Mark Schoofs from the Wall Street Journal discusses advances made in HIV research and how this could affect other areas.
Scientists using a powerful mathematical tool previously applied to the stock market have identified an Achilles heel in HIV that could be a prime target for AIDS vaccines or drugs.
The research .Read more...
Los Angeles is considering pulling the plug on their red light cameras (RLC’s). Freakonomics blogger Eric A. Morris weighs in:
Do we need RLCs? First off, yes, there is a problem. Intersections are dangerous places. The Federal Highway Administration has estimated that red-light running caused 676 deaths and 113,000 injuries in .Read more...
Daniel Machalaba looks at the developments in train technology in the Wall Street Journal:
Major railroads are installing digital communications, global positioning receivers, sensors and computerized controls on their trains and tracks. New systems can gather intelligence on locations, size and speeds of trains and make automated decisions about when the .Read more...
Popular Mechanics magazine looks at automotive light bulb technology.
We already use LEDs for taillights, a practice started by Cadillac on the 2000 DeVille. Aside from giving engineers the ability to design lights with substantially different styling, LEDs consume very little energy and illuminate 400 to 500 milliseconds faster than an .Read more...
The second portion of the High Line opened in New York City. A beautiful redevelopment of a former elevated rail-line.
From the High Line website:
The High Line was originally constructed in the 1930s, to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan’s streets. Section 1 of the High Line is open as a .Read more...
USA Today discusses the growing trend towards flashing yellow left turn signals to improve safety and keep traffic moving.
The Federal Highway Administration estimates that the signals — which allow drivers to make a left turn after yielding, even when the light is red for traffic going straight and cross traffic has .Read more...
Wolfram Alpha, the self-proclaimed ‘computational knowledge engine’, is developing a loyal following among users looking for answers instead of a list of links from Google.com.
Wired magazine takes stock as the company turns two years old (and reports that it is ‘slightly profitable):
Stephen Wolfram, the man behind computing-application Mathematica and the .Read more...
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website maintains important information about transportation safety. In particular, there is a valuable introduction to EDR’s (or Event Data Recorders). Here is an excerpt:
What is an EDR? What is its purpose?
An Event Data Recorder (EDR) is a function or device installed in a .Read more...
I worked for a man that had served in Iraq and was responsible for guarding transport trucks across the desert to various military installations. Now that the withdrawal in Iraq is in full effect, the issue of protecting the movement of troops and goods is in the news again. Currently, .Read more...
Gerry Burrows has taken a childhood interest in Legos to an extreme. His current Lego creation, based on ‘The Lord of the Rings’, stands 28 feet long with a depth ranging between 24 inches and 59 inches and rises 12 feet tall. He estimates between 200,000 and 250,000 Lego bricks have .Read more...
Guest Post by Eve Hinman, Hinman Consulting Engineers
Sometime in 2009 I decided that I wanted to have a greater impact on influencing policy at a high governmental level. I wrote down my thoughts and did some planning around it. I had no idea how it was going to manifest itself .Read more...
Just outside my first apartment was a ‘Slow Children At Play’ sign and every time I walked past I would think about the ‘slow children’ in my neighborhood and hoped for punctuation that would call out to passing motorists to reduce their speed instead of judging these children.
Over at Slate.com, .Read more...
