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Wireless Ways to Go Green
Sitting down on a Sunday morning with a hot cup of coffee and the New York Times may save a tremendous amount of wear-and-tear on the environment -- as long you're reading all the news that's fit to print on your personal digital assistant. In a new study, UC Berkeley engineers report that receiving your news wirelessly on a PDA instead of delivered to your door results in the release of up to 140 times less carbon dioxide, several orders of magnitude less greenhouse gases, and the use of 26 to 67 times less water.
Protecting Planes with Fabric
In 1989, a United Airlines DC-10 made a crash landing in Sioux City, Iowa, killing 112 people. One of the engine rotors tore apart its metal housing, releasing a spray of shrapnel that pierced the plane's hydraulic steering lines. Thanks to a well-prepared crew in the air and on the ground, more than half of the passengers survived the catastrophe. But that was not the first or the last time this kind of mechanical failure would bring down a plane. UC Berkeley researchers are working on a fabric-based system that may prevent it from ever happening again.
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Sniffing Out Airborne Diseases
You are on a return flight from your summer vacation and notice that someone seated nearby has quite a cough. You don't think much of it, until later that day when you get a text message advising you that the plane's microbial monitoring system detected SARS on the aircraft. After reporting to a testing site, you're relieved to find out that you haven't been infected. Meanwhile, the passenger carrying the virus is positively identified and quarantined for treatment This is just one scenario envisioned by UC Berkeley mechanical engineers who are developing air-monitoring technology help stop the spread of airborne diseases. Amazingly, the incredibly powerful sensor in their design is a living human cell.
Cool Alumni: Special effects wizards Paul Debevec, George Borshukov, Camillo Taylor, and Yizhou Yu
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2004 UC Regents. Updated 8/31/04.
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