August 25th, 2012 08:07
admin
An anonymous reader writes
“A team of engineers from Oregon State University has developed a breakthrough microbial fuel cell that is capable of generating 10 to 50 times more electricity from waste than other MFCs. The team hopes that their innovation will enable waste treatment plants to not only power themselves, but also sell excess electricity back to the grid. ‘If this technology works on a commercial-scale the way we believe it will, the treatment of wastewater could be a huge energy producer, not a huge energy cost,’ said associate professor Hong Liu. ‘This could have an impact around the world, save a great deal of money, provide better water treatment and promote energy sustainability.’”Source: OSU’s Microbial Fuel Cell Could Make Waste Treatment an Energy Source
Categories: slashdot Tags: electricity, energy, hong liu, Liu, microbial fuel cell, oregon state university, sustainability source, team, Treatment, waste, waste treatment plants
August 23rd, 2011 08:21
admin
In his main page debut, ramereth writes with a look at the infrastructure of OSUOSL from Linux.com. From the article:
“Many people use Linux in many ways, often totally unaware that they’re depending on Linux. Likewise, those of us in the open source community depend heavily on Oregon State University’s Open Source Labs (OSUOSL), but may not even realize just how much. Thanks to one of the final talks at LinuxCon by Lance Albertson, it’s much clearer now just how important OSUOSL is.”Source: Inside Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab
June 29th, 2011 06:46
admin
cylonlover writes
“Traditional solar cell production techniques are usually time consuming and require expensive vacuum systems or toxic chemicals. Depositing chemical compounds such as CIGS on a substrate using vapor phase deposition also wastes most of the expensive material in the process. For the first time, engineers at Oregon State University (OSU) have now developed a process to create ‘CIGS’ solar cells with inkjet printing technology that allows for precise patterning to reduce raw material waste by 90 percent and significantly lower the cost of producing solar cells with promising, yet expensive compounds.”Source: Inkjet Printing Solar Cells
January 3rd, 2011 01:25
admin
RedEaredSlider writes “In science fiction, explorers wave around a single device and pick up many kinds of radiation — think of the tricorders on Star Trek or Dr. Who’s sonic screwdriver. A professor at Oregon State University is bringing that a bit closer to reality, though in this case it’s for finding radioactive material. It’s a radiation spectrometer, and it works on a very old principle: particles and photons that hit certain materials will make them emit flashes of light. But for decades, radiation spectrometers had been limited to detecting only one kind of radiation at a time. David Hamby, an OSU professor of health physics, felt that there was a need for a device that could see at least two kinds of radiation, as well as be smaller than the models currently available.”
Source: Radiation Detection Goes Digital
Categories: slashdot Tags: David Hamby, device, Dr. Who, kinds of radiation, oregon state university, osu professor, professor, radiation, radiation detection, radiation spectrometer, RedEaredSlider, Science
June 13th, 2010 06:11
admin
suraj.sun passes along news from Oregon State University, where researchers have discovered a new strain of bacteria that may be able to aid cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. The bacteria “can produce non-toxic, comparatively inexpensive ‘rhamnolipids,’ and effectively help degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs — environmental pollutants that are one of the most harmful aspects of oil spills. Because of its unique characteristics, this new bacterial strain could be of considerable value in the long-term cleanup of the massive Gulf Coast oil spill, scientists say.” In related news, Kevin Costner’s centrifugal separator technology has gotten approval for deployment; now it is only waiting on funding from BP.
Source: Newly Discovered Bacteria Could Aid Oil Cleanup
Categories: slashdot Tags: bacteria, biotech, bp, Cleanup, cleanup efforts, Earth, Gulf Coast, Kevin Costner, Mexico, news, Oil, oil cleanup, oregon state university, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, Science, strain, strain of bacteria, suraj, the Gulf
May 26th, 2010 05:14
admin
Hugh Pickens writes “Science Daily Headlines reports on research by Oregon State University marine geologist Chris Goldfinger showing that earthquakes of magnitude 8.2 (or higher) have occurred 41 times during the past 10,000 years in the Pacific Northwest. By extrapolation, there is a 37% chance of another major earthquake in the area in the next 50 years that could exceed the power of recent seismic events in Chile and Haiti. If a magnitude-9 quake does strike the Cascadia Subduction Zone, extending from northern Vancouver Island to northern California, the ground could shake for several minutes, highways could be torn to pieces, bridges may collapse, and buildings would be damaged or even crumble. If the epicenter is just offshore, coastal residents could have as little as 15 minutes of warning before a tsunami could strike. ‘It is not a question of if a major earthquake will strike,’ says Goldfinger, ‘it is a matter of when. And the “when” is looking like it may not be that far in the future.’” Read below for more.
The last major earthquake to hit the Cascadia Subduction Zone was in January of 1700, and scientists are aware of the impact because of
written records from Japan documenting the damage caused by the ensuing tsunami, which crested across the Pacific at about 5 meters (15′). Knowledge about what happened in Oregon and Washington is more speculative, but the consensus — gleaned from studies of coastal estuaries, land formations, and river channels — is that the physical alteration to the coast was stunning.
The outer coastal regions subsided and drowned coastal marshlands and forests, which were subsequently covered with younger sediments. “Perhaps more striking than the probability numbers is that we… have already gone longer without an earthquake than 75 percent of the known times between earthquakes in the last 10,000 years,” says Goldfinger. “And 50 years from now, that number will rise to 85 percent.”
Source: Pacific Northwest At Risk For Mega-Earthquake
Categories: slashdot Tags: Cascadia, cascadia subduction zone, Chile, Chris Goldfinger, Earth, earthquake, Haiti, Hugh Pickens, Japan, marine geologist, northern California, northern Vancouver Island, Northwest, Oregon, oregon state university, Pacific, Read, Science, Subduction, Tsunami, Washington, zone
January 8th, 2010 01:04
admin
mstansberry writes “Lance Albertson, architect and systems administrator at the Oregon State University Open Source Lab uses a sys admin staff of 18-21 year old undergrads to manage servers for some high profile open source projects (Linux Master Kernel, Linux Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, and Drupal to name a few). In this Q&A, Albertson talks about the challenges of using young sys admins and the lab’s plans to move from Cfengine to Puppet for systems management.”
Source: Managing Young Sys Admins At Oregon State Open Source Lab
Categories: slashdot Tags: apache software foundation, education, Got, it, kernel linux, lab, Lance Albertson, Linux, Open, open source projects, Oregon, oregon state university, source, State, sys admins