Matt Shipman

Apr 18, 2011

Earth Day: Research Challenges

For more than 40 years, Earth Day has been a call to arms to appreciate and protect our natural environment. Improving our understanding of the environment is an essential component of that mission. With that in mind, we have asked researchers in fields ranging from wildlife ecology to meteorology to political science to briefly outline… 

Apr 14, 2011

Researchers Create Elastic Material That Changes Color In UV Light

Researchers from North Carolina State University have created a range of soft, elastic gels that change color when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light – and change back when the UV light is removed or the material is heated up. 

Apr 13, 2011

Software Creates Privacy Mode To Help Secure Android Smartphones

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed software that helps Android smartphone users prevent their personal information from being stolen by hackers. 

Apr 12, 2011

Study Finds Public Relatively Unconcerned About Nanotechnology Risks

A new study finds that the general public thinks getting a suntan poses a greater public health risk than nanotechnology or other nanoparticle applications. The study, from North Carolina State University, compared survey respondents’ perceived risk of nanoparticles with 23 other public-health risks. 

Apr 6, 2011

Charting NC’s Economic Future

With the economy on everyone's mind, NC State's Mike Walden has created a monthly index that forecasts how North Carolina's economy will perform over the next four to six months. Walden is a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at NC State. 

Apr 6, 2011

Researchers ID Microbe Responsible For Methane From Landfills

Researchers have long known that landfills produce methane, but had a hard time figuring out why – since landfills do not start out as a friendly environment for the organisms that produce methane. New research from North Carolina State University shows that one species of microbe is paving the way for other methane producers. 

Apr 4, 2011

Crash-Test Dummy For High-Performance Computing

When you’re trying to solve large-scale problems, sometimes you’ve got to experiment with changes to the fundamental building blocks of whatever is involved. That means things can break. And when you’re talking about the fastest computers in the world, that would be very expensive. Solution? Build your own high-performance computing (HPC) system – then you… 

Apr 4, 2011

Facial Structure Of Men And Women Has Become More Similar Over Time

Research from North Carolina State University shows that they really don’t make women like they used to, at least in Spain. The study, which examined hundreds of Spanish and Portuguese skulls spanning four centuries, shows that differences in the craniofacial features of men and women have become less pronounced. 

Apr 1, 2011

Study: Sustainable Fuel From Sweat

Could renewable fuel to meet the world’s energy needs be a short jog away? According to new research from NC State, the answer is yes. A team of chemists and chemical engineers have found a way to create a butanol substitute using human sweat. “The biggest stumbling block is going to be collection,” says Dr. Perseus… 

Mar 31, 2011

Nanoparticle Quilt

This image is a colorized transmission electron microscope (TEM) micrograph, and shows the orientation of iron platinum (FePt) nanoparticles in a thin film. The image was created as part of a research effort published in Langmuir this month. Most of the nanoparticles are enclosed by a hexagon of six neighboring nanoparticles. Each nanoparticle was color… 

Mar 31, 2011

New Tool Makes Programs More Efficient Without Sacrificing Safety Functions

Computer programs are incorporating more and more safety features to protect users, but those features can also slow the programs down by 1,000 percent or more. Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a software tool that helps these programs run much more efficiently without sacrificing their safety features. 

Mar 30, 2011

Can You Throw Biological Weapons In The Garbage?

When you envision an attack with biological weapons, you probably don’t think about what happens to the trash. But seriously, when the attack is over, and the buildings have been scrubbed down, the drywall ripped out, etc. – can they just chuck all that refuse into a landfill? Wonder no more! Somebody’s already looked into… 

Mar 30, 2011

‘Spincasting’ Holds Promise For Creation Of Nanoparticle Thin Films

Researchers from North Carolina State University have investigated the viability of a technique called “spincasting” for creating thin films of nanoparticles on an underlying substrate – an important step in the creation of materials with a variety of uses, from optics to electronics. 

Mar 29, 2011

Health Care IT Providers Need To Do More To Solicit User Feedback

Information technology (IT) companies need to bring in doctors and other health care stakeholders in order to ensure that new technologies and applications are actually useful to the health care system – something which is currently fragmented at best, according to a recent paper from North Carolina State University. 

Mar 24, 2011

What Happened In Japan? An Overview

In the wake of a recent earthquake and tsunami, there has been enormous interest in the problems facing Japanese nuclear power plants. These events have people asking a large number of questions. What happened? How dangerous is this? How do nuclear power plants work, anyway? On March 23, a panel of nuclear engineering experts held…