QINGTONGXIA, China — When the central government in Beijing announced an ambitious nationwide campaign to reduce energy consumption two years ago, officials in this western regional capital got right to work: not to comply, but to engineer creative schemes to evade the requirements.

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Communication occurs in a variety of forms and methods. It can be verbal, written, body language, sign language, electronically formatted, paper formatted, and even custom to groups or organizations. Effective communication leads to information exchange. Miscommunication at work may lead to disagreements, arguments, or potential legal action. Yet in any communication, it is assumed that the words, phrases, sentences, or expressions used will be interpreted as intended. But is that usually the case?

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There are many applications for a high speed camera and the manufacturing and engineering environments are major potential customers for this technology

Vision Research —maker of crazy-fast high-speed cameras have released their first handheld model, the Miro.

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Yellowstone Park's bizarre steam vents and odiferous boiling pools are more than just tourist attractions and geological curiosities. They are home to unique microbes — living organisms that thrive in extreme heat. More than that, they are valuable resources for industries searching for fresh and big profits.

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Scientists at the University of Virginia have discovered a new class of hydrogen storage materials that could make the storage and transportation of energy much more efficient — and affordable — through higher-performing hydrogen fuel cells.
Bellave S. Shivaram and Adam B. Phillips, the U.Va. physicists who invented the new materials, will present their finding at the International Symposium on Materials Issues in a Hydrogen Economy at the Omni Hotel in Richmond, Va.

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The dream of developing a computer with a keen sense of humour has edged closer to reality.

A mathematical model to reveal the science of laughter has been engineered and it not only explains where jokes came from in the first place but suggests that humour is inevitable because it is a kind of error detection mechanism to keep the most complex known machine - the human brain - working efficiently. In short, we laugh at our mistakes to improve performance.

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The 8-foot, 8-inch Smart Fortwo micro car comes to U.S. shores in January, and even with gasoline prices well above the $3-a-gallon mark it remains to be seen whether Americans will flock to buy the engineering in such a tiny, two-seater car.

How safe is such a a small vehicle ? The attached link will answer many,  if not all concerns in this area

Ranging in price from $11,590 for the base version to $16,590 for a fully loaded Fortwo Passion convertible, the 1,800-pound car boasts 40 miles per gallon — a big draw for drivers worried about high gas prices.

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As an engineer you would be aware of the importance of geometry.  Geometry may turn out to be a lot more important than you realise however,  and to everything in fact.  People for a long time have searched for a theory that could explain everything,  an answer to the ultimate question of lif e,  the universe and everything so to speak.  There have been many attempts such as string theory and loop quantum gravity .

Now it turns out that all it might ultimately take is 248 dimensions and a structure known as E₈.  And once we figure this out we can finally sit back and ask,  "why can't the rest of life be this simple?"

South Korea's Samsung Electronics said on Thursday it has developed a new digital X-ray system which can deliver sharper images and save time and money.

With advanced engineering, the digital X-ray detector uses thin-film transistor technology and is the first of its kind in the world, the firm said.

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High in the Bavarian Alps in the Middle Ages, Benedictine monks came up with an ingenious solution to a serious problem.

The monks had been happily brewing beer in their hilltop monasteries for centuries, keeping their strength up with fresh ale and fulfilling their requirement to be self-sufficient. But, like brewers all over Europe, they had a problem with summer.

The summer months were a nightmare for brewers in those pre-refrigeration days. Stopping beer becoming infected was tricky at the best of times, but when the temperature rose the chances of keeping microbes out of the sweet, sticky ale were slim. The Prince of Bavaria even laid down the law on the matter, ruling that no beer could be made between April and September.

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The heart of the ethanol discussion is in America's heartland, where corn is grown for both livestock feed and alternative fuel, an energy source with as many critics as true believers. Companies like VeraSun Energy, Pacific Ethanol and privately owned Hawkeye Energy Holdings are betting that as the price of oil continues to skyrocket, so will the demand for alternative fuel.

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Like most people,  you have probably been frustrated at some point or another by that elusive fly that you could just not swat.  There have been many attempts over the years to come up with means of alleviating us from this conundrum but none have been that effective.

With a little understanding of their behaviour you can devise a simple strategy for catching flies.  I haven't actually spent much time studying the habits of flies so I can't tell how accurate this is but it is now on my list of things to observe over the next few days.

BHP Chief Marius Kloppers has ignored expectations that he would placate the world's most powerful steel industry, promising instead to smash China's preferred iron ore price setting system whether or not he succeeds in swallowing Rio Tinto.

The move demonstrates how a BHP-Rio merger will transform the global commodities trade - and reveals the quietly-spoken, strategic aggression of Mr Kloppers.

He told engineers, steel makers and officials in Beijing yesterday that he would create a new iron ore market place, managed by a third party, which would trade real ore shipments as well as "derivatives" on a futures exchange.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a half-million pieces of Chinese-made children's jewelry contaminated with lead are being recalled, officials announced.

The recalled merchandise involves 205,000 pieces sold by Family Dollar Stores (FDO), 200,000 pieces sold by Michaels Stores, 43,000 charm bracelets and tack pin sets sold by Big Lots (BIG) and 45,000 stretchable bracelets imported by Cherrydale Fundraising, 10,400 necklaces and bracelets manufactured by Colossal Jewelry & Accessories, and 4,500 necklace and earring sets made by La Femme NY 2, officials announced.

The cool valleys of Darjeeling produce some of the best teas in the world, delicate little leaves so delicious that some call them the "champagne of teas." But you don't need to taste them to know how much they are valued. At Happy Valley tea estate, perched at 6,800 ft. (2,100 m) where the Himalayas snake into India between Nepal and Bhutan, workers harvest the autumn flush, plucking each tip of dwi paat suiro--two leaves and a bud--as if it were worth its weight in gold. As the sun sets on the looming Mount Kanchenjunga and a lazy mist begins to settle, pickers carefully empty their bamboo baskets and take in their loads to be weighed. One man swiftly but keenly examines the leaves before each worker signs in her day's pickings.

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You may or may not have heard about moebius transformations.  To put it simply,  it is a bijective conformal map of the extended complex plane (I be you have no idea what this is,  and if you do I envy you).

They allow for some quite useful transformations and the math behind them is a little mind bending.  Turns out though that you can get a really good idea of what is going on through this demonstration that has taken it to the third dimension.  Much easier to visualise after watching this.

MALMO, Sweden — Steadying himself on the heaving foredeck of an inspection ship recently, his face flecked by spray, Arne Floderus pronounced it a good day for his new offshore wind farm.
A 30-mile-an-hour wind was twirling the fingerlike blades of a turbine 380 feet above his head. Around him, a field of turbines rotated in a synchronized ballet of engineering that, when fully connected to an electrical grid, would generate enough power to light 60,000 nearby houses.

“We’ve created a new landmark,” said Mr. Floderus, the project manager of the $280 million wind park, one of the world’s largest, which was built by the Swedish power company Vattenfall.

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• How do you effectively manage heat buildup in one of these?
• How do you protect the equiment during transportation?
• How do you adequately secure one of these once on site?
• What about maintenance for broken equipment?
• Being a big hunk of metal,  how is it going to react to a lightning strike?

Seems that there are a whole heap of challenges that an engineer could dive into on this.

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