been used as dumping grounds for industrial and community wastes. Beginning in the 1970s, federal Clean Water Act regulations helped to protect water resources, but virtually every U.S. industrial waterway has inherited a legacy of contaminated sediments. A notable example is the Grand Calumet River, near Chicago, which flows into Lake Michigan through one of the largest industrial complexes in the nation. Read more

Glenn Celebrates Partnership with Cleveland's MC2STEM High School

NASA's Glenn Research Center celebrated a new partnership with the MC2STEM High School at the Great Lakes Science Center May 12. At MC2STEM, or Metropolitan Cleveland Consortium for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics, students are exposed to authentic experiences in science and engineering through project-based learning that will prepare them for the 21st century global workforce. Read more

Cloudy with a Chance of Discovery

Joni Mitchell was right—we really don't know clouds at all. Although meteorologists have devised intricate models that describe how various weather patterns emerge and migrate over hundreds of miles, climatologists still lack a detailed understanding of the fundamental processes that form clouds and, more importantly, how they influence our planet's temperature. Read more

Human Performance Wing's Fatigue Research Targets the Brain

5/5/2010 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE -- Researchers from the Air Force Research Laboratory's 711th Human Performance Wing's Human Effectiveness Directorate, or 711 HPW/RH, and the Kettering Innovation Center are moving into a state-of-the-art phase of fatigue research that aims to shed light on identifying people who are fatigue resistant and those who are not. Read more

Construction Milestone Completed at NASA Glenn's New Test Facility in Sandusky

The final major concrete pour for the Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility (RATF) at NASA's Glenn Research Center's Plum Brook Station in Sandusky was completed April 29. The facility is an integral part of Glenn's Space Environment Test (SET) Project, which is responsible for completing test facilities to provide the one-stop space environmental testing required by the Orion Project at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. The Space Power Facility, already the largest vacuum chamber in the world, is being augmented with new vibroacoustic capabilities, which include reverberant acoustic, mechanical vibration and modal test facilities. Read more

New Measurements from Fermilab's MINOS Experiment Suggest a Difference in a Key Property of Neutrinos and Antineutrinos

Scientists of the MINOS experiment at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) recently announced the world's most precise measurement to date of the parameters that govern antineutrino oscillations, the back-and-forth transformations of antineutrinos from one type to another. This result provides information about the difference in mass between different antineutrino types. The measurement showed an unexpected variance in the values for neutrinos and antineutrinos. This mass difference parameter, called delta m squared, is smaller by approximately 40 percent for neutrinos than for antineutrinos. Read more

Go with the Flow

It's a classic case of the chicken and the egg, but solving it will trigger a revolution in sustainable energy. "To get energy, you need water, and to get water where you want it, you need energy," said John Gasper, strategic area manager for Argonne's environmental assessment division. "There are opportunities within both cycles for basic science and the development of new technology to improve efficiency and bring us closer to energy independence." Read more

Remote Observation and Monitoring of Genetically Modified Crops—A New Approach to Sustainability

EPA researchers are exploring the use of remotely sensed imagery to detect changes in the foliage of genetically modified (GM) food crops as a measure of infestation by pest insects. To enhance EPA's requirement for monitoring the development of resistance by these insects, researchers in the National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL) are using patented imaging technology to monitor vegetation changes and plant stress by means of an aircraft-mounted hyperspectral sensor and satellite imagery. Read more