Science and Enterprise

Month: September 2010

  • Grant Awarded for Research on Geothermal Power from CO2

    GreenFire Energy in Salt Lake City, Utah received a $2 million grant award from the Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Program to investigate and evaluate the potential for low-temperature carbon dioxide-based (CO2-based) geothermal power production. The Department of Energy says GreenFire Energy will provide field evaluations of a low temperature CO2-based geothermal electric power generation…

  • Rawlings, Cleveland Clinic to Research Sports Concussions

    Rawlings, a sporting goods manufacturer in St. Louis, Missouri says it has joined with the Cleveland Clinic Neurological Institute in Cleveland, Ohio in an interdisciplinary research collaboration to study the causes of concussions along with other sports-related head and neck injuries. Cleveland Clinic’s Spine Research Laboratory will conduct independent testing using research equipment manufactured and…

  • Researchers Getting Genetic Help for Biofuel Production

    Researchers from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and Cargill are examining genetic materials from a cow’s digestive system to help break down plant fibers for conversion into biofuel. To convert corn stover and switchgrass into biofuel, the plant fibers must first be broken down into sugars. But cell wall polymers are cross-linked in various ways that…

  • FDA Approves Novartis Multiple Sclerosis Drug

    Novartis, an international pharmaceutical company, said today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its drug Gilenya, an oral multiple sclerosis (MS) treatment. Gilenya (fingolimod) is the first drug available in the U.S. that treats relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis, the most common forms of the disease. Novartis says the Gilenya approval was…

  • Intel, Irish Research Institute to Collaborate on Electronics

    Intel Corporation and Tyndall National Institute in Cork, Ireland have signed a research collaboration covering several fields related to electronics. The agreement also provides Intel with a license to commercially develop technology created through the collaboration with Tyndall. Under the agreement researchers from Tyndall and Intel will investigate new materials, devices, and photonics technologies that…

  • Contracts Awarded for Countermeasure Upgrades

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) announced the first contract awards to upgrade the infrastructure for producing medical countermeasures that protect against natural and man-made biological threats. The eight contracts are expected to reduce the time and cost of development, testing, and production of medical countermeasures…

  • ABB, GM to Research Spent Car Batteries for Grid Storage

    ABB, a developer of power and automation technologies in Cary, North Carolina, and General Motors will collaborate in a research and development project focused on uses for electric vehicle batteries once their useful life in the vehicle is over. The project will examine the reuse of spent lithium-ion battery packs from GM’s Chevy Volt, as…

  • Chinese Solar Company, NREL Sign R&D Agreement

    LDK Solar Co. Ltd., a manufacturer of solar wafers and photovoltaic products in Xinyu City, China and Sunnyvale, California, says it signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for collaborative research and development activities on silicon materials and photovoltaic devices. Under the agreement, the LDK Solar…

  • Intermittent Posting Through Thursday

    Starting today through Thursday, I will be at the GridWise Global Forum in Washington, DC. As a result, we will have fewer items, posted less regularly than usual. We’ll be back to our regular output on Friday.

  • Dow, Wageningen to Collaborate on Potato Genome

    Dow AgroSciences, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Plant Sciences Group of Wageningen UR (University and Research Center) in Wageningen, the Netherlands agreed to study how a technology developed by Dow can improve the starch quality of potatoes, a food and industrial crop. Dow’s process, called EXZACT Precision Technology, provides…