Contact:
Neal Singer
505-845-7078
[email protected]
SEAMLESS, POROUS COATING CAN ANALYZE DANGEROUS MATERIALS
A coating that allows miniature sensors to detect dangerous, even lethal, air- or water-borne molecules more quickly has been created in a joint Sandia National Laboratories-University of New Mexico project. The film-like coating -- less than one micron thick -- barely increases the sensor size, but its extreme porosity increases the sensor's surface area, and therefore sensitivity, by a factor of about 500. "Imagine tasting something sour, and then 500 times more so," says Sandia principal investigator Jeff Brinker. He says the film's sensitivity could help combat terrorism, lead to smaller yet more accurate sensors for environmental monitoring, and benefit oil and pharmaceutical companies, which use molecular separations to produce grades of gasoline and a variety of drugs.
http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN10-10- 97/coating_story.html
RUSSIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS SCIENTISTS BECOME PROSTHETICS DEVELOPERS
A design for an artificial foot conceived by an emigre Russian mechanical engineer has been sent "home" for refinement and preparation for market, due to insight by Sandia researcher Mort Lieberman. He formulated his notion after spending six months at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR) as a technical expert, envisioning both a national defense and national medical reason for funding the arrangement. The device, patented by Tufts University professor Mark Pitkin, is licensed by a US manufacturer of prosthetic devices, the Ohio Willow Wood Company of Mount Sterling. Pitkin mathematically modeled the spring function of the human foot to receive a doctorate in 1975 from the St. Petersburg Institute in Prosthetics. Funded with $250,000 from the Department of Energy and $200,000 from NIH, the prosthetic design is being studied at the Russian nuclear weapons laboratory Chelyabinsk-70 by eight scientists with expertise in materials science, stress analysis, mechanical design, and computer simulation.
http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN11-07-97/foot_story.html
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE FUNDS DEVELOPMENT OF EVIDENCE DETECTOR
Sandia researchers are developing an evidence-detection system that would, with the aid of a flashing lamp and a pair of modified 3-D video game goggles, make organic substances appear to blink, allowing police investigators to locate potential evidence more quickly and in a lighted room, if necessary. Organic substances such as fingerprints, semen, and urine give off weak fluorescent emissions, normally invisible to the naked eye because other, much brighter sources of light interfere. The proposed system takes advantage of the periodic dissonance between two signals at slightly different frequencies -- an effect called heterodyning -- as well as the human eye's natural affinity to discern anything that moves or blinks. The National Institute of Justice has provided $393,000 for the project.
http:// www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN10-10-97/fingerprint_story.html
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