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News
Engineering UK report 2009/2010 now available
03 December 2009
For the past 12 years the Engineering UK report has provided policy-makers with an evidence base across the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) continuum.
Making waves
26 November 2009
British engineers have helped with the production of the world’s largest working hydro-electric wave energy device, which is currently feeding the National Grid to power homes in Orkney and beyond.
Flowers for bioethanol
24 November 2009
A flowering plant, which appears in abundance in spring, could be a new, sustainable source of bioethanol. Called Brassica carinata, the yellow plant is a close relative to a kind that engulfs fields every year.
Resources going down the drain
23 November 2009
Wastewater is not a useless byproduct but – potentially – a valuable source of raw materials and energy, claims environmental engineer.
Safe as straw
23 November 2009
The ModCell BaleHaus low carbon building, built as a construction project at Bath University, has just passed fire resistance tests. Despite being built of pre-fabricated straw bales and hemp panels, the structure is as fire resistant as conventional structures.
Eco-friendly plastic
23 November 2009
A team of bioengineers from South Korea claim to have produced the polymers used in everyday plastics without using the fossil fuel-based chemicals conventionally needed to make them. The engineers hope that their work will pave the way for environmentally friendly plastics.
A bubbling mass
17 November 2009
The largest solar telescope to have ever left the Earth, the SUNRISE balloon-borne telescope, has delivered images of the Sun’s surface with a level of detail that has never before been achieved.
Electric urban commuting
17 November 2009
Robotics engineers are using a converted a 2001 Scion xB in their study to explore how electric vehicles can be customised to meet an individual’s commuting needs.
Immune cells follow the light
17 November 2009
Engineers are following immune cells to see how they behave when they chase down bacteria in the human body.
Man vs machine
17 November 2009
In an effort to put together a 425 million-year-old fossil of an extinct vertebrae creature called a conodont, the wisdom born out of experience has fared well against computers.
Student challenge
17 November 2009
Budding engineers from 210 schools across the UK are taking part in Engineering and Technology’s (IET) Faraday engineering challenge days, where they’ll be set a series of tough engineering challenges.
Invisibility unveiled - showing the invisible
16 November 2009
A team of researchers have virtually demonstrated the visual effects of an invisibility cloaking tool – warts and all – with their newly developed software. "It's important to visualise how an optical device works," explained Jad C. Halimeh, a Master of Science graduate of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany who wrote and tested the new software as part of his Master's thesis.
